May 31, 2021

Speed up the process: develop an app in hours

This brief video shows how Microsoft Power Apps accelerates the process for building custom applications. Learn how to turn your creative ideas into a mobile or web application quickly. Instead of months, Power Apps can help you get your app up and running in a few hours. The simple drag-and-drop elements and pre-built templates accelerate app development. Learn how to build and deploy apps fast to extend value and agility for your business.

Security Analytics and Operations: Industry Trends in the Era of Cloud Computing

Turn your organization to cloud-based security and address data capacity and infrastructure requirements to solve cloud challenges. Subscribe here!

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How to accelerate digital selling with Dynamics 365

This video provides an overview of the sales accelerator in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Insights. You will learn how to maintain business continuity with the sales accelerator, a digital-first experience that enables salespeople to work remotely.

May 25, 2021

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Drive smarter selling and optimize engagement. Microsoft has the tools to make it happen. Subscribe now!

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Unify workplace collaboration

Subscribe now and unify your workplace collaboration with @Microsoft Teams.

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How Starbucks is using AI to improve the customer experience

At Microsoft's Build conference, Starbucks showed how artificial intelligence is helping them better predict what customers may be in the mood for by considering such factors such as weather, location, and user preferences.

12 things pop culture gets wrong about artificial intelligence

As societies and workplaces become more digitized, our culture does, too. This daily interaction with technology engenders fascination and speculation about the role devices and technological advancements will play in our societies' future. Some—if not most— of these assumptions are based on artistic portrayals of the future of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and they are often far from providing an accurate representation of what actually awaits us in the realm of AI and machine learning. Read this article to uncover the truth behind 12 misconceptions about AI and get a more accurate view of the present and future capabilities of this technology.

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Imperial College London uses Teams to teach and connect in a time of COVID

A world top ten university, with an international reputation for excellence in teaching and research, Imperial College London now uses Microsoft Teams to teach and connect in a time of COVID-19. In this video, see how the college is now relying on Teams for the delivery of its lectures and its remote labs, as well as a "virtual common room" where students and faculty can interact. Staff now have the fluid integration of shared files, scheduled events, and the students' use of the virtual learning environment, providing opportunities to respond to students in a way never done before.

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May 24, 2021

Grocery chain in northern California and southern Oregon boosts customers relationships with custom app

A grocery chain needed a faster, more robust system for managing new product requests. Microsoft Power Apps was the solution. Quickly and easily developed in ten days, the new app not only saved time, but it also boosted revenue through streamlined, product-ordering flow. Find out why it's also popular with customers, and read their success story here:

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Leveraging Tech to Improve Customer Experience: 11 Smart Techniques

The importance of customer experience has taken off in recent years. As competition becomes the norm in many digital and application spaces, the interaction that the consumer has with a company becomes more important. CX is vital in helping a company retain its customers and grow its customer base through organic referrals. Luckily, technology offers several ways for businesses to improve their customer experience. In this article, 11 members of the Forbes Technology Council explain some techniques businesses can use to improve their customers' experience.

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The main challenges of advanced analytics

Digital transformation has enabled businesses to reduce costs, streamline operations, embrace entirely new business models, and discover untapped revenue channels. Many of these benefits come from implementing data-driven technologies, including machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), that transform the increasing amounts of data produced by today's organizations into useful insights that can foster new strategies. Despite the massive potential of these technologies, only 37 percent of businesses that adopt them report successful initiatives. In this infographic, you'll learn about the main challenges that modern organizations face in implementing AI and ML, and how you can overcome them by using Microsoft Azure AI.

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Build applications without breaking the bank

This brief video shows how Microsoft Power Apps can engage employees, improve efficiencies, and solve unique business challenges, all while saving money. Cut down on maintenance costs with the fully managed platform and discover the impressive ROI numbers for further savings.

Rapidly-growing UK restaurant chain migrates key business processes to Microsoft Dynamics 365

TGI Friday's popular and rapidly-growing restaurant franchise in the UK wanted a more scalable, flexible platform for core business processes. To support its ambitious growth, the franchise is consolidating business operations starting with financial management on Microsoft Dynamics 365. Built-in functionality and ease-of-use mean that TGI Friday's can continue to onboard more business processes while expanding its franchise. Benefits include lower costs, easier access to data, and better insight.

