The opportunity at a glance
Newcastle Greater Mutual Group (NGM Group) partnered with Arinco to securely scale Microsoft 365 Copilot across its organisation and embed AI into everyday work. In a regulated financial services environment, the rollout needed to protect sensitive information, strengthen governance and help employees apply AI safely and effectively.
Through a phased rollout, Arinco helped NGM Group assess security and data readiness, validate value through a seven-week pilot, develop practical Copilot use cases and support adoption across approximately 1,000 users. The pilot generated around 1,500 hours of additional capacity and approximately $96,000 in productivity value, giving NGM Group the evidence and confidence to expand Copilot at scale.
The program helped NGM Group improve productivity, strengthen information governance and support the internal capability needed to adopt AI safely and sustainably.
About NGM Group
Newcastle Greater Mutual Group (NGM Group) is one of Australia’s largest customer-owned banking organisations, providing retail banking services to more than 660,000 Australians through its Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent brands.
Formed in 2023 following the member-endorsed merger of Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent, NGM Group has more than $25 billion in assets and a workforce of over 1,600 people. Operating in a highly regulated environment, the organisation is focused on delivering modern banking experiences while maintaining strong governance, security and compliance standards.
Business challenge
NGM Group wanted to become an more AI-enabled organisation, recognising the potential of tools like Microsoft Copilot to improve productivity, decision-making and collaboration. However, adopting AI at scale introduced new risks, particularly around data security, information governance and the potential exposure of sensitive content.
Operating in a highly-regulated environment, NGM Group needed to ensure Copilot could be adopted safely and responsibly so they could move beyond isolated experimentation and establish a repeatable approach for embedding AI into everyday workflows. With a large and diverse workforce, NGM Group needed to support users with different levels of AI maturity, and help teams understand how Copilot could be used in practical and relevant ways.
To move forward, NGM Group required a partner that could deliver both the technical foundation and the change management needed to enable secure, scalable AI adoption.
Solution
Arinco delivered a secure, enterprise-wide Microsoft Copilot program for NGM Group, combining security assessment, technical implementation and workflow-aligned enablement to support adoption at scale.
Discovery and risk assessment
Arinco began with a business and technical assessment to identify potential risks associated with AI adoption, particularly around data exposure, information governance and oversharing.
Using Microsoft Purview, Arinco helped NGM Group gain visibility across its Microsoft 365 environment, including how sensitive information was stored, accessed and shared. These insights helped identify where additional controls were needed before Copilot was enabled more broadly, and informed decisions about how to reduce the risk of sensitive information being over exposed.
Arinco worked closely with NGM Group’s security and technology teams, providing guidance and support to uplift internal capabilities and align the environment with best practice.
Workflow and use case alignment
Arinco worked with NGM Group’s business units to understand existing workflows, common working patterns and the tasks where Copilot could deliver the most value. This ensured the rollout was grounded in how employees actually work, rather than treating Copilot as a standalone technology deployment.
Pilot validation
Arinco delivered a seven-week pilot to validate both technical readiness and business value. Working with approximately 60 users across NGM Group, thepilot delivered significant capacity and productivity improvements across the organisation.
Alongside the pilot, Arinco developed a Copilot solution to automate elements of NGM Group’s CFO board report process, reducing manual effort and demonstrating how AI could be applied to a real business challenge.
The pilot helped NGM Group build confidence in both the technology and the governance approach. It also provided a clear evidence base for broader adoption and helped shape the enterprise rollout.
Copilot rollout and enablement
Building on the pilot outcomes, Arinco led the phased rollout of Microsoft Copilot to approximately 1,000 users, delivered in structured waves aligned to business functions. The rollout approach was refined during delivery, shifting from an initial three-wave model to a two-wave rollout of 300 users followed by 700 users. This allowed NGM Group to scale faster while incorporating feedback and learnings from earlier cohorts.
Arinco developed a tailored enablement program to support adoption, including:
- Foundational training on safe and effective AI use
- Hands-on masterclasses across Microsoft 365 applications
- Workflow-based sessions aligned to real business processes
- Executive immersion sessions and tailored coaching for business leaders
This training approach ensured users could build confidence progressively while applying Copilot within their day-to-day work. Each rollout wave included dedicated support, helping users build confidence, ask questions and apply Copilot safely in their day-to-day work.
Adoption and continuous improvement
Recognising that success depended on adoption, Arinco worked closely with NGM Group’s change, communications and learning teams to drive adoption throughout the rollout, using workshops, feedback loops and regular collaboration to understand user needs and refine the approach.
The team remained agile as timelines, stakeholder needs and rollout decisions evolved, while maintaining delivery momentum. Arinco also established reporting to track adoption, usage and business impact, using these insights to refine the rollout across each wave.
To support ongoing adoption, Arinco developed reusable enablement resources, a centralised adoption hub and supporting materials for continued learning. The team also identified opportunities to improve ways of working beyond the original scope, including refining document templates and aligning processes to maximise Copilot value. The enablement program received strong feedback from participants across the organisation.
Outcomes
The engagement enabled NGM Group to adopt AI securely and at scale, while building the confidence, governance and capability needed to sustain long-term value. Key outcomes included:
- Scaled AI adoption: Successfully scaled Microsoft Copilot through a phased rollout approach, progressing from an initial pilot cohort to approximately 1,000 users across the organisation.
- Productivity gains realised: Delivered approximately $96,000 AUD in Copilot-assisted productivity value within the 7-week pilot across 60 active users, generating approximately 1,500 hours of additional capacity during this phase.
- Sustained user engagement: Achieved consistent and resilient adoption beyond the pilot, with usage recovering strongly after holiday periods without additional intervention, indicating habitual use.
- Stronger AI governance: Arinco helped NGM Group identify and address information governance and oversharing risks, creating a more secure Microsoft 365 environment for Copilot and future AI initiatives.
- High usage intensity: Users engaged with Copilot multiple times per day on average, demonstrating strong integration into everyday work.
- Higher value ways of working: Teams that embedded Copilot into daily workflows generated stronger value per user, particularly across collaboration, communication and document-based tasks in tools such as Teams, Outlook and Word.
- Improved employee confidence: Structured training, masterclasses, drop-in sessions and workflow-based enablement helped users build confidence and reduced reliance on support channels for basic Copilot usage.
- Strong enablement engagement: Core training sessions attracted more than 100 participants, while ongoing drop-in clinics averaged approximately 50 attendees during the initial rollout period. Attendance naturally reduced over time as users built confidence and required less ongoing support, demonstrating the effectiveness of the enablement program.
- Reduced support overhead: No service desk tickets were raised for fundamental Copilot usage following rollout, demonstrating strong user confidence and enablement.
- A stronger foundation for future AI: The program helped shift NGM Group from experimentation to a more structured, AI-enabled way of working, supported by reusable resources, adoption practices and an AI transformation roadmap.
What's next?
NGM Group is continuing to build on the foundation established through the Copilot rollout, with a focus on deepening adoption across business units and extending Copilot into more advanced productivity scenarios, including Excel and PowerPoint. The engagement also included executive reporting and the development of an AI transformation roadmap, helping NGM Group prioritise future AI investments and identify opportunities to extend value across the organisation. Arinco continues to support NGM Group in optimising its environment and maximising the long-term value of AI across the organisation.
