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August 01, 2024

Efficiency inside and out: EPAM streamlines communications for teams and clients with Copilot for Microsoft 365

EPAM, an early adopter of many cutting-edge technologies, decided to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its daily work. With operations in 55 countries and more than 50,000 employees, EPAM’s software engineering and business consulting services require accuracy, speed, and superb collaboration and communication. Copilot for Microsoft 365 lends an impartial, thorough, efficient hand. After ensuring more productivity in-house, EPAM positioned itself to guide clients through their own AI journeys, all while maintaining stringent data security.

EPAM Systems

Founded in 1993, EPAM has grown from its roots in software engineering to a global powerhouse in strategic business and innovation consulting. Operating in 55 countries with over 52,800 employees, EPAM serves more than 295 Forbes Global 2000 clients, providing integrated strategy, technology, and consulting services.

Applying AI in daily work

Building upon its long-standing tradition of early technology adoption, EPAM decided to join the Microsoft Copilot Early Adopter’s program. J.T. Sodano, Senior Director, IT at EPAM shares, "We were intrigued by the idea that Copilot provided an intersection between Microsoft 365 tools we were using every day and AI technology."

“We were intrigued by the idea that Copilot provided an intersection between Microsoft 365 tools we were using every day and AI technology”

J.T. Sodano, Senior Director, IT, EPAM

EPAM deployed Copilot for Microsoft 365 for around 300 users who would explore its capabilities. "We assumed that groups like the marketing team would benefit the most," notes Sodano. “But as it turns out, tasks like generating copy or searching for publicly available information don't necessarily benefit from having access to the company’s knowledge database, but they are performed much quicker with Copilot. On the other hand, people who communicate and co-create content with colleagues were the ones that benefited from Copilot the most.”

EPAM held regular training workshops, set up a dedicated SharePoint site with Copilot resources, and created a Microsoft Teams channel to encourage discussions and exchange of ideas. "People took the initiative to share information, insights, and their successes. This helped everyone overcome barriers, experience the benefits and gain confidence to use Copilot," Sodano highlights. “Now, we have 2,350 employees with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and we see a consistent and persistent daily use of Copilot across 85% of the users.”

Expanding collaborative efficiencies

From product managers to the pre-sales team, EPAM employees started relying on Copilot for Microsoft 365 to consolidate information and generate content and documents. “During meetings, we use Copilot to summarize information, gather insights and capture action items at the conclusion of the call to share with the whole group. So, Copilot allows us to fully focus on the actual discussion during the meeting," Sodano explains. “It also summarizes long email threads in seconds, getting to the crux of the matter. This alone is a tremendous time-saver for those who receive large amounts of email.”

EPAM leverages Copilot’s capabilities even in technical and sensitive areas such as software development and client communications. "Our business analyst or product manager can have a client meeting, and, right after it, have Copilot generate the technical requirements summary based on the discussion in minutes with really high accuracy," highlights Aliaksandr Baradyntsau, Vice President, Account Management at EPAM. “This not only speeds up our workflows but eliminates the risk of oversight.”

Even when creating complex documents like technical reports or sales proposals, EPAM's teams rely on their AI assistant for thorough and precise work. "What surprised most people was the depth of information that Copilot can leverage. Copilot’s responses go far beyond generic data. It scans all your interactions, data, and accessible documents to provide contextually relevant answers," explains Sodano. “Copilot can even retrieve long-forgotten documents and recognize their relevance to your current task, making it incredibly powerful and useful.”

“Copilot can even retrieve long-forgotten documents and recognize their relevance to your current task, making it incredibly powerful and useful.”

J.T. Sodano, Senior Director, IT, EPAM

Finally, the summaries and content generated by Copilot for Microsoft 365 are impartial and reliable. Sodano explains, "One common scenario shared by users involves supporting pre-sales activity. When meeting with customers, discussions often branch into various threads, leading each participant to interpret the customer's priorities differently. Copilot, relying on transcripts, offers a neutral perspective, stripping away emotional biases. This helps us focus on extracting key insights from discussions effectively.” EPAM was especially reassured by Copilot’s safety protocols. "We were a lot more confident with Copilot for Microsoft 365, compared to other large language models (LLMs), because we know that the same information and data protection policies that we've configured in Microsoft Purview apply to Copilot," remarks Sodano.

Empowering clients with AI

EPAM's deep dive into Microsoft Copilot not only enhanced its own operations but also enabled it to guide clients through their AI journeys. “At EPAM, we know what it takes to adapt at scale. We combine systems thinking, extensive experience in complex transformations, and engineering excellence to come up with integrated solutions that truly enable change,” Baradyntsau explains. “This expertise allows us to offer comprehensive consulting services to clients, enabling them to understand and leverage AI to transform their operations. With Copilot, we can quickly experiment and uncover efficiencies tailored to specific industry use cases.”

“This expertise allows us to provide comprehensive consulting services to our clients, enabling them to understand and leverage AI to transform their operations. With Copilot, we can quickly experiment and uncover efficiencies tailored to specific industry use cases.”

Aliaksandr Baradyntsau, Vice President, Account Management, EPAM

Sodano adds, "The way people see AI technology today is similar to how people saw cloud technologies back in the mid-2000s. Everybody's talking about it, but not everybody understands what is possible." By integrating Microsoft Copilot into its service offerings, EPAM aims to demystify AI for its clients, making cutting-edge technology accessible and practical for businesses which may not be inherently technology focused.

Guiding AI adoption

Looking to the future, EPAM plans to expand its use of Copilot. "We're seeing more interest and engagement around Copilot for Dynamics 365 and we'll be introducing Copilot for Windows to our end users as we're completing our migration to Windows 11," Sodano articulates. EPAM aims to enrich Copilot's capabilities by integrating additional data sources to enhance the tool's knowledge base and accuracy.

Reflecting on its Copilot journey, Sodano offers some advice, "Build a Champions network. Make sure to provide people with education around prompt engineering; the quality of the prompt dictates the quality of the responses." EPAM’s approach ensured that employees’ early wins boosted later adoption and long-term integration. "Identify enthusiastic early adopters in your organization and try to organize them into a community where you can build upon their enthusiasm," Baradyntsau adds. "Adoption is a process, and success comes from collective effort."

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