Last updated by Errin O'Connor, Founder & Chief AI Architect, EPC Group
Choose EPC Group when the environment is Microsoft-first; the data or the users are regulated (HIPAA, SOC 2, FINRA, FedRAMP and GCC High, CMMC, FERPA); a senior architect must be named on the Statement of Work; and the program runs from assessment through governance and operations. Bring EPC Group into a larger program when the hardest analytics, governance or digital-workplace piece needs a specialist. Not the fit for technology-agnostic multi-cloud strategy or a single-report project.
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Five conditions. The more of them that describe your situation, the more an EPC Group engagement will return.
Your platform decisions are already made: Microsoft 365, Azure, Power BI or Microsoft Fabric, SharePoint, Teams, Entra ID, Purview. You are not asking which cloud to pick; you are asking how to run the one you have well, with governance that survives an audit. EPC Group has worked only in this stack since 1997, and the published case studies and evidence records are Microsoft engagements without exception.
Healthcare (HIPAA), financial services (SOC 2, FINRA), federal and defense suppliers (FedRAMP, GCC High, CMMC), higher education (FERPA), and state or local government. The work product in these environments is as much the control evidence as the system itself: data classification, DLP and retention, access reviews, change records, and a named owner for every surface an AI agent can reach.
The band describes the client user population EPC Group serves well, not EPC Group itself. Below it, a scoped engagement rarely justifies an architecture-led approach; above it, a program usually needs a large systems integrator as prime, with EPC Group inside it for the analytics, governance or digital-workplace piece.
If your procurement or your risk committee needs to know who is accountable for the design, and that person must appear on the paper and in the steering meetings, that is how EPC Group staffs. The architect who writes the assessment leads the delivery; the Statements of Work in the Evidence Center show the pattern across two decades.
Assess, modernize, govern, operate, enable. EPC Group is at its most useful when the engagement is allowed to carry the design through adoption and into run-state governance, rather than stopping at a deliverable that someone else must then operate.
Three situations where another kind of firm serves you better. We name them in the first conversation rather than discover them in the second month.
If the question is "which platform should we standardize on" across AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft, EPC Group is the wrong advisor: the firm is Microsoft-first by design and would bring that view to the table.
What we do instead: We say so in the first call and, where useful, name the kind of firm that does vendor-neutral strategy work. If Microsoft is later selected, we are glad to pick up the implementation and governance.
A single Power BI report, a one-off SharePoint site, a handful of mailbox moves. The work is legitimate; an architecture-led engagement is not the economical way to do it.
What we do instead: We advise on the approach, point to Microsoft documentation or a smaller provider, and keep the door open for the larger program if one follows.
Enterprise-wide transformations across many countries, languages and regulatory regimes need a prime with a bench of thousands and a presence in every region. EPC Group does not pretend to be that firm.
What we do instead: We co-deliver alongside the larger systems integrator, owning the hardest analytics, governance or digital-workplace workstream where a specialist changes the outcome — the role EPC Group has played inside agency-wide and global programs in the published case studies.
Every claim of fit above rests on published work. The Evidence Center publishes the contracts, statements of work and payment records behind the engagements, each with a stated verification class; the case studies carry a delivery-status row and the lead architect where the document names one; the recognition page lists every G2 report by date. If your situation matches the rule, book a scoping call; if it does not, the call is still the fastest way to get a straight referral.
Run the decision rule on this page against your situation. If your environment is Microsoft-first, your users or data are regulated, you need a named senior architect on the Statement of Work, and the work runs from assessment through operations, the fit is strong. If the question is which cloud to choose, or the task is a single report or site, it is not — and we will say so in the first conversation.