Challenge

A global biotechnology leader was running Microsoft 365 alongside third-party storage platforms that had quietly become expensive, fragmented, and impossible to govern. Research data lived in multiple places. Sensitivity labels applied in M365 did not follow that data when it moved. External collaboration with CROs and research partners was happening every day, but IT could not confirm where specific files had traveled or who still had access to them.

The cost line on third-party storage kept growing. The compliance gap underneath it grew with it. HIPAA, GDPR, and internal data classification policies were being enforced through manual processes that could not keep up with how fast research teams needed to move.

IT leadership needed to consolidate. The digital workplace team needed to keep scientists productive. Neither was willing to trade one for the other.

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Solution

eSHARE gave the company a way to do both.

All research data moved into SharePoint, inside the M365 tenant the company was already paying for. Third-party storage was retired. Sensitivity labels now travel with documents continuously and are enforced on every access, not assumed at upload time. External partners collaborate through governed, revocable shares: no files leave the tenant, no guest accounts, no shadow copies sitting in a vendor's cloud.

The migration ran with zero downtime. Research workflows never stopped.

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Outcome

Third-party storage costs dropped to zero. IT time that had gone into manual data classification and access review was returned to higher-value work. HIPAA and GDPR evidence is generated continuously through M365's native audit trail rather than assembled in a scramble before each audit.

Research partners collaborate faster and more safely at the same time. Scientists share what they need to share. Security keeps the visibility and the ability to revoke access the moment a project ends.

The same M365 investment, governed properly, does the work three platforms used to do badly.

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