Verdantas Builds a Better Tomorrow with eGroup
About This Project
Verdantas
Client
2020
Established in
Tampa, FL
Location
Partner Technologies Used
Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Security Stack
Project Highlight
Implemented Microsoft Copilot, Purview, and Entra to drive secure AI adoption, streamline data governance, and empower a global workforce– boosting productivity, collaboration, and operational agility across 100+ offices.
Overview
As a leading engineering and environmental services organization, Verdantas stands at the crossroads of technology and sustainability. To support its growth, the firm successfully leverages technology in every business process.
Its latest innovation is to implement Microsoft 365 Copilot and Purview for its global workforce. This case study outlines their partnership with eGroup Enabling Technologies, Microsoft’s 9x Partner of the Year recipient, to drive rapid adoption, measurable productivity gains, and strong data security.
Vision and Mission
The firm’s mission is to build a better tomorrow by solving complex environmental engineering problems with a focus on technology, people, and sustainability. “Verdantas is a very tech-first organization,” stated Chief Digital Information Officer Sujan Turlapaty. “All of our end-to-end processes, from lead to cash, have a technology component.”
It’s also an acquisitive company. Since its founding in 2020 through the merger of three firms, Verdantas has grown rapidly– completing over 30 acquisitions and expanding from 200 to over 2,000 associates in 100+ offices worldwide.
Microsoft technologies were foundational to Verdantas’ strategy from day one, enabling seamless and rapid integration of acquired companies, growth, and operational agility. As VP of IT, Rick Brock noted, “We couldn’t have done this without cloud technologies. It’s allowed us to grow exponentially and scale up or down quickly as needed.”
“We couldn’t have done this without cloud technologies. It’s allowed us to grow exponentially and scale up or down quickly as needed.”
Rick Brock (VP of IT, Verdantas)
Embracing AI: Copilot Rollout and Change Management
Verdantas’ foray into Artificial Intelligence began with exploring Microsoft 365 Copilot. Said Mr. Turlapaty, “When we started to look at the use of AI, our obvious choice was Copilot because within our AEC industry, about 90% of organizations use Microsoft.”
Handling between 8,000–10,000 projects annually, Verdantas made AI-driven project and document management an immediate priority. “That’s where we started,” explained Sujan. “We looked at the project life cycle and particularly ‘pursuits,’ which is the important step of capturing new business. We get a lot of incoming requests coming from clients asking if we have the skill and past experience to work on particular projects. There’s a lot of digging through a lot of content.”
According to Sujan, while the improvements are ongoing, the time spent during the pursuits process has dropped from 10-14 days down to hours.
C-Suite Buy-In Ensures AI For All
The use of Agentic AI in the pursuits process showed great potential for Generative AI. Next, Verdantas rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses to all employees. “Everybody gets a Copilot user license,” Sujan reported. “We want to raise the tide. There’s no specific use case, no right or wrong. We encourage people to use it for whatever purpose they see as applicable.”
Leadership’s commitment has been pivotal. “A key factor for Copilot to be successful is the buy-in from the top,” Sujan reflected, citing how Verdantas’ CEO’s live demos during all-hands calls were instrumental in fostering enthusiasm and trust in the organization.
“What’s so great about Verdantas’ leadership is they are pushing down from the very top for all of us to take advantage of Copilot,” agreed VP Brock.
“A key factor for Copilot to be successful is the buy-in from the top.”
Overcoming Resistance to People-Centric Change
Despite the excitement, some employees, particularly those with advanced professional backgrounds, expressed skepticism about AI’s capabilities and impact on their roles. “We are a fact-driven organization,” stated Sujan. “These are the engineers who are building dams, waterways and roadways. They need data before they jump in, and they challenged us to help them get there.”
Rolling out Copilot was more than a technology implementation, it was a change management initiative. “AI is just not a technology that you can just roll out and hope people will embrace. It’s more people-focused initiative than many think,” Sujan emphasized.
