Our Client

Our client is a market-leading Australian real estate and investment organisation dedicated to shaping cities and delivering future-ready communities. Operating across Investments, Development and Construction, they manage complex precincts and civic infrastructure globally. Their commitment to integrity, innovation and sustainable outcomes underpins their mission to create places that inspire, connect and enrich communities.

Challenges

Our client faced several critical challenges in managing and governing its data across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. These gaps affected security, compliance, operational consistency and confidence in decision-making.

Fragmented & Inconsistent Data Governance -  Without a unified governance framework, teams across the organisation followed inconsistent practices, reducing control and visibility over information handling.

Lack of Protection for Sensitive Data - Sensitive information in collaboration tools was frequently stored without adequate classification, labelling or protection.

Weak Access & Sharing Controls - Oversharing, uncontrolled external sharing and unclear privilege structures introduced significant risk.

Limited Cross-Platform Governance Oversight - Governance gaps existed across SharePoint, Teams and Exchange, with no centralised tooling to enforce policies or monitor risk.

No Clear Compliance Strategy - The organisation lacked a structured approach to meeting regulatory obligations, particularly around retention, data lifecycle management and security.

Heightened Data Risk Exposure - Inadequate controls left the organisation vulnerable to data leakage, misuse and reputational harm.

Duplicate Tools and Licence Costs - Multiple overlapping tools and licences were procured across teams without central coordination, leading to unnecessary spend, administrative burden and missed opportunities to consolidate under Microsoft 365 capabilities.

Solutions

The analysis covered the full Microsoft 365 collaboration ecosystem, with Microsoft's Purview platform emerging as the central tool to establish, enforce and automate data governance.

Positioning Microsoft Purview as the Governance Backbone

Intelligen placed Microsoft Purview at the heart of the governance uplift, defining it as the core mechanism for classification, labelling, lifecycle management and compliance risk monitoring. Key areas of focus included:

Establishing a Data Ownership & Stewardship Model: Clearly defined data owners and custodians across business units, with Microsoft Purview used to operationalise ownership through automated classification rules, policy assignment and reporting.

Implementing a Unified Classification & Labelling Framework: Designing a sensitivity labelling structure aligned to our client’s data landscape, configuring Purview sensitivity labels, auto-labelling policies and DLP rules, and embedding consistent protections across SharePoint, Exchange, Teams and endpoint devices.

Strengthening Access & Sharing Controls via Purview DLP: Analysing group access patterns and sharing behaviours, implementing DLP policies to prevent oversharing and enforce secure collaboration, and leveraging Purview Insider Risk and Communication Compliance to monitor and address risky user actions.

Streamlining Ways of Working with Policy-Driven Governance: Recommending simplified, consistent processes enforced through Purview policies, reducing reliance on manual compliance tasks by shifting to automated, policy-driven governance across the organisation.

Enabling Compliance Through Purview Records & Retention: Developing retention schedules aligned with regulatory obligations, and preparing Purview retention labels, label policies and auto-classification rules to govern the full data lifecycle.

Designing a Cross-Platform Purview-Centric Governance Framework: Defining governance processes, controls and reporting anchored in Purview dashboards, insights and policy analytics, while creating a roadmap for advanced capabilities including Information Protection, Data Lifecycle Management and Insider Risk Management.



Simplifying the Tooling Landscape - Rationalised collaboration and data management tools to remove duplication, reduce licensing costs and drive adoption of core Microsoft capabilities through standardised, organisation-wide practices.

Outcome

Intelligen delivered a Purview-driven governance transformation grounded in clear processes, reinforced behaviours and policy-based enforcement. 

The program enabled organisation-wide adoption of consistent ways of working through targeted awareness campaigns, a formal adoption framework and measurable success metrics. A structured change management framework supported delivery, focusing on stakeholder engagement, communication and reinforcement to embed sustained behavioural change.

A scalable data-ownership model was established and operationalised using Purview’s automated classification, labelling and policy-assignment capabilities, alongside prescribed access and sharing requirements enforced through DLP and Information Protection policies. Sensitivity classifications, retention schedules and compliance controls were aligned for direct implementation within Microsoft Purview, resulting in a significant uplift in governance maturity, reduced data-leakage risk and a strengthened compliance posture. 

The outcome is a sustainable, future-ready platform that ensures long-term governance, operational consistency and regulatory readiness.