While 2020 can certainly be described as a year of disruptive change, it was also a year of accelerated innovation in various industries and technology trends, which in many cases have already gained momentum.
For example, many of our customers have had long Before the pandemic, adopted a modern computing paradigm in the cloud and increasingly looked for an economical flywheel or motor to enable further innovation. They also showed keen interest in democratizing digital experiences that enable everyone in their organization, from frontline workers to C-suites, to be part of the innovation process. In addition, they made the strategic decision to put their data into operation by building a connected database.
Customers who accelerate their digital journey in this way are ultimately more agile, more resilient and for further growth in 2021 and Beyond that.
The University of Sydney developed the AI-infused Corona Chatbot, which uses Microsoft Cognitive Services to assist students with COVID-19 queries.
The start of the year brought industry-leading customer innovations. Faurecia, LG Electronics and ZF shared automotive experiences highlighting cloud, edge, IoT and AI services. Samsung announced a new smartphone with a push-to-talk button to make it easier for frontline workers to communicate. Canada Goose is built on the endless corridor and H&M shared its continued work for a more sustainable future with Azure IoT. Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bosch Group and ZF Friedrichshafen have joined the Open Manufacturing Platform, an initiative by Microsoft and BMW. We announced groundbreaking partnerships with BlackRock, the NBA, the NFL and The Coca-Cola Company, and acquired Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch Networks.
Then, unexpectedly, the COVID-19 outbreak pushed organizations to grapple with a new reality . Business continuity became paramount, and customers turned to technology to adapt as quickly as possible. Telemedicine played a vital role, and St. Luke’s University Health Network staff found technology-based solutions to scale the triage process and maintain protective gear while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was running a COVID- 19 evaluation bot to help companies achieve more Screening patients for possible infection and treatment alternatives. We have worked across industries to accelerate research and scientific discovery and have joined a White House-led consortium that participated alongside C3.ai and leading universities. Maintaining a culture of learning was more important than ever, and teachers and students at the University of Bologna, the University of Sydney, and Case Western Reserve University turned to distant options to continue teaching and maintain social connections. We’ve also joined a coalition to bring in resources and technological know-how to ensure #LearningNeverStops.
Throughout the year, customers continued to use digital technologies to increase agility, speed their recovery time and speed up to respond to changing demands. Imperial College Healthcare’s NHS Trust sought a mixed reality to limit the number of clinicians in risk areas and preserve personal protective equipment. PCL Construction began manufacturing and assembling AI-enabled Citizen Care Pods to run convenient COVID-19 testing. UnitedHealth Group has introduced a tool to manage employee symptom screening. ImmunityBio turned to our cloud for computational analysis of vaccine development.
From delivering smart cameras and analytics to increasing operational efficiency and more, clients like Sony, Hitachi, GE Aviation, BNY Mellon and Volkswagen have turned to digital technologies to keep their business moving forward despite the pressures of the pandemic. The Sri Lanka Tea Board and its Tea Traders Association developed an e-auction system to save nearly 2 million jobs. The organizers of the Chattanooga Film Festival created a virtual experience for their community while they were in a shelter and place orders.
As industries adjusted to a new normal, we saw customers embrace the digital future. For example, we launched a cloud platform with Walgreens Boots Alliance and Adobe to enable more personalized health and shopping experiences, and announced a multi-year collaboration with FedEx for customers and companies to better compete in a growing digital landscape. By working with companies like Workday and SAS, we help our mutual customers improve business performance with cloud technologies. We also launched our first industry-specific cloud offering – Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare – to deliver better patient experiences for better health outcomes.
Land O’Lakes and Microsoft have formed a strategic alliance to drive new innovations in agriculture and Support rural communities.
Building resilience and adapting to change usually takes time and preparation. However, we have found that the transition to digital capabilities is accelerating at an incredible pace. Government organizations, including the Georgia Office of the State Treasurer and the New Jersey Courts, have put in place secure remote work environments to help maintain critical government services and legal proceedings. Even empowering employees required new productivity, security, and protection tools. Whether virtual or in person, customers such as Suffolk, Biersdorf AG, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink) and T-Mobile offered employees secure remote access, thermal images for temperature tests and much more.