“We are a fact-driven organization,” stated Sujan. “These are the engineers who are building dams, waterways and roadways. They need data before they jump in, and they challenged us to help them get there.”
“AI is just not a technology that you can just roll out and hope people will embrace. It’s more people-focused initiative than many think,”
Sujan Turlapaty (Chief Digital Information Officer, Verdantas)
Verdantas addressed these concerns through personalized engagement: “We didn’t want to just blast them with emails. We joined their group meetings for 15-20 minutes and gave them relevant examples for their team. We ended up holding over 100 small-group meetings at different levels to give more personalized communication,” Sujan recounted.
To aid organic exploration and adoption, the Enterprise Business Transformation Office, led by “champions,” tech-savvy businesspeople who received advanced training, cascaded knowledge through their teams.
“We didn’t want to just blast them with emails. We joined their group meetings for 15-20 minutes and gave them relevant examples for their team. We ended up holding over 100 small-group meetings at different levels to give more personalized communication,”
Brock also noted, “I’ve heard the concern about ‘AI taking my job’ on occasion. That’s something that we’re constantly addressing. We’re using AI to enable our users, not replace our users. There’s a human factor that’s very important to our business.”
Over time, even the most hesitant team members are becoming advocates. One previously skeptical associate reversed their opinion and posted publicly about Copilot’s accuracy and time-saving benefits, inspiring peers to adopt the technology.
“I’ve heard the concern about ‘AI taking my job’ on occasion. That’s something that we’re constantly addressing. We’re using AI to enable our users and not replace our users. There’s a human factor that’s very important to our business.”
Data Security, Quality, and eGroup’s Enablement
Both leaders agreed that hallucinations were a major concern. “The quality of your data is very important,” asserted Sujan. Rick agreed, saying “That was one of the hesitations from our users until they understood the correct prompts to put in where it’s not ‘garbage in, garbage out’.”
As Verdantas created its strategy for AI footprint, data quality and security were paramount. “When we started building out a strategy for AI, we knew the data had to be clean and curated to provide the right feed into Copilot,” Sujan explained. Mr. Brock agreed, saying “There’s nothing we do in IT where we’re not looking through the lens of security.”
“There's nothing we do in IT where we're not looking through the lens of security.”
The organization partnered with eGroup Enabling Technologies to build an extensive foundation for secure AI. eGroup’s expertise was instrumental in implementing Microsoft Purview and Entra, enabling secure access controls, data tagging, and automated content labeling.
“eGroup came to those meetings very well prepared,” Mr. Turlapaty said. “I think that speaks to eGroup’s years of experience with data even before AI, and security even before AI.”
Verdantas agreed to slow down a little to make sure the right foundational elements were in place and to learn some of the new tools. “eGroup helped bridge that gap pretty quickly with demonstrations and bringing expertise to make us feel at ease,” Sujan said. “They showed us that this is not a 12-month or 18-month project, but is something that you can do pretty quickly.”
Purview’s innate compatibility with the rest of the Microsoft security stack has been helpful. “Integrating Purview with Entra has taken us to the next level in terms of access to the data, making sure that it is going through the proper channels where needed,” Mr. Turlapaty said.
“They showed us that this is not a 12-month or 18-month project, but is something that you can do pretty quickly.”
Impacts: Productivity, Automation, and Business Value
The results have been remarkable.
Verdantas is seeing improvements both at the individual level and the workflow level.
We have an adoption rate of 67-68%, compared to the industry average of 25-30%. We feel good, but we’re not stopping. Our goal is to reach 90% adoption and embed AI into the organization.
Sujan Turlapaty (Chief Digital Information Officer, Verdantas)
At The Individual Level:
- “We’ve seen a lot of value here with time savings,” began Rick. “We’re saving time saving writing emails to overcome writer’s block. Copilot in our meetings summarizes and identifies action items for our team. That’s been a huge time saver, helping us keep things organized and moving smoothly.”
- Verdantas also tracks Copilot and agent usage through Microsoft dashboards, and provides adoption and usage reports analytics to leadership each month.
