Security & Compliance
Microsoft E5 / E7 Readiness
For CIOs, CISO's, and IT Managers who need risk clarity, compliance confidence, and AI-ready security – and want to take full advantage of their Microsoft licenses
Take full advantage of E5.
And prepare for E7.
Microsoft’s tools and services are world-class. But many organisations are only using a fraction of the included capabilities. What is missing is often a deliberate plan for how to use them fully.
VENZO can help you align your E5 investment with your actual business risks and regulatory obligations, such as NIS2. This will prepare you for the next step because the maturity gaps that typically limit the value you get out of E5 licenses, in areas like identity governance, data classification, and operational response, are the same that determine when (or whether) E7 makes sense for you.
Are you ready?
What you get
A strategic approach to E5 and E7 that benefits both IT operations and the business as a whole.
✔︎ Operational clarity
We help reduce noise and complexity by focussing on actual risk signals to make sure your security investment is connected to the business risks it addresses.
✔︎ Compliance and leadership confidence
We provide you with governance, evidence, and a consistent posture across identities, devices, workloads, and data. This makes it easier to explain to regulators, and easier for the leadership to align with and act on.
✔︎ AI and agent readiness
We help you secure AI tools, LLM and AI agent access, data boundaries, and controls in a way that scales with use and adoption of AI in your organisation.
✔︎ Maximum E5 value and E7 readiness
We ensure the maximum return on your investment in Microsoft E5 and can advise on whether or when your your environment is mature enough to sufficiently benefit from E7.
Case: Hafnia's Cloud-only Zero Trust Transformation
Hafnia is a global, highly regulated shipping company operating across complex IT environments. Together with VENZO, Hafnia established a risk-driven security and compliance foundation on Microsoft E5, giving leadership clearer control, stronger governance, and confidence in security decisions.
This case is especially relevant for companies with:
- Many distributed users and environments
- High regulatory pressure
- Significant Microsoft security investment requiring measurable return
DOWNLOAD AND READ THE FULL CASE STORY
The challenges
Controls are turned on but not prioritised by business risk. Security operates in reactive mode rather than following a deliberate strategy.
Hard to explain trade-offs and priorities to leadership and the board. Security spend cannot be connected to the risks it addresses.
Alert fatigue and complexity dilute security effort. Teams are managing alerts instead of reducing risk.
Unclear data access, permissions, and controls for non-human actors. No guardrails for Copilot, AI agents, or automated processes accessing sensitive data.
NIS2 and other regulations demand higher expectations for governance, documentation, and consistency. Secure Score alone does not satisfy regulators.
Many organisations struggle with inconsistencies, unclear residual risk, and E5 capabilities that simply aren't used.
With the release of E7 licenses, now on the table at Microsoft EA renewals, the cost of acting without that clarity has gone up. E7 extends Microsoft’s security stack into identity-driven Zero Trust and AI agent governance through Agent 365, but those capabilities only deliver value on top of a mature E5 foundation. Without it, you are paying more for a control plane that has nothing to control.
▶︎ Compare E5 and E7 and get an overview of the features you are paying for
Our five-phase security strategy model.
VENZO suggests a five-phase engagement that moves you from E5 capability to measurable impact. It is aligned to business risk and governance which ensures clear ownership, measurable reporting, and continuous assurance. This gives you a security and compliance posture that is sustainable and demonstrable over time.
01 Research and understand what matters
Identify critical assets, identities, regulatory drivers such as NIS2, strategic enablers like AI readiness, and realistic threat scenarios.
02 Assess current E5 use
Map what is enabled, used, and missing across security and compliance, including evidence readiness. Identify gaps between current state and actual risk exposure.
03 Design the target state
Define how E5 components work together and what good looks like, technically and from a governance perspective.
04 Deliver a phased roadmap
Prioritised sequencing of quick wins, control improvements, and compliance milestones, with an explicit view on whether E7 belongs in that roadmap and when.
05 Enable value and sustainable operations
Clear ownership, measurable reporting, and continuous assurance, so the security and compliance posture you have built is sustained and demonstrable over time.
Ready for an honest assessment of your E5 setup and E7 readiness?
Every organisation is different, so whether your biggest concern is cost of E5 compared to usage or whether E7 is the way to go – let's start with a conversation about what would make the biggest difference for your organisation.
AI and digital transformation requires a data-driven, secure, scalable, truly human and holistic approach.
VENZO combines deep expertise in the latest AI-powered technologies with strategic direction, protection of data and assets, and strong execution power. Our sleeves-up attitude ensures rapid, longer lasting results and more value for money.
There's never been a better time for Tech. Change. Today.
What we do
Are your business operations fully automated, data-driven, and leveraging AI?
Take full advantage of the breakthroughs in AI and gain insights that yield better and faster decisions with the latest data, analytics and automation technologies.
Every organization has digital or physical business processes that could be automated and improved. VENZO helps our clients transform through automation and better processes, actionable analytics & predictive algorithms, and the latest data hub and fabric technologies.
Reap the benefits of a fully automated and data-driven business excellence model for your organization with a little help from VENZO.
Is your organisation’s IT security strategy and setup compliant, cost-efficient, automated and designed to prevent human error?
We combine the latest security technologies from Microsoft with a pragmatic approach that doesn’t stand in the way of daily tasks.
Improve governance, risk & compliance levels, take advantage of our Managed Extended Detection & Response services, and take advantage of technology for foolproof Identity & Access Management (IAM), Data Loss Protection and Preventions (DLP), Data Governance, Information Protection, Cloud Security and Modern Endpoint Management.
Together, we can reduce risk and make security tech work for you.
Does your digital foundation support your business strategy and the optimal user experiences?
Enable your employees with productivity anywhere and deliver seamlessly connected, scalable and secure applications.
We are experts in Microsoft 365 and Azure, and help clients with successfully implementing and taking advantage of Modern Work, innovative enterprise applications, data and application platforms, as well as hybrid architecture and IoT.
We are also a HiBob partner for implementation of the latest and best in people tech and HR tools, advising on employee experience and growth with Microsoft VIVA and Workplace Analytics.
Is your organization ready for change so you can realize all the potential benefits of your digital transformation?
IT today is part of much larger digital transformations. Changes that require a deep of understanding of both current and emerging technologies, as well as strategic business priorities.
Knowing how to make the right changes happen and how to realize the potential value is key to the success of your digital transformation projects.
VENZO helps our clients succeed with digital change through strategy & design, change & execution, training & adoption, and decision intelligence.
