Microsoft and Objective help government agencies balance collaboration with information governance

Microsoft and Objective Corporation have signed an agreement to work together to help government and regulated industries to balance the flexibility of digital communication and collaboration with compliant information management and robust data governance.

Over the last 18 months, there has been a rapid move to hybrid work - decoupling work from physical workplaces.

Microsoft and Objective work together to ensure that information shared in hybrid digital environments is subject to the same rigorous control as it would be a in a physical office.

End users work in familiar Microsoft applications, with Objective Content Solutions controlling the way information and documents are shared, stored and secured. This allows them to remain compliant with record keeping and reporting requirements and regulations. This is particularly critical for public sector and highly regulated industries especially as they accelerate their adoption of hybrid ways of working.

Objectives suite of content solutions, developed specifically for the public sector and regulated industries, integrates with Microsoft 365 to preserve robust information governance across networks of any scale. Organisations can leverage their existing Microsoft investments while reining in the risk of information being shared without proper controls. Objectives suite of content solutions is available on Microsoft Azure.

For example, Objective Governance for Microsoft Teams meets the unique needs of balancing modern collaborative working with regulatory compliance. Objective GOV365 delivers organisational benefits of information governance with minimal user impact.

The new Memorandum of Understanding between Microsoft ANZ and Objective Corporation ensures effective Teams governance, email governance, SharePoint governance and co-authoring with proper version, history and security controls.

"This MoU formalised the strong relationship we have developed with Microsoft over many years," says Tony Walls, CEO at Objective Corporation.

"Together, we help customers balance collaboration with robust information governance.

"Microsoft 365 has been deployed widely throughout government and regulated industries and plays a critical role in enabling everyone to work more effectively; creating documents and collaborating easily; all necessary elements of the way we work today," he says.

"Without Objective's technology, preserving the trail of communication, decisions and documents to the level required by government, would be near impossible," he says.

"Put simply, given the requirements of our customers, Microsoft and Objective are better together."

Mark Leigh, general manager, Public Sector, Microsoft ANZ adds, "Objective is a valued member of the Microsoft ecosystem with a rich collection of governance-focussed software that reins in risk without impeding the productivity of customers.

"It is Microsoft's mission to help every person and organisation to achieve more by working closely with Objective, one of our Gold partners, we will allow public sector and regulated industry employees to work flexibly with no compromise of data integrity or governance, as they provide important services to citizens and customers," he says.

Objective and Microsoft have released a joint paper discussing the conundrum organisations face enabling easy collaboration for their staff while ensuring appropriate governance is applied.