At The Workflow Level:
- Pursuits: “In our initial test cases,” stated Sujan, “we were able to cut down the end-to-end process for pursuit management, something that would take 10-14 days for a person to do, down to hours. That told us there’s a good use case if you can follow best practices in terms of data quality.”
- Legal: When acquiring, Verdantas inherits the new firm’s contractual commitments. Enter their customized contract analyzer agent. “Within three hours, we analyze all the documents, looking for very specific clauses,” Sujan shared. This exemplifies the business process improvements that AI has enabled.
“Within three hours, we analyze all the documents, looking for very specific clauses,” Sujan shared.
“We’re continuing to add uses cases and we are socializing with leadership that we are entering a world of agents and digital laborers,” Sujan explained. “We want to enhance the experience for our client delivery teams and ultimately, for our customers, so that they can get to value faster, and better.”
Discussing The Partnership
I’ve worked with many Microsoft partners, eGroup definitely stood out in terms of your dedication to customer success. From day one, you came in and said, ‘We are here for your success.’ The approach that you have taken is not a vendor-customer relationship, but a customer-partner relationship. I truly appreciate that.
Sujan Turlapaty (Chief Digital Information Officer, Verdantas)
“I’ve worked with many IT vendors as well, and eGroup certainly stood out with the knowledge that your staff has and the partnership that we’ve been able to form over the last year. You’ve done a great job of implementing the solution end to end, so I think it’s been a great partnership.”
Accelerated project pursuits from 14 days, down to hours, using Copilot automation
Achieved 68% company-wide AI adoption through hands-on leadership engagement
Strengthened data security and governance with Microsoft Purview and Entra
Lessons Learned and Recommendations
For organizations embarking on their own digital transformation, Verdantas’ experience offers valuable guidance.
Sujan observed, “There is no one-size-fits-all. There is no blueprint for this. As with any technology, technology is just a tool. At the end of the day, it comes down to people.”
He emphasized the importance of beginning with employee productivity and embracing a patient, persistent approach: “Start with employee productivity, and peoples’ behavioral change, and ultimately customers will start to see the value.”
Rick added, “It’s inevitable that companies will have to invest in AI to stay competitive, and that this space is moving so quickly. It’s difficult to do this on your own. It’s difficult to learn all you need to do, but it’s great knowing that eGroup has the expertise with implementing and rolling these technologies out.”
Speaking about the rapid rate of change in AI, Mr. Turlapaty noted “We are trying to balance the rapid advancement advancements happening in AI. It’s sometimes overwhelming, but it’s also exciting because it provides new opportunities. When there’s a new capability, like deep reasoning, you no longer have to do it yourself, the model is going to do it for you. So we may have to restructure the whole thing and then embrace that model rapidly. That’s one thing that we are seeing for us to get the best value out of it.”
“It’s inevitable that companies will have to invest in AI to stay competitive, and that this space is moving so quickly. It’s difficult to do this on your own. It’s difficult to learn all you need to do, but it’s great knowing that eGroup has the expertise with implementing and rolling these technologies out.”
Rick Brock (VP of IT, Verdantas)
Conclusion
Verdantas’ journey demonstrates that successful transformation is rooted in visionary leadership, strategic partnerships, and a relentless focus on people. By leveraging Microsoft’s Copilot, Purview, and Entra Suite with expert guidance from eGroup Enabling Technologies, Verdantas not only accelerated growth and productivity but also fostered a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. As AI continues to evolve, Verdantas remains committed to leading the way by building a better tomorrow, one technological breakthrough at a time.
Unlock the Power of Secure AI with eGroup
Verdantas proved that innovation and security can thrive together, and your organization can accomplish these outcomes too! Whether you’re exploring Microsoft Copilot, modernizing data governance with Purview, or securing access with Entra, eGroup’s experts help you plan, deploy, and drive adoption for measurable business impact.
From readiness to rollout, we ensure AI works for your people, not against them.
