EY and Microsoft announce collaboration to help businesses use technology to tackle legal and compliance challenges

Global News

11
Mar
2022

Editor

EY and Microsoft today announced a new initiative to help businesses around the world use technology to tackle a range of increasingly complex challenges faced by legal and compliance teams. 

By combining EY leading technology and intelligence with Microsoft Cloud technologies, the organizations will help businesses’ legal and compliance teams to identify and mitigate ethical and reputational risks; investigate and manage regulatory challenges; detect fraud; and manage privacy and security risks.

The move is part of the existing EY Microsoft alliance and follows an announcement in August 2021 of boosted collaboration with a commitment to launch new solutions and platforms to address business and societal challenges through digital transformation.

A range of innovative new technologies and solutions help address the enterprise-wide legal and compliance needs of its multinational clients. A key resource in delivering these services will be the EY Virtual platform – a single-point digital solution, available via the cloud or hybrid, that helps organizations to manage their legal, compliance, ethics, and risks through a suite of AI-driven analytics and workflow applications. The platform, which is powered by the Microsoft Cloud, can complement the powerful information protection and advanced compliance capabilities in Microsoft 365 E5 including: Insider Risk, eDiscovery, and Information Governance and Compliance to protect and govern data while reducing risk. 

Todd Marlin, EY Global Forensic & Integrity Services Technology & Innovation Leader, says: “Year on year, boards of directors have increasingly higher expectations of their legal and compliance functions and their ability to monitor, mitigate risk and respond in a cost efficient and integrated manner. I’m proud of how EY and Microsoft have come together to serve clients in this important initiative to create a unique set of capabilities, which brings greater simplicity to technology for global legal and compliance departments at our clients.

“There are many single point analytics solutions available that focus on a narrow area of integrity and compliance, but EY Virtual is different because it is a collaborative platform with a configurable interface that can integrate with new technologies and legacy systems. As regulatory and compliance requirements expand, it can quickly adapt to the business landscape.” 

These digitally enabled services are powered by the Microsoft Cloud, and are designed to free up time spent on routine activities, in order to improve decision making, reduce costs, and allow legal and compliance departments to focus resources on new insights and value-added activities. Making use of state-of-the-art technologies and EY subject matter knowledge, EY Virtual uses bots to automate routine and rules-based tasks and Artificial Intelligence to refine models based on situational learnings. 

Lyn Bird, Vice President, Enterprise Functions, Industry Solutions, Microsoft says: “Legal and compliance done right is a modern experience that works continuously and allows employees and organizations to focus on their core competencies. Microsoft and EY share this belief, and have a valued partnership focused on delivering legal and compliance solutions through the latest technology. EY Virtual combined with Microsoft 365 intelligent compliance and risk management solutions makes it easier for customers to assess compliance risks, govern and protect sensitive data, respond to regulatory requirements and ultimately drive back office transformation.” 

Microsoft has already implemented EY Virtual as part of its own Spend Risk Monitoring Modernization (SRMM) program. The platform allows Microsoft to speed up risk rating of its global spending, and consolidate existing siloed compliance programs, removing more than 10,000 hours of work annually across its business.

Andy Baldwin, EY Global Managing Partner – Client Service, says: “EY and Microsoft are addressing important societal concerns by providing General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officers, Internal Audit and other stakeholders with access to tools that enable better business practices, help fight fraud and improve integrity. I am proud of what our technology teams have accomplished with Microsoft and knowing the breadth of challenges we help our clients with, I expect to see a continuous and wider set of capabilities over the coming months and years.”