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Microsoft shares latest trends on Knowledge Mining and industry-specific solutions to lead the next wave of Data and AI transformation
October 6, 2020, Hong Kong –– Microsoft Hong Kong today hosted the Microsoft Partner Forum 2020 as part of its “Empower Hong Kong” series. With the theme “Make It Our Time”, the online event has brought together over 1,000 partners in Hong Kong to share the latest trends and insights to capture opportunities amid the new normal. Despite the challenges faced over the past year, Microsoft showcased how technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data and Cloud computing are empowering its partners to innovate and enable their customers to build resilience, develop new ways of working, and strengthen business efficiency.
At the Forum, Microsoft also highlighted the power of AI and Knowledge Mining in unlocking business opportunities. Knowledge Mining is the process of extracting information from content across different sources, using image processing technologies including Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and natural language processing.
By capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge over time, Knowledge Mining allows organizations to easily explore information and uncover hidden insights that can contribute to business growth. The integration of Knowledge Mining is a steppingstone in Microsoft’s commitment to empower its partners to innovate and differentiate themselves through AI.
“At Microsoft, we are working to make AI accessible to every individual and organization, to bring a positive impact on how people work and live. Our partners play an important role in delivering this goal. The application of AI and Knowledge Mining can transform a range of industries including finance, manufacturing, retail and education, for businesses large and small,” said Kelvin Tse, Director, One Commercial Partner and Small, Medium & Corporate Customers, Microsoft Hong Kong.
“To thrive in the new normal, organizations not only need to be fast-adopters of modern technologies, but they must also build their own digital capabilities. We have seen partners harness AI technology to build new capabilities, differentiate and capture new business opportunities. Looking ahead, we can expect the AI and Knowledge Mining to become an important part of building a competitive advantage. Microsoft is committed to supporting our partners on this journey, unleashing the full potential of AI capabilities.”
Kelvin Tse, Director, One Commercial Partner and Small, Medium & Corporate Customers, Microsoft Hong Kong shared Microsoft’s commitment to make AI and Knowledge Mining accessible with its partners.
Knowledge Mining Distills Data to Unlock Intelligence
A recent study from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and Microsoft reveals that many organizations face challenges when it comes to dealing with, and gleaning knowledge from, the ever-increasing amounts of data under their control.
These challenges are further complicated by the diversity of content types, which range from PDFs and images to unique formats. Transforming this treasure trove of content into actionable insights requires extensive time, resources, and data science expertise, which not every organization has the luxury to do so.
The survey also revealed that more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents believe that knowledge mining is important in achieving their companies’ strategic goals in the next 18 months. The need for knowledge mining is also quickly growing – 77% are using manual methods to handle unstructured information, and those methods will quickly be outpaced by the growth of data and the demand for the insights it can deliver.
With more people remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are also increasingly digitalizing their content processing operations to meet the demands of a virtualized workflow. This has further accelerated the demand for Knowledge Mining to understand all this content effectively, efficiently, and contextually.
Through Knowledge Mining, organizations can discover and gain intelligence from their existing data and unlock new value for their business.
Microsoft Hong Kong Partners Drive Advances in Knowledge Mining
By utilizing Microsoft Azure Search, the only cloud search service with built-in AI capabilities, businesses and developers can quickly apply AI across their content to unlock untapped information. Microsoft partners such as Fuji Xerox (Hong Kong) have built Knowledge Mining solutions to help organizations from a number of sectors unlock new value from untapped information in their content and documents.
- SMEs: Fuji Xerox (Hong Kong) and Microsoft have partnered to create affordable, tailored solutions to help local SMEs boost their efficiency through Capture and Flow Service, a cloud-based AI Capturing Platform. The Capture and Flow Service brings together document management, powerful AI and precise OCR, delivered through Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure. Harnessing machine learning to turbo-charge the platform, Capture and Flow eliminates human error and shortens the path to unlocking deep business insights. Local SMEs can also enjoy enterprise-grade reliability and security at a low price point, helping their businesses to become smarter and more efficient.
- Retail: Nikoyo (HK) Limited’s Simple Capture Service (SCS) provides a better customer experience for the retail sector with real-time automatic data capturing and processing on Azure. For example, SCS helps to extract receipt information and automatically calculates eligible eCoupon amounts for a shopping mall loyalty program, which not only reduces customers waiting time but uncovers customer insights to inform the mall’s marketing strategy. Additionally, a P2P payment app now leverages SCS to provide a self-help identity verification service. By automatically recognizing and verifying the information on a user’s ID card in real-time, SCS has significantly reduced the time for manual verification and successfully improved the user experience. The Simple Capture Service (SCS) with an Azure Scale Set also provides a resilient and scalable service to the payment app for millions of users.
- FSI: UiPath’s Enterprise RPA (Robotic Process Automation) platform accelerates insurance companies’ digital transformation by executing manual and repetitive tasks according to a rules-based algorithm. For example, UiPath’s enterprise RPA solution combined with AI automates the procedure/diagnostic code matching process. This reduces the numbers of claims that must be processed by a human and speeds up claim processing times for customers. It can also automate the auto policy renewal process, saving time and delivering cost savings. This improves the customer experience, reduces compliance and risk, and increases employee satisfaction. Working across Microsoft’s three clouds and Teams, UiPath’s Enterprise RPA Platform leverages Azure’s AI and ML services to enable intelligent automation solutions that are fast, scalable, and easy to use.
- Healthcare: Applied Technology Group has partnered with Hong Kong Health Check Group & Medical Diagnostic Center Limited (HKHC) to provide smart healthcare to customers. They have developed Health•Me2, supported by Microsoft AI technologies, to serve as a one-stop personalized healthcare management app that allows users to store and retrieve their personal medical records, manage appointments at HKHC’s centers and maintain a personalized dietary plan. The App also helps to improve and monitor users’ health conditions from the Health•Me2 Smart Wristband EWB-1010, with in-depth AI analytics providing recommendations and personalized health news.
- Manufacturing: KBQuest’s Ai-Knowie utilizes robotic process automation (RPA) technology and machine learning to help businesses digitalize and automate invoice processing with minimized manual intervention. For example, by automating the accounts payable operations, a leading textile manufacturing company can now significantly shorten invoice processing time and improve operational efficiency. Since data is automatically updated in the system once invoices are processed, real-time insights into its payment process and financial status become available quickly which offers greater transparency.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
