ASX-listed software solutions provider archTIS has been awarded a $4.06 million contract by the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) to conduct a proof of concept (PoC) for a major workplace modernisation program.

Under the terms of the contract, archTIS will deploy software solutions from NC Protect, Microsoft, and third-party vendors and evaluate productivity, compliance and security gains for the Defence office environment.

In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the firm confirmed the PoC would commence immediately. The program is expected to be completed by the end of the 2023 calendar year.

The defence department, which is an existing NC Protect client, will have the option to terminate the contract at their convenience with the full contract amount becoming payable to the company upon termination.

archTIS’ NC Protect is designed to secure sensitive information by applying Zero Trust enforcement policies and data-centric access controls across Microsoft 365, SharePoint on-premises and file share environments.

“This contract is an important step for Defence to evaluate the productivity gains. We believe that NC Protect can contribute to the way the department works on and secures information in a modern workplace environment,” archTIS managing director, Daniel Lai, said.

“The need to increase productivity, security and speed across Defence has been identified in the newly released Defence Strategic Review, this initiative is a small but important part of that cultural change.”