A few years ago I sat down and wrote my first book. Not a whitepaper, not a slide deck — an actual 116-page book about something I care deeply about: how a modern, secure workplace can help an organization stay relevant.
It's still free, and it's still one of the most honest things I've published. Below I've pulled a few chapters straight out of it, so you can decide for yourself whether it's worth the download. Consider this the trailer — the full film is one click away.
CH 1 Why I wrote it
"My motivation for writing this e-book is to bring up the conversation about a digital workplace. I love every organization with a vision and an ambition to drive effectiveness and productivity in a very conscious way." — Chapter 1, Introduction
The throughline of the whole book is there already: standardization creates effectiveness, and effectiveness is what lets you move fast. Almost every chapter comes back to that idea.
CH 2 Digitalization is an ambition, not a project
Chapter two is the one people quote back to me most. It reframes digitalization from an IT line-item into an organizational ambition — one that decides whether you stay relevant at all.
"Working differently has become a new standard. And the change driver is coming from the outside. […] It isn't possible not to change anymore." — Chapter 2, Digitalization: an ambition
From there I map out the challenges I believe define successful technological adaptation. In short, you have to:
- Connect people so they collaborate in new ways — simple, transparent, team-driven, with no room for individuality getting in the way.
- Trust proven standards — because slowness caused by not using standards quietly kills organizations from within.
- Provide tools that work anywhere, with the same security level as the stable on-premise days.
- Move fast enough to accelerate your business goals. Timing is everything.
- Raise your security maturity as you grow into a more modern, more secure workplace.
CH 5 Cybersecurity in a remote, connected world
This is where the book turns to Zero Trust. I'm careful not to blame the engineers who built brilliant, redundant on-premise datacenters — they did great work keeping everything running 24/7. The point is that the world moved around them.
"Disruption of cloud organizations like Microsoft, Amazon and Google came with scalable, relatively quick-deployable solutions — solutions that didn't require the technical need of the on-premise infrastructure." — Chapter 5, Cybersecurity in a remote connected world
My favourite metaphor in the whole book lives here: the traditional corporate network as a fish tank — a sealed, isolated environment. A layered, identity-first approach "kills the fish tank," because the perimeter no longer exists. Identity becomes the new foundation, extended from on-premise Active Directory out to Microsoft 365 and Azure.
CH 6 Automation and intelligent security
Chapter six is the pragmatic one, and it starts with a rule I still repeat on every project.
"The basics need to be implemented, first." — Chapter 6, Automation and intelligent Security
Only once the fundamentals are in place does automation pay off. The chapter walks through how Microsoft delivers automated Security Operations (SecOps) that any organization — not just the ones with a 24/7 SOC — can actually run. It's the practical companion to my longer piece on automated SecOps.
CH 7 The real value of Microsoft 365 E5
The back half of the book gets concrete about licensing — specifically why Microsoft 365 E5 is more than a bigger bill. It's about protection across the entire attack kill chain: Cloud App Security, identity-driven protection, self-service password reset, managed devices, risky sign-in detection, information protection and advanced threat protection, all working as one fabric rather than a pile of point tools.
If you've ever had to justify an E5 upgrade to a finance team, this chapter is the argument, laid out capability by capability.
→ Read the whole thing, free
That's five chapters out of nine. The full ebook goes far deeper — a step-by-step technical migration path (identity, Exchange Hybrid, OneDrive, Teams & SharePoint, GPO and software deployment), the complete Zero Trust layering model, and the full Microsoft 365 E5 breakdown. No email wall, no signup.
The bottom line
Digitalization is an ambition, not a project. Standardize to move fast, put identity at the foundation, automate the basics — and keep the point of all of it in view: technology that makes people more capable, more connected and more secure.
— Jasper Bernaers · Cloud & Security Expert focused on building future-proof, secure architectures.