May 19, 2021

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Digital transformation in healthcare is revolutionizing how we perceive our interactions with technology. Telemedicine, medical devices enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain electronic health records (EHRs) are just some of the technologies that are helping improve patient-provider interactions. With the overall goal of enhancing patient care, the modern healthcare industry is seeking to streamline physicians' work, optimize systems, improve patient outcomes, reduce human error, and lower costs via amazing web and mobile experiences. Subscribe now for the latest insights into how Microsoft for Healthcare is empowering providers via better tools and more efficient solutions to increase patient satisfaction.

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Modern meetings need modern tools

Have you attended a meeting lately? How was it? In a commissioned report, Microsoft learned about employee challenges with meetings. The findings? Meeting stressors: longer than planned; attendees multi-tasking, late or unprepared; difficult to schedule everyone; and too many meetings. Additionally, 50% of meetings are status or collaborative, and participants need multiple tools. The bottom line is that meeting attendees need better tools that satisfy the needs and address the challenges of today's modern meetings. Microsoft Teams fits the bill.

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May 18, 2021

Save energy and resources with smart farming operations. Learn more about Microsoft Azure AI.

Growing populations require increasing amounts of food, so farmers must become as efficient as possible with the resources they have. This means leveraging every tool available to avoid fluctuations in yield output by powering farms with smart technologies that give farmers instant access to accurate data about their operations. From soil-measuring IoT devices to solar-powered irrigation, digital transformation technologies provide the modern farming industry with tools to power growth and increase sustainability worldwide. Subscribe now to learn how smart farming can lead to higher-yield, environmentally friendly operations and how you can get started with Microsoft Azure AI.

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The Workforce of the Future eBook

New levels of connectivity and advanced technologies like AI enable businesses to process more data on a larger scale. AI plays one of the biggest roles—in terms of disruption and resulting opportunity—for our industry and our workforce. As we look to a future powered by a partnership between computers and humans, we must address these challenges head on: How will AI impact employment and jobs? How do we ensure that AI is designed, used, and governed responsibly? Explore answers to these questions and more in this valuable eBook.

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Leonard Cheshire supports people to live, learn, and work independently with the help of Power Apps and Dynamics 365

Leonard Cheshire is a major nonprofit that is removing barriers to independent living, learning, and working for people with disabilities. Using Microsoft Power Apps, the organization is building a complete, cohesive platform for modern, streamlined operations. After many years of disparate technologies, Leonard Cheshire staff now work on a common platform with a single view of the information they need. See their success story here:

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ROI Azure Synapse

This infographic shows how @Microsoft Azure Synapse brings Big Data and Data Warehousing together in a single service to provide limitless analytics.

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Keeping the Farmer and Farm Working

Without proper access to running water, farming can be a daunting task. Yet this is the reality that farmers must confront in some parts of Kenya. Such conditions severely limit their ability to increase their yields and secure a stable income for themselves and their family. To make matters more difficult, they also face the problem of a very short rainy season. This alone makes sustaining adequate water levels challenging, but it's compounded by reliance on wells for irrigation. In this video, you'll see how Monica, an independent farmer in East Africa, has leveraged digital transformation to overcome these challenges. You'll learn how IoT devices, solar energy, and Microsoft Azure can combine to sustain profitable farming operations, even in some of the harshest conditions on the planet.

May 17, 2021

Innovation for everyone

Overcome obstacles to innovation and see how Microsoft Power Apps modernizes the app creation process. Accelerate development to build apps without risk, deploy quickly, integrate data, and infuse AI. As IT moves towards low-code solutions, you can become an agile, data-first company with Power Apps. Learn how:

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The Role of AI and People Analytics in Developing the Leaders of Tomorrow

While investment in digital business solutions continues to increase, employees remain the lifeblood of every enterprise. This article from Forbes covers key ways AI and analytics help organizations hire the right people and train them for success.

