Industry
Life Sciences
Patient-centered Care Models Taking Center Stage in Life Sciences
Highlights
- QIAGEN, a leading provider of solutions for molecular research and testing, wanted to explore the transformative potential of GenAI on its routine business operations, particularly focusing on empowering the workforce with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- TCS enabled a secure and scalable rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot, considerably accelerating its adoption.
- The seamless rollout has fostered rapid adoption of Copilot by more than a quarter of QIAGEN’s workforce, improving productivity.
On this page
Strategic initiative
Unlocking GenAI’s potential to transform business operations
QIAGEN, a leading provider of solutions for molecular research and testing, has been leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to design solutions that augment core functions such as sales, product development and research, communication, and other workstreams within the organisation. Recognising the inherent value in embracing generative AI (GenAI), it launched a focused drive in 2024 to accelerate the technology’s adoption in its workforce. The aim was to move beyond specific custom-built solutions and make AI, specifically GenAI, accessible to every employee, empowering them to realise greater efficiency and productivity. Microsoft 365 Copilot was identified as the cornerstone solution for this initiative.
Recognising the importance of a seamless and value-driven transformation, QIAGEN turned to TCS, its trusted partner of over 12 years. With a longstanding, strategic relationship, and a history of delivering impactful outcomes within QIAGEN’s Microsoft ecosystem, TCS has cultivated a deep understanding of the company’s business processes, data platforms, and reporting systems. The implementation demanded a careful assessment and understanding of the customers information landscape to ensure a secure and compliant roll-out in a regulated environment. This need for an in-depth contextual knowledge made TCS the ideal partner for QIAGEN’s GenAI journey. TCS’ capacity to harness its domain knowledge to maximise value and minimise disruption worked well to propel QIAGEN’s broader AI transformation forward.
Systematic Copilot rollout
Enabling QIAGEN’s shift to an AI-driven ecosystem
Embarking on solution implementation, TCS began with a meticulous review of QIAGEN’s Microsoft 365 environment to assess organisational readiness for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Every subsystem and vulnerability were mapped through rigorous assessments aligned with Microsoft’s standards. This foundational phase yielded a tailored risk model and enabled the team to craft a strategic mitigation plan that resonated with QIAGEN’s objectives of ensuring seamless Copilot rollout.
QIAGEN's internal teams actively shaped governance discussions, aligning deployment strategies with enterprise-wide compliance and operational priorities. With information security, data privacy, and responsible AI as key priorities, the deployment unfolded under the vigilant oversight of QIAGEN’s cybersecurity and other organisational units overseeing governance (AI council, workers council).
The initiative placed special emphasis on information privacy and regulatory compliance given that the adoption was being driven for a customer in the highly regulated life sciences domain, with a planned deployment to employees in business-critical roles, including product development, sales, and research and development (R&D).
TCS established transparent guardrails to safeguard data and ensure compliance, while the swift deployment of restricted SharePoint search ensured secure, targeted access. Leveraging deep system expertise, TCS efficiently balanced operational needs, enabling seamless whitelisting of resources.
TCS championed Copilot’s adoption through proactive change communication in collaboration with the QIAGEN’s communication team. Alongside the need to drive user awareness, the emphasis was on educating QIAGEN’s workforce on GenAI capabilities and limitations and cultivating an online community on Viva Engage for shared learning and risk awareness, seen as a key enabler for the organisation’s larger, enterprise-wide AI strategy.
TCS accelerators were a key value-add helping with the swift implementation of a self-learn and a use-case-ideation platform, which, coupled with webinars and regular drop-in sessions, fostered confidence and curiosity. Through each stage, the solution implementation unfolded as a journey, securing the environment, empowering users, and ensuring QIAGEN’s future-readiness in the evolving digital landscape.
Operations efficiency
Creating impact through a collaborative Copilot roll-out anchored around user enablement
Championed by QIAGEN’s leadership, and with focus on strategic alignment and momentum, TCS facilitated the comprehensive rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot. The adoption strategy emphasised cross-departmental representation, ensuring inclusive participation, and giving users the opportunity to assess the capabilities of Copilot within their daily workflows, fostering grassroots innovation from across the organisation. Key initiatives included:
- Training users to leverage Copilot in all core Microsoft 365 productivity apps.
- Piloting identified use cases developed utilising both declarative agents and advanced solutions via Copilot Studio, in order to measure their impact on the users’ workflow and consequently their true value.
- Demonstrating integration with less commonly used tools, such as Whiteboard and Forms, along with browser-level integration within Microsoft Edge, to highlight the tool’s pervasiveness that was key to maximising both perceived and realised value.
QIAGEN observed real-world impact through the successful implementation of Copilot-based offerings. Some of the high-value use cases implemented included:
- Leveraging Copilot to ensure readiness for external audits
- Implementing an organisation-wide bot to answer HR-related queries
- Enabling Copilot-driven document translations for global clientele
- Integrating Copilot into the existing quality assurance workflows
- Assessing feasibility to utilise Copilot for threat analysis within the cybersecurity practice
The adoption of Microsoft Copilot is helping streamline knowledge access and task execution in environments typical of life sciences organisations, where precision, collaboration, and regulatory awareness are essential.
Delivering value
Achieving over 25% Copilot adoption across QIAGEN
TCS successfully catalysed Copilot adoption within QIAGEN’s regulated enterprise, ensuring robust data governance and minimal operational disruption. Our approach, while empowering diverse user groups and fostering sustainable engagement, has enabled:
- Rapid expansion to nearly 25% of the overall workforce, with representation from a broad spectrum of personas
- Effective deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot, with 87% of users reporting time savings or improved work quality, and 73% expressing confidence in using Copilot after training (as sampled through a subset of users).
- Achieved monthly active usage rates consistently above 90%.
- Piloting of Microsoft 365 Copilot integration ideas recommended by users.
- Deployment of agents that have delivered measurable real-world impact, notably through integration with critical systems such as QIAGEN’s intranet
- Tailored training initiatives and consistent engagement with users, crucial for sustainable growth
QIAGEN’s successful deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot is now being scaled across the enterprise, leveraging initial wins to drive broader adoption and operational gains. Key lessons include the value of targeted training to aid adoption, cross-functional engagement to spur grassroots-level ideation, and having robust governance as a design priority rather than being an afterthought.
Building on these foundations, QIAGEN plans to expand AI integrations to enhance workflows, refine user experiences, and pilot new GenAI solutions. As the organisation continues its digital transformation, these ongoing initiatives ensure QIAGEN remains at the forefront of innovation, optimising productivity and unlocking new opportunities for growth and collaboration across all business units.
From decoding DNA to accelerating life-saving breakthroughs, to empowering its employees to enhance work and workplace experiences and efficiencies, QIAGEN remains true to its vision of making improvements in life possible.
Our ambition was to rapidly and comprehensively empower QIAGEN teams worldwide with the capabilities of generative AI through M365 Copilot. The TCS team demonstrated exceptional commitment, bringing deep expertise and disciplined execution to establish a secure, compliant, and adoption-ready Copilot environment. This collaboration has laid a strong foundation for enterprise-wide AI adoption, enhancing our ability to embed AI responsibly and at scale. The success of the M365 Copilot project is a testament to our long-standing collaboration.