Vinci Partners creates a secure digital collaboration environment based on Microsoft 365 tools

Specializing in third-party resource management and financial advisory, Vinci Partners is an alternative investment platform with worldwide operations and an independent model. The company has a strong culture of transparency as a competitive differentiator with currently BRL 55 billion under management.* 

Vinci Partners operates in different markets such as private equity, infrastructure, real estate, credit, equities, multiple markets, investment solutions, and financial advisory. 

Creating a cloud collaboration environment

Since its foundation in 2009, the company has been using Microsoft products, when it built its own server infrastructure and email service — in this case, it was Exchange on-premises. "The choice of Microsoft is related to the quality and diversity of the products offered," says Alexandre Machado, Director of IT at Vinci Partners. 

In 2015, the company took the first step toward digital transformation when it acquired the Microsoft 365 E3 license, implementing Skype for Business for internal communication and Microsoft Exchange Online as an email service. 

The next step was taken in 2017, with the implementation of SharePoint Online as the company's file server and OneDrive as a cloud storage service, enabling users to work collaboratively.   "We use a range of products, which makes us more synergistic in using them. It is a better-adjusted solution that provides excellent cost-benefit due to the quantity of products used," adds Alexandre. 

Jorge Zenezini, IT Support Area Coordinator, explains that implementation was a careful process, together with the various areas of the company. "We carried out an adoption with each Vinci area, one per week, migrating file server content to an area-specific site on SharePoint, in step with the new way of working collaboratively. The return of the areas on increased productivity with the new solutions was significant and rewarding,” he points out. 

Over time, the company took its entire contract system to SharePoint, with alert and renewal flows, and its intranet. 

In 2019, Vinci Partners adopted Microsoft Teams as an internal communication platform. "We applied the same adoption strategy by area with Teams — today we use not only chat and the teams, but also other features like meetings, live events and embedded Microsoft 365 platform applications," he adds. The platform is currently used by approximately 250 people, with an average of 60 hours of videos and calls per person monthly. 

In 2021, the company also implemented Microsoft Planner, as a task planner, and Microsoft Stream, used as an internal video platform for lectures, training, and knowledge of Vinci's different areas and products, accompanied by Microsoft Forms, which gathers surveys and registration for events, among other possibilities. In addition, Microsoft Power BI has been incorporated and used independently by different areas and corporate as a front end of BI solutions — the latter, organized by IT. 

Security as a key part of the process

A key issue for financial services providers is security, which has followed the company's digital transformation. That's what Luciano Kahn, IT Infrastructure Coordinator explains. In 2019, the company implemented MFA, a layer of protection for users logging into the system where there is an additional check to access accounts or applications. "We had in mind that every user needed this technology in place to increase the company's security level. With the pandemic, the use of MFA was natural for people," he says. 

Another important point was Azure Information Protection (AIP), a service that is part of the Microsoft 365 E3 license and allows you to configure policies to classify, label, and protect data based on its level of confidentiality. The project was carried out in conjunction with the company's Compliance department. "The ability to classify information within the company has caught our attention, which is important to meeting potential requirements of the LGPD. We carried out planning and deployment of AIP for all users," he says. 

In addition, the company's security solution includes Microsoft Intune, which provides access control on mobile devices; among the next steps is the implementation of conditional access to apply the appropriate security controls, with Azure Active Directory Premium, to on-premises, remote, and hybrid users accessing applications locally and via the cloud. 

Satisfaction and next steps

Alexandre says that, due to the work that the IT department has been developing, the department has received good evaluations, gaining recognition at Vinci Partners and continues to seek new solutions. "The work done by IT is well recognized, this is a constant, and this result is partly due to Microsoft," he celebrates. 

With the tools, the company was able to raise the communication potential, bring teams closer together, and build a secure, online collaboration environment that gained even more visibility with the pandemic.  

Alexandre assesses that two major assets of the solution are the usability and integration capability between the tools, which generates synergy and a good cost-benefit for the company. 

"It is very positive what we achieve in terms of productivity, collaboration, practicality, communication, and security. We were able to deliver a quality product with a very good service to Vinci employees," he concludes. 

*Baseline date of website information: March 2021 | AuM is calculated with double count, including funds from one segment that invest in other segments. There is no double count for funds co-managed by two or more Vinci Partners investment segments.