Highlights
- Customer: Global professional services organisation
- Industry: Professional Services
- Organisation size: 13,000 users
- Microsoft estate: Microsoft 365 E5
- Quorum Cyber service: Clarity Data
- Technologies used: Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, Data Loss Prevention, Information Protection, and Microsoft Sentinel
- Outcome: Extended detection and response capabilities to data security and insider risk
- Commercial impact: Estimated £600K saving over 30 months versus building equivalent capability in-house
OVERVIEW
For a global professional services organisation delivering major infrastructure programmes, capital projects, and government-backed initiatives, protecting sensitive client and project data is fundamental to maintaining trust, ensuring compliance, and safeguarding commercial outcomes.
From transport and energy infrastructure to large-scale real estate developments, the organisation manages vast amounts of commercially sensitive data across its Microsoft 365 environment. This includes project controls data, cost estimates, procurement records, contract documentation, and client-owned intellectual property.
To support secure delivery across complex, multi-stakeholder programmes, the organisation needed greater visibility and control over how sensitive data was stored, accessed, and shared, as well as clearer insight into potential insider risk and data loss exposure.
Quorum Cyber transformed the organisation’s Microsoft security investment into a fully managed data security capability, strengthening control while reducing operational complexity.
“Our priority is maintaining control over sensitive data across a highly distributed, project-led environment. Quorum Cyber helped us move from fragmented tooling to a managed capability, improving our ability to detect insider risk, enforce policy, and respond quickly to potential data exposure.”
– CEO, global professional services organisation
CHALLENGE
Delivering large-scale infrastructure and capital programmes requires extensive collaboration across internal teams, clients, contractors, and public sector stakeholders, creating a dynamic data environment where sensitive information is continuously shared across organisational and geographic boundaries. The organisation needed to protect:
- Commercially sensitive cost models, bids, and project financials
- Confidential contracts and supplier agreements
- Government and public sector project data subject to strict compliance requirements
- Client-owned intellectual property and strategic programme information
Risks included accidental data exposure, misconfigured sharing, and insider-driven data loss, any of which could result in financial penalties, contractual breaches, regulatory scrutiny, or damage to client trust.
Although Microsoft 365 E5 licensing provided advanced security and compliance capabilities, the organisation required specialist expertise to operationalise these tools into an effective, continuously managed data security function.
SOLUTION
Quorum Cyber worked closely with the organisation and Microsoft to operationalise data security across its Microsoft 365 estate.
A comprehensive data security assessment provided visibility into sensitive data across project and corporate environments, identifying where critical information resided, how it was being used, and where risks were emerging across programmes, regions, and teams.
The organisation then adopted Quorum Cyber’s Clarity Data managed data security service to continuously manage and mature its data protection capabilities.
Quorum Cyber deployed and managed Microsoft Purview capabilities, including Insider Risk Management, Data Loss Prevention, and Information Protection. These controls were aligned to real-world project scenarios, such as protecting bid data, restricting sharing of cost models, and safeguarding regulated public sector information.
Integration with Microsoft Sentinel enhanced detection and response, enabling faster identification of insider risk, policy violations, and anomalous data activity across distributed project teams.
This approach enabled the organisation to scale data security in line with its global project delivery model, without adding internal complexity.
RESULTS
The organisation now operates a fully managed data security capability that extends beyond traditional cyber defence to address insider risk, data governance, and data loss prevention across major programmes and projects.
It has significantly improved visibility and control over sensitive data across its Microsoft 365 environment, including project-specific and client-owned information.
The organisation can now more effectively detect and respond to risks such as inappropriate data sharing, policy breaches, and insider-driven threats, helping to protect high-value infrastructure and capital project data.
The service has also strengthened compliance with government, regulatory, and contractual requirements across the projects it supports, while reducing the operational burden on internal teams.
By partnering with Quorum Cyber, the organisation avoided the cost and complexity of building an equivalent in-house capability, achieving an estimated saving of £600K over 30 months.
