Bombay College of Pharmacy (BCP), a pioneering institution in Pharmaceutical education in India, has partnered with Microsoft to enhance faculty-student collaboration and data security, to in-turn enhance course curriculum delivery, research and partnerships with industry. BCP students and teachers had been using personal email addresses, set up on different domains, for communication. This was causing inefficiencies in document collaboration and frequent instances of data loss, apart from a diffused online identity for the college. With the partnership with Microsoft, the college has transformed its learning environment and operations, with anytime, anywhere access to coursework and research materials for faculty and students, secure access to these materials and automation of routine workflows.

The solution implemented at BCP includes the following:

• Standardization of communication and identity: All emails were moved to Exchange Online, which is a part of Office 365 for Education. A hybrid active directory was simultaneously implemented that facilitates a single identity across all online experiences native to the institute – emails, network and internal sites.
• Enhanced productivity: Over 50 staff and 500 students were onboarded onto Windows 10 with Outlook 2016 that allowed them to store all their data securely on the cloud with OneDrive for business, and have a secure internal interface for document sharing with SharePoint Online.
• End-to-end security: With Windows Defender, in-built into Windows 10, the data stored natively is highly secure. Windows Intune, that also formed part of the solution, allows the institute to apply security controls across devices and manage permissions remotely.

Speaking on the partnership, Nitin Maniar, Chairman, Governing Body, Bombay College of Pharmacy said, “Our vision is to be a leader in education, training and research in Pharmaceutical Sciences. With the implementation of Microsoft tools, our productivity has increased by 25%, and we are excited to see the role of technology in nurturing our vision.”

Rajiv Sodhi, General Manager – Partner Ecosystem, Microsoft India said, “Our mission is to empower individuals and organizations to achieve more. BCP has been a pioneering educational institute and we are proud to partner BCP as its students and faculty collaborate to lead advances in Pharmaceutical Sciences.”

This solution is implemented by Microsoft partner, Techgyan which is a leading cloud service provider. Techgyan conducted a detailed study and identified the critical areas of intervention and helped in modernizing BCP’s infrastructure to a highly secure end-to-end solution in Microsoft 365.

Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan added, “BCP had a large footprint of legacy systems. We took a strategic approach and looked at securing the core operations of BCP first and subsequently enhance collaboration among students and faculty by enabling Microsoft Teams, OneNote and Yammer. BCP is deploying its campus automation system on Azure, which will allow for further efficiencies.”

The benefits to BCP have also included 75% reduction in data loss, 50% reduction in IT support calls, and 20% reduction in email support calls.