Increasingly, customers are also relying on cloud-first business strategies to improve business and end-user agility. For example, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley Capital International, Finastra, Refinitiv, National Australia Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Munich RE have turned to the cloud to provide secure customer solutions. PepsiCo, Woolworths, Marks & Spencer, Office Depot and JB Hi-Fi have optimized their business models. AT&T presented a new solution with which companies can connect machines and devices to the cloud. Telstra’s citizen developers automated manual processes and SK Telecom brought the first gaming cloud to the Asian market. We have also worked closely with Citrix to help companies reshape the workplace of the future and adapt to changing market conditions with cloud-based tools and services.
Regardless of the industry, customers continue to take advantage of the Digital to advance their purpose. Together with bp and Shell, we have announced that we will intensify our joint sustainability efforts. The European Parliament uses AI technology to ensure its debates are accessible in 24 languages, and PBSF has developed a system that enables rapid intervention in newborns at high risk for neurological injury. In addition, our alliance with Land O’Lakes is pioneering new innovations in agriculture and helping to close the rural broadband gap. Africa’s Talking offers economic opportunities even in regions with limited local cloud access, and Sodexo is helping develop employment opportunities for frontline workers with disabilities.
In the last quarter of 2020, Microsoft launched Azure Space, an initiative to deliver innovation for the Space community by investing in people, partnerships and products that leverage the power of AI and intelligent edge computing. We announced our partnerships with SpaceX, SES, Viasat and others to provide satellite connectivity and a roadmap of new geospatial offerings to organizations in the public and private sectors.
In the automotive industry, we shared the news of our strategic partnership with CNHi and Accenture, to develop connected industrial vehicles that enhance CNHi’s digital capabilities to increase sales, build a digitally-activated workforce, and improve sustainability. UK-based Wayve uses our cloud platform to support the development of cutting edge autonomous driving capabilities for urban environments. In the US, Cox Automotive turned to Microsoft 365 to enable secure communications, save $ 1 million and help them move to remote working across its 25 brands, including Kelly Blue Book and Autotrader.com / p> In the energy sector, Microsoft is committed to becoming part of Northern Lights – a joint effort with the Norwegian government and energy companies Equinor, Shell and Total – to standardize and scale carbon capture and storage across Europe . As part of our collaboration with Shell and Equinor, we announced joint development efforts to create a smart inventory management solution that would allow energy companies to better control the equipment available and optimize inventory levels. In Denmark, Energinet is redesigning its Datahub solution with an open source approach, using Azure and GitHub to make data more accessible to the electricity market and to develop intelligent solutions that promote the green transition worldwide.
In financial services, Vanguard created a unified digital workspace by deploying Microsoft 365 for 23,000 employees and implementing teams to stay productive while working remotely. Judo Bank in Australia is using Microsoft 365, Teams and Surface devices to ensure employees can continue to work seamlessly, safely and securely during the pandemic. The Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) works without interruption during the pandemic by switching its 46,000 employees to remote thanks to Microsoft 365 working in just one week. In India, Paisabazaar.com is helping customers access funds remotely through an Azure-based end-to-end digitization stack during the pandemic. Banco de Credito e Inversiones (BCI) in Chile is focused on delivering sophisticated technology experiences to its customers by developing a hybrid cloud model that improves the performance and reliability of their systems while increasing agility.
In healthcare, we’ve continued our close collaboration with Humana to create a Power BI-powered dashboard that brings together disparate data for actionable insights, supports key business decisions, and drives citizen development through a data-driven culture. Australia’s NSW Health Pathology uses our Power BI platform to provide insights into rapid test results for 1.7 million patients. We also publicly launched Microsoft’s Cloud for Healthcare offering, and Providence rolled out this solution to empower frontline clinicians and respond quickly to the pandemic.
