New industry clouds offer launchpad for innovation

New Industry Clouds

February 25, 2021, Hong Kong – Over the past year, we have experienced dramatic disruption around the world. Companies in every industry have turned to digital technologies to provide the resilience and agility necessary to survive. The urgency for entire industries to transform at scale has never been greater.

In response, Microsoft has accelerated efforts to support and co-innovate with customers and partners — both now and in the long term — with industry-specific cloud offerings that can provide a launchpad for further innovations.

Today, Microsoft is announcing another milestone in those efforts with three new industry-specific cloud offerings: Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. The company is also announcing the first update to Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, and the public preview timing for Microsoft Cloud for Retail, introduced in January at NRF.

The Microsoft industry clouds are created by bringing together common data models, cross-cloud connectors, workflows, APIs, and industry-specific components and standards, with the breadth of Microsoft’s cloud services, including Microsoft 365 and Teams, Azure, Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and security solutions. Through these industry clouds, Microsoft aims to empower everyone to deliver value faster, adapt quickly to changing conditions, build for the future, and do all of this with security at the core.

Designed with industry challenges in mind, these clouds can enable organizations to jump ahead and deliver value at record pace. This is because they provide an onramp to the broader portfolio of Microsoft cloud services, enabling customers to begin with the areas where the need for technology transformation is most urgent.

Because of the breadth and depth of the Microsoft partner ecosystem, Microsoft industry clouds also provide new opportunities to strengthen and extend for the last mile of industry execution. Partners bring new innovation and expertise to deliver tailored solutions for unique customer needs.

Financial Services: Comprehensive services