How Precision Medicine Group Built a DSPM Foundation for the AI Era
Success Highlights
Built a secure DSPM foundation to safeguard sensitive data
Automated governance to eliminate oversharing and manual access reviews
Planned savings of 59% on storage costs by pruning terabytes of inactive SharePoint data
Consolidated multiple tools onto one platform
Location Bethesda, Maryland
Industry Biotech
Platform Microsoft 365
Confidence Platform AvePoint Confidence Platform
Precision Medicine Group (PMG) is a global life sciences organization with more than 3,500 employees across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. With a mission to accelerate drug development and delivery, PMG operates through two main divisions: Precision for Medicine, which manages clinical services including trials and sample storage, and Precision AQ, focused on commercialization through marketing, data analysis, and scientific communications.
Critical Needs
- Modernize permissions and governance across Microsoft 365
- Prevent oversharing of sensitive clinical and patient information
- Replace manual, labor-intensive access review processes
- Find a cost-effective alternative to fragmented point solutions
The Challenge
PMG operates at the intersection of innovation and regulation. Its teams are responsible for advancing life-saving therapies while safeguarding sensitive clinical data. That dual responsibility requires both agility and control — a balance made more urgent as PMG scaled its use of Microsoft 365 and prepared for Copilot rollout.
But the company lacked a modern data security posture management (DSPM) strategy. Years of legacy SharePoint practices had left behind cluttered permissions, inefficient access management, and oversharing risks. “We knew that with Copilot, we needed a solid Microsoft 365 data foundation, with permissions and governance in place. Our in-house access review process was clunky, labor-intensive, and just a mess,” recalls Shaun Schanbacher, VP, Modern Workplace for PMG.
“The risk of internal oversharing was high. We wanted to avoid situations where employees might inadvertently come across content that should have been access-restricted,” Shaun explains. “Since Copilot makes it easy to discover and summarize information across the digital estate, the importance of getting permissions and data boundaries right became even more critical.”
While Microsoft Purview and SharePoint Advanced Management provided some controls, they didn’t deliver the level of DSPM PMG needed. Those gaps forced the team to look beyond native tools and evaluate outside vendors who could close the risk exposure and prepare their environment for AI.
Whenever we encounter a new Microsoft 365 challenge or gap, now we call AvePoint. There’s always another module that fits the bill.
VP, Modern Workplace, PMG
The AvePoint Solution
“After evaluating 12 vendors – including several well-known competitors in the data governance and administrative tooling space – PMG ultimately chose AvePoint for its balance of strategic vision, cost-effectiveness, and breadth of capabilities. “We strongly considered a leading provider in data security, but the cost-to-benefit ratio wasn’t particularly compelling,” Shaun explains. “Another vendor with strengths in administrative insights was also on the list, but their vision lacked completeness. We just kept coming back to AvePoint.”
With the AvePoint Confidence Platform, PMG is implementing true DSPM – modernizing governance, automating permissions, and eliminating inefficient manual reviews – all while laying a secure foundation for Copilot.
They started with Cloud Governance to secure access and permissions, then expanded into Backup for cost efficiency, Opus for version pruning, and tyGraph to generate the reporting insights needed for Copilot utilization and decision making. Together, these capabilities gave PMG a DSPM framework flexible enough to address today’s oversharing risks and tomorrow’s AI demands.
“Because it’s such a full-service solution, if there’s a hole we’re looking to fill, thankfully AvePoint has the capabilities to fill the gap,” Shaun shares. “Whenever we encounter a new Microsoft 365 challenge or gap, now we call AvePoint. There’s always another module that fits the bill.”
Outcomes
The value of AvePoint’s DSPM capabilities was immediate, filling the gaps left by native tools. PMG has started gaining control over its Microsoft 365 environment for the first time, automating governance to eliminate manual, error-prone processes and reduce the risk of sensitive content being exposed.
One of the earliest wins came when PMG leveraged AvePoint Opus to trim outdated file versions across SharePoint. “We went through a version pruning exercise and trimmed terabytes of information,” Shaun notes.
By strengthening its DSPM foundation, PMG is turning governance from a liability into an enabler: creating the foundation for broader innovation and giving the organization confidence to move forward with AI adoption in a responsible way. “It’s not a Copilot problem — it's a SharePoint permissions problem. AvePoint is helping us build the governance and confidence we need to move forward with AI,” Shaun shares. By starting to address oversharing and access controls ahead of Copilot rollout, PMG is laying the groundwork so users can trust AI outputs without risking exposure of sensitive patient or clinical data.
The decision to consolidate onto a single platform also proved transformative. “We started with governance in mind. We built on the backup component primarily due to cost concerns, then a reporting element was exposed. Each time we’ve needed to fill a gap, AvePoint has been there,” Shaun shares. That reliability has extended beyond governance and AI into data protection, reinforcing AvePoint as the single, scalable DSPM solution PMG can build on.
The Road Ahead
For PMG, AvePoint is now the foundation for ongoing DSPM maturity and long-term AI confidence. “We’re still early in our journey with AvePoint, but as we continue onboarding and deploying services, the opportunities to strengthen governance and scale securely will only grow,” Shaun says.
As innovation accelerates and healthcare regulations tighten, PMG is confident AvePoint will provide the foundation it needs to innovate responsibly. Shaun offers this advice to peers embarking on a similar journey: “Establish that solid foundation first before proceeding with Copilot, because you’re only going to compound your problems otherwise. Clean up the data estate first. And make sure you know what the tool is capable of — AvePoint's platform always surprises us with new capabilities.”