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DHHS: Platform plus agile development

Digitally transforming public services to make them accessible to everyone who needs them as quickly as possible is key to building trust in public agencies. But to do so effectively, governments need to ensure that their applications and websites remain as accessible and user-friendly as possible, which requires that they streamline processes, choose stable platforms, and follow the best development methodologies. If these new apps are adopted correctly, they can provide governments with universally accessible two-way channels for interacting with citizens that lessen reliance on physical interaction, while providing government employees more and better information about their cases. Watch this video to learn how an agile approach to app development combined with Microsoft Azure is changing the way the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in Victoria, Australia, is delivering IT to its department and the entire state.

NSW: Empowering through ease of use

For the New South Wales Department of Education, getting students excited about technology started with ease of use. Students were empowered through using technology they were originally unfamiliar with and over time creating professional quality work. Teachers saw increased confidence levels as well as authentic interest from students wanting to learn more. We want devices and technology that are easy to use, whether it be students in an educational environment or employees in the modern workplace. Ease of use must be a priority, and Microsoft Teams was built for this. View this video for a quick glimpse of this.

May 12, 2021

Faster together: How citizens plus pros are reshaping app dev with low code

In this digital briefing, learn how IT teams are embracing citizen development within their organizations. Join the excitement surrounding low-code solutions among IT staff and explore best practices for creating teams that encourage collaboration between citizen and professional developers. Start your app journey here.

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Building Autonomous Systems with Microsoft AI

This video is a powerful example of how autonomous systems can be aligned to intelligently perform routine tasks. Toyota Material Handling partnered with Microsoft using AirSim (an open source simulation platform originally developed to teach drones or robots to learn in high fidelity simulated environments) to train a forklift on tasks like picking up a pallet. This video illustrates the vision for a future warehouse with pre-trained, intelligent forklifts assisting people in everyday activities.

50 Percent of Emails and Texts are Misunderstood, But There's an Easy Way to Change That

Digital communication permeates every aspect of the modern workplace, from emails to texting to messaging to the chat feature in Microsoft Teams. Unfortunately, "people think others understand their messages 90 percent of the time, but the actual statistic is only 50 percent," according to Nick Morgan, author of "Can You Hear Me? How to Connect with People in a Virtual World." How do we make sure our messages aren't misunderstood half the time? In his article, "50 Percent of Emails and Texts are Misunderstood, But There's an Easy Way to Change That," Ryan Jenkins states there's a simple solution: use emojis. Not only is emoji acceptance in the workplace growing (61% of emoji users use them at work), but research demonstrates that the same part of the brain that processes human faces also processes emojis. "When an emoji conveys a human emotion, it can be transferred in a text. Therefore, emojis help communicators manage the emotional tone of digital messages. And emojis help recipients interpret the tone of digital message," writes Jenkins. The modern workplace includes increased digital communication as well as increased emoji use—read this article in its entirety to understand the benefits of using emojis at work 😊

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Reliable Electric: Power platform customer story

This case study tells the success story of Lars Peterson, a citizen developer and general manager at Reliable Electric in Canada. Teaching himself Power Apps, Microsoft Flow, and SQL, Lars built a simple but powerful app that accelerates the bidding process for electricians. Ultimately, his company replaced proprietary bidding software that cost $2,000 per seat, transforming the business and improving the bottom line. Learn how you can start saving, too.

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Five soon-to-be trends in artificial intelligence and deep learning

To truly become a game-changer, artificial intelligence (AI) can't be limited to a one-time effort. It requires a constant influx of data and the right expertise to teach machines how to analyze and react to user behaviors. This means that while immediate or short-term ROI from AI initiatives is a rare occurrence, when it does begin to pay off, the resulting innovations and efficiencies can drive an organization's growth for years to come. Taking the time to analyze trends and establish the right vision for your organization's AI roadmap is a critical but frequently overlooked step toward adopting this technology. In this article, you'll learn about five soon-to-be AI trends that are expected to influence this technology in a major way.

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May 11, 2021

Building an AI Powered organization

The business world is rapidly changing. It is estimated that AI will add $13 trillion to the global economy over the next decade-and yet from thousands of executives surveyed, only 8% of firms are adopting core practices that fully support implementation. Businesses arrive at progress slowly, reflecting a failure to rewire within the organization. This article from Harvard Business Review demonstrates how companies can make a successful shift to utilizing AI and setting themselves up for success.