On manufacturing, we partnered with Zeiss to Use the cloud-first approach to standardize their devices and processes in Azure and use Azure High Performance Computing (HPC), AI and IoT to provide original equipment manufacturers (OEM) with new quality management solutions. In Ireland, Johnson Controls uses Azure Digital Twin Technologies to deliver its integrated Digital Twin technologies for the design and management of buildings and spaces. BlueScope uses Azure Synapse and Azure Databricks to transform its data and analysis and to ensure unlimited analysis capabilities. Dell Technologies standardized virtual collaboration for 157,000 employees using Microsoft Teams and integrating Microsoft 365 apps to improve efficiency. In the racing world, we are working with the Renault DP World F1 team in France to accelerate and optimize innovation cycles using AI and GUI.
In the media and telecommunications sectors, we are working with Warner Bros. to create a helping new generation of students through basketball-inspired coding programs with LeBron James and Bugs Bunny. Our collaboration with Verizon brings Azure cloud and edge capabilities together with the company’s mobile edge computing platform to help developers build applications with ultra-low latency. We also work with Deutsche Telekom to deliver powerful cloud computing experiences with Azure and help people and businesses be more connected and productive with Microsoft 365 and Teams.
We have on all of our retail solutions and seen strong momentum in the consumer goods industry. RB, a leading UK consumer goods company selling more than 20 million products, uses our cloud platforms to work more closely with supermarkets and retailers around the world. PepsiCo uses our Project Bonsai AI solution to create the perfect Cheeto using data from a computer vision system. Dr. Martens uses Dynamics 365 to get better insight into their business, and Crocs uses teams to streamline communication with customers, retailers and colleagues. MARS Petcare invested in RealWear hands-free headsets with teams to support remote collaboration and increase efficiency through autonomous maintenance. Together with Starbucks, we’ve created new digital experiences for customers, including new teams meeting backgrounds and an app that makes it easy to show appreciation for colleagues by sending a Starbucks gift card in teams. In Japan, ZOZO Group is using our Microsoft 365 security solution to move to a cloud environment.
In government, the Department of Labor and Pensions, the UK’s largest government department with 90,000 employees serving 25 million citizens, is on a cloud-first strategy using cloud-native Surface Pro devices to increase workforce safety and efficiency. Australian scientists from the Department of Agriculture and Environment & Water use AI and cloud technologies to protect Kakadu National Park from the effects of uranium mining. In the U.S., the Department of Veterans Affairs is accelerating modernization efforts and deploying cloud-based dashboards to track and respond to active COVID-19 cases and beds in VA hospitals. The Samish Indian Nation maintains ancestral traditions including social distancing place with Microsoft Teams. We also saw continued momentum in education as the University of the District of Columbia and Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida used surface equipment to deliver modern classroom experiences.
The past year has presented new challenges for our customers as they reaffirm their purpose and gain a foothold in a variety of changing industry contexts. As the preferred digital partner dedicated to addressing these challenges, we continue to focus on industry expertise, particularly through the talent we hire, the technology investments we make with our partners, the solutions we create, and the partnerships that we enter.
Taken together, this approach enables us to be better partners for our customers, deploy vertically specific clouds for their needs and work side by side with them to innovate together and develop next generation solutions, which help to differentiate you in the industry marketplace, gain share and support your success.
Tags: KI, Azure, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Databricks, Azure HPC, Azure IoT, Azure Synapse, Cloud Computing, COVID- 19, Customers, Dynamics 365, Education, Healthcare, HoloLens, IoT, Microsoft 365, Micro soft Cloud, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Microsoft Healthcare Bot, Microsoft Inspire, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Teams, Mixed Reality, Partner, Power BI, PowerApps
January 25, 2021 |
Judson Althoff
January 14, 2021 |
Amanda Silver
December 17, 2020 |
Alysa Taylor
December 14, 2020 |
Sarah Bond, CVP, Gaming, Microsoft; Travis Walter, CVP, Microsoft Store; and Charlotte Yarkoni, CVP, Cloud AI
Ref: https://blogs.microsoft.com
