How Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation put security, licensing, and governance on a prioritized roadmap.
Executive Summary
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC) connects Detroiters to jobs, training, and career services through Detroit at Work. Behind that work sits a Microsoft 365 environment that has to protect sensitive participant data while supporting workforce services across the city, with an IT team that keeps a demanding environment running every day.
Through Apex Digital’s Technology Empowerment Grant, DESC received $10,000 in in-kind services for a Microsoft 365 Assessment. The engagement gave the IT team an outside, Microsoft-focused read on security posture, licensing, collaboration controls, and governance, delivered as a prioritized Now / Next / Later roadmap.
The assessment confirmed the direction DESC’s team was already moving and gave leadership one clear reference point to act on. Since then, DESC has reformed its identity and access model around least privilege, cut redundant software costs at renewal, and mapped its security and licensing priorities to the fiscal year.
“This audit helped us, as an IT department, tell the story to the entire organization with an external view versus just an internal recommendation. It put everything together in one conversation.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
The Challenge: Protecting Sensitive Workforce Data While Modernizing
DESC serves as a designated fiduciary, fiscal, and administrative agent for the City of Detroit and the Mayor’s Workforce Development Board. Its programs help adults and youth get back to work, access training, and manage unemployment support. That means a network of service centers capturing participant data and reporting it into state systems every day.
That responsibility raises the stakes on security and data governance. Rising cyber threats and Microsoft’s ongoing move away from legacy methods added pressure to modernize, and DESC wanted an outside, Microsoft-focused read on where its environment stood before planning the next moves.
“Being able to audit our environment, know where we stand, and see if we’re on track and on par with what the industry says we should be gave us a baseline to keep improving in the area of security. For an organization entrusted with the kind of information we handle, having that baseline is important.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Licensing was already on the team’s radar. DESC wanted to avoid redundant services and make sure the environment was configured the right way as usage grew. What the team needed was a single, outside view that pulled those threads together.
DESC was a Technology Empowerment Grant recipient
DESC received $10,000 in in-kind services for a Microsoft 365 Assessment through the Apex Digital Technology Empowerment Grant, a program that helps Michigan nonprofits move key technology initiatives forward in ways that support their mission.
Applications for the 2026 grant are now open.
What Apex Digital Delivered: A Microsoft 365 Assessment Built Around What to Do Next
Through the Technology Empowerment Grant, Apex Digital delivered a Microsoft 365 Assessment focused on clarity and prioritization. Instead of treating security, licensing, collaboration, and governance as separate reviews, the engagement looked at how they work together to support DESC’s day-to-day operations and its plans for controlled growth.
The process was designed to stay light on DESC’s team.
“It didn’t require a lot of involvement on our part for Apex Digital to collect the data. They had good questions when they first looked into our systems, and they understood our direction. It wasn’t a heavy load on our part, and the details that came out of it were on point.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Key areas included in the assessment
- Security posture and identity direction, including guidance on the hybrid versus cloud identity path and advanced security usage
- Licensing alignment, including where DESC was under-licensed and where redundant services could be removed
- Collaboration controls, with clearer boundaries around external communication and app usage
- A Power Platform operating model to guide who can build what, where, and how it is managed as adoption grows
- A modernization plan for email-related workflows and legacy dependencies
- Data governance and best practices to support consistency across the environment
The assessment validated the direction DESC was already taking, pulled every priority into one place, and surfaced at least one gap the team had not caught, including an area where DESC was under-licensed.
“It helped solidify the direction we were going. It was good to have everything in one view to walk the organization through: what’s high priority, what’s low priority, what the recommendation is, what would change how we operate, and what we should implement and what we should not.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Could your Microsoft 365 Environment use a closer look?
See what a Microsoft 365 Assessment covers and how it works:
Outcomes: A Prioritized Roadmap the Team Is Already Acting On
The core deliverable was a Now / Next / Later roadmap that separated urgent security work from longer-term modernization, so the team could sequence the work in a practical way.
Now
- Keep IT in control of licensing and configuration by reducing unmanaged adoption pathways
- Address near-term modernization items tied to external deadlines or operational risk
Next
- Audit and align licensing to current and planned usage
- Define the Power Platform operating model so adoption grows in a controlled way
- Standardize collaboration controls and app governance
Later
- Continue platform modernization across identity direction, email, and deeper policy maturity
- Establish a recurring governance cadence and clear operational ownership
What DESC has done since
DESC moved on the urgent items first. The team’s top priority was strengthening its identity and access model.
“One item was reforming our access model to make sure we implement the principle of least privilege. It may be convenient to have elevated access, but do you really need it? That was one of the top things we implemented.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
The assessment also gave the team a way to justify cost decisions internally. Removing redundant software at renewal turned into real savings.
“Getting rid of redundant tools at renewal, and being able to articulate that to the organization, helped sell it, because those were products people had said they absolutely needed.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Longer term, DESC used the roadmap to plan its security and licensing spend against the fiscal year, including a move toward Microsoft’s own tools for endpoint detection and response.
“It helped us prioritize which security requirements need to be implemented and when. We tackled what we thought was urgent first, then planned the rest, things like changing over licenses and using more Microsoft for EDR capabilities, then plan financially for any shortfalls in our environment.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Working with Apex Digital
“We found the Apex Digital team very knowledgeable and the audit was a very seamless process. They met with us, came in, plugged in, delivered the report, and disconnected. And a very detailed report at that, explained with visuals. It exceeded our expectations.”
Herman H. Parry
Director of Information Technology & Facilities
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
Takeaways for Nonprofit and Workforce Organizations
- A Microsoft 365 Assessment can create clarity and a plan without demanding large-scale change all at once.
- A Now / Next / Later roadmap helps an IT team sequence security work and plan budget, time, and ownership.
- An outside, Microsoft-focused view gives IT one reference point to align leadership and justify decisions.
- Grant programs like the Apex Digital Technology Empowerment Grant can fund the assessment and roadmapping work that is hard to prioritize on program-driven budgets.
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Not eligible for the grant?
You may qualify for a fully funded Microsoft Security Envisioning Workshop valued up to $8,000.