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5 Technological Innovations Changing Medical Practice

Game-changing technological innovations are having profound repercussions in almost every industry across the world. The health sector in particular is embracing innovations that offer significant business opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. And with tech developers, engineers, and researchers regularly breaking new ground and achieving what was once thought impossible, it seems that the question to ask now is not if a given breakthrough can be achieved, but when. Read this article to learn about the five key areas in which digital transformation is enabling providers to drive breakthroughs in healthcare and deliver improved patient experiences.

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NSW: Assisting assistive technologies

According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people globally are living with a disability, yet only one in ten has access to assistive technology. Inclusion is an important topic for Microsoft; to help everyone get the most from accessibility resources, the company has created the Disability Answer Desk (DAD). It's free, 24/7 technical support from Microsoft experts trained in assistive technologies. All organizations have assistive technology needs, and for some its absolutely crucial. View this video to learn how the New South Wales education department utilizes Microsoft Teams to address assistive technology needs for its students and staff.

Microsoft's four guiding principles for artificial intelligence

Digital transformation and the Internet of Things (IoT) together have enabled businesses worldwide to gain deeper understanding of their customers. They've also allowed organizations to obtain data from previously untapped sources to better understand how processes can be optimized, but obtaining this data is only part of the equation. To transform massive amounts of raw information into meaningful insights, businesses must leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that offer the flexibility and power they need. In this infographic, you'll learn about the four Microsoft guiding principles for AI that make Azure AI a top choice among today's leading enterprises.

View: Microsoft's four guiding principles for artificial intelligence

Leverage existing talent: empower your team to develop apps

This video shows how you can enable your current team to build application solutions with advanced functionality using Microsoft Power Apps. Its visual approach is intuitive and simple, yet flexible and powerful. This low-code platform has capabilities for both citizen and pro developers. Unleash your IT team to collaborate with fully supported end-to-end, low-code development. Learn more here:

May 10, 2021

2 Types of Artificial Intelligence

Bring the future into your business today with AI. Explore two types: Pre-Built and Custom Built. Pre-Built AI has cognitive services - deep learning cognitive capabilities ready to use (vision, speech, knowledge, translation, etc.), whereas Custom Built AI uses machine learning capabilities to analyze data to build and an artificial neural network to address specific problems not covered by Cognitive Services.

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Microsoft Dynamics 365: Rapid healthcare transformation demands a holistic approach

As the healthcare industry continues its rapid shift toward value-based care, providers are facing a stark challenge: evolve quickly or risk losing patients. To remain competitive, modern healthcare leaders must find ways of unifying healthcare data to unlock connectivity and interoperability that can improve the value of care. Effective strategies must address healthcare's core challenges comprehensively through modern technologies that support multifaceted goals to achieve exponential improvements, instead of one-off solutions that address single challenges. Read this eBook to learn how unlocking interoperability via Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help your organization enable personalized care, reimagine healthcare, improve operational outcomes, and empower care teams. You'll also discover how achieving these four objectives will allow your organization to reduce costs, increase revenue, and better manage risk, leading to dramatically improved patient outcomes.

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Building a Microsoft Teams Custom Solutions practice

Every team has unique needs. Microsoft Teams is the teamwork hub and solution-tool to address those needs and help your customers reach maximum business outcomes. Help your customers realize the value of Microsoft Teams with a custom solution that integrates workflows and business processes in a single hub for teamwork, increasing productivity across the organization. Follow the recommended steps in this practice-building infographic—download it now!

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May 5, 2021

Increase oversight and control of farming operations. Get started with Microsoft Azure IoT.

No one can control the weather, but thanks to increased adoption of IoT devices, farmers can now measure and control nearly every aspect of their holdings. Further, by using advanced platforms like Microsoft Azure IoT, farmers can use their mobile devices to get information and to control their operations from virtually anywhere in the world. Subscribe now to learn more about how devices can leverage the power of Microsoft Azure IoT to enable smart farming and ensure productive oversight.

