If you’ve spent any time in marketing or strategy, you’ve probably come across a 5C framework. Company, Customers, Competitors, Context and Collaborators.
Different flavours exist, but the idea is the same: simple structure, clear thinking, better decisions.
We’ve taken that same principle and applied it to a problem we see every day in enterprise IT and the public sector:
How do you modernise the digital workplace and enable Copilot without increasing risk, chaos, or cost?
The result is what we call the 5Cs Modern Workplace Framework.
It’s not a theoretical model. It’s a practical flow we use on real programmes across government, energy, financial services, and regulated industries especially where Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Teams, Purview and Copilot are in play.
Why another framework?
Because too many organisations are still:
- Migrating content without understanding it
- Rolling out Teams without structure
- Enabling Copilot before governance is ready
- Discovering oversharing and risk after the fact
In marketing, 5C frameworks help teams avoid blind spots. In the modern workplace, the stakes are higher with data exposure, compliance, and AI risk.
So, we asked a simple question: What are the minimum building blocks you need before AI really works at scale?
From Modern Workplace to Frontier Firm
Microsoft describes Frontier Firms as organisations that combine AI, digital tools, and new ways of working to fundamentally change how work gets done — moving faster, collaborating more effectively and making better decisions at scale.
In our experience, becoming a Frontier Firm is not about turning Copilot on early. It is about preparing the organisation so AI can be trusted, adopted, and scaled.
The 5Cs Modern Workplace Framework provides the structural foundation required for organisations to transition toward a Frontier Firm model by ensuring:
- Information is understood and governed
- Collaboration is structured and intentional
- Co-authoring and real-time collaboration become the default
- Behaviour and adoption are actively managed
- AI is introduced safely and with measurable value
- AI insight is converted into action through governed workflows embedded in the flow of work
Without these foundations, AI accelerates fragmentation rather than transformation.
The 5Cs Modern Workplace Framework
1. Content: Don’t move the mess
Before you migrate or enable AI, you need to know what you actually have. We start by discovering, analysing, and rationalising content across:
- File shares
- Desktops
- SharePoint (classic and modern)
- Legacy ECM platforms (FileNet, OpenText, Oracle, Documentum)
Using Proventeq CPS Discovery and Migration modules, we analyse the content estate to identify ROT (redundant, obsolete, and trivial information), uncover stale and orphaned data and surface overshared or high-risk content.
This process also reveals ownership and permission issues, providing the clarity needed to reduce risk, rationalise content, and create a safer foundation for migration and Copilot adoption.
Outcome: A smaller, cleaner, lower-risk content estate and a much safer foundation for Copilot.
2. Collaboration: Structure the way work happens
Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive are powerful but only when designed deliberately.
Here we focus on:
- Information architecture and taxonomy
- Clear patterns for Teams, sites, and workspaces
- Rules for where content lives and why
- Lifecycle management from creation to archive
This is where CPS Migration and Metadata modules come into play, ensuring structure is applied consistently not manually through our provisioning capability.
A core objective of this stage is enabling co-authoring as a default way of working, ensuring documents, knowledge, and decisions are created collaboratively in real time across Teams, SharePoint, and Microsoft 365, rather than fragmented across emails, attachments, and personal drives.
Outcomes:
- Less duplication and collaboration that actually scales.
- Increased Co-Authoring and reduced document duplication with faster decision cycles through shared, live content.
3. Communication: Make the digital workplace the default
Technology adoption fails when behaviour doesn’t change.
This stage is about embedding ways of working, not just deploying tools:
- Leadership communication via Teams and Viva
- Department and frontline engagement
- Communities of practice
- Clear norms around channels, meetings, and content sharing
We often layer in Gov360 here using insights, and guardrails to reinforce the right behaviours across departments and roles.
Outcome: Higher adoption, less email sprawl, and a digital workplace people actually use.
4. Control: Governance by design
Governance shouldn’t arrive after the incident.
At this stage we apply:
Sensitivity labels and classification
Retention and records management
DLP and insider risk controls
Oversharing and restricted search boundaries
This is where Microsoft Purview and E5 security controls come together with CPS enforcing governance during migration, including access conditions and device trust, not as an afterthought.
Outcome: A governed environment that supports productivity, not one that blocks it.
5. Copilot: Activate AI with confidence
Copilot is incredibly powerful but it amplifies whatever environment it’s given.
Only once the first four Cs are in place do we focus on:
- Copilot readiness validation
- Role-based Copilot scenarios
- Prompt libraries and guardrails
- Adoption metrics and value tracking
With Gov360, organisations can continuously monitor and optimise Copilot usage, ensuring AI delivers value without increasing risk. Copilot delivers value when insight can safely trigger actions, approvals, and business processes not when it stops at answers to prompts.
Outcome: Faster time-to-value from Copilot, fewer surprises, and measurable productivity gains.
Why the 5Cs work?
Just like classic 5C frameworks in marketing and strategy, the strength of this model lies in its simplicity. It keeps complexity manageable, forces the right conversations to happen at the right time, and helps organisations avoid common and costly mistakes.
Most importantly, it reflects a fundamental truth of modern AI adoption: AI does not fix weak foundations, it exposes them. By addressing structure, governance, behaviour, and readiness before AI is introduced at scale, the 5Cs create the conditions for sustainable transformation rather than short-term experimentation.
A Function-Led Approach to Accelerate Value
To ensure early momentum, the 5Cs framework can be applied function by function, focusing on areas where Copilot and modern collaboration deliver immediate impact.
Typical early-win functions include:
Legal: Controlled co-authoring of contracts and policies with sensitivity labels and retention applied by design, supported by Copilot for secure summarisation and drafting.
HR: Structured knowledge bases and policy co-authoring, reinforced through Viva Engage-led communication and Copilot-powered Q&A to support consistent employee guidance.
Finance: Governed document collaboration that reduces duplication and enables Copilot-assisted reporting and analysis for faster, more accurate decision-making.
PMO / Projects: Standardised Teams workspaces with live co-authoring and Copilot-enabled insights to accelerate status reporting and project visibility.
This approach delivers visible business value early, while reinforcing standards that scale across the organisation.
Want to go deeper?
If you’re:
- Planning a Microsoft 365 or SharePoint modernisation
- Preparing for Copilot or already piloting it
- Concerned about oversharing, compliance, or AI risk
- Operating in government or a regulated industry
We can help.
Get in touch with Proventeq to explore how the 5Cs Modern Workplace Framework, CPS modules, and Gov360 can be applied to your organisation pragmatically, safely, and at scale.
The 5Cs Modern Workplace Framework provides a practical, strategic, and defensible pathway for organisations to evolve into Frontier Firms, balancing innovation, collaboration, and AI with control, governance, and trust.
Copilot is the outcome, not the starting point.