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May 4, 2021

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Microsoft Analytics and AI spark innovation and enable endless opportunities for using your data to foster growth. Subscribe now!

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Digitizing behind-the-scenes processes potentially offers one of the most important productivity gains the public sector has seen in decades. It's also one of the most challenging undertakings an organization can pull off. Many well-intentioned digital efforts have been plagued by unfortunate side effects, including high costs, burdensome efforts, and lack of positive results. To prevent these scenarios, governments must concentrate their digital efforts on improving the experiences of users, rather than upgrading technologies for their own sake. Subscribe now to learn how Microsoft for Healthcare enables providers to deliver patient-centric experiences that fuel growth and increase the productivity of care teams.

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Airlines, among other major industries, confident with Teams as its hub

Microsoft has identified the airlines as one of the most successful industries when it comes to utilizing the widespread value of Microsoft Teams. At the Operations level alone, Teams plays a crucial role with maintenance and repair, fleet management, overbooked flights, incident prevention, and communication with cabin crew as well as flight status. App integrations such as Notification Bot and Flight Team Creation support Teams as a communication hub for emergencies or quick, path-altering activity. Established flight team rosters, @mentions in chats and channels for instant attention, and quick access to information helps stakeholders with decision making and context. Quick decision-making and informing employees of changes—Microsoft Teams is set up for this, and more. There are many other industries experiencing success with Teams! Subscribe now to learn how Microsoft Teams can help your business manage people, updates, and information in a quickly changing workplace and world.

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Meet the Power Apps Champions

Microsoft Power Apps empowers citizen developers to build and share custom, professional applications that solve their business challenges. In this blog, you'll see the stories of citizen developers who built apps and became Power Apps Champions.

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Future Generali uses Microsoft AI to Deepen Customer Engagements

Future Generali India Life Insurance Co. Ltd. adopted the use of REVA, a chatbot built on the Microsoft Bot Framework, which plays a key role in driving insightful conversations with its customers. In this video, see how the company has already seen an increase in the customer satisfaction rate by 91%, which won them the Microsoft and CNBC TV18 #AIForAll award for leveraging AI for enhancing customer engagement.

May 3, 2021

Producing a high yield and better quality of life

Sustainable energy and digital transformation can combine to provide new avenues to success and increase convenience for people in isolated areas. This is especially true in places without a modern electrical infrastructure where residents rely on labor-intensive tasks. Innovative solutions can help them automate simple tasks, often making the difference between mere survival and prosperity. In many parts of Africa, for example, farmers lack access to running water. Instead they rely on wells to sustain their families, water their crops, and support their livestock. In this video, you'll see how Monica, an independent farmer in Kenya, increased her yields and quality of life by implementing a solar-powered irrigation system based on Microsoft Azure IoT.

Samit Saini's Power Apps journey at Heathrow

This video captures the journey of Samit Saini, a security officer at London Heathrow Airport and who discovered Microsoft Power Apps. As a novice, he easily created useful, time-saving applications. Now, as a member of the IT team, he teaches others to do the same. See how Samit and Power Apps led digital transformation.

DHHS: Growing community services with apps

Organizations in almost every industry have transformed themselves via digital technologies, and the public healthcare sector is no exception. By digitizing, providers can deliver services that meet the evolving expectations of citizens and businesses, even in a period of tight budgets and complex challenges. Citizens prefer digital services and immensely value the increased convenience they provide. Digital services can also empower citizens and broaden their engagement with government agencies, leading to increased trust and improved patient experiences. Watch this video to learn how the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in Victoria, Australia, is using Microsoft Azure to amplify its portfolio of citizen-facing applications, deliver online housing register, and improve its client incident management system.

NSW: Preparing students for the future

Globally, education looks different in various regions. But one common commonality is for student exposure to technology so they can develop skills that will be useful in their future. In New South Wales, Australia, one of the goals of incorporating Microsoft Teams into the education department is to provide and prepare students for whatever the future might deliver. As one educator stated, "Being digitally resilient and actually understanding how to use technology the right way...I think that really is the key." View this video to learn how a large organization utilizes Microsoft Teams to prepare students for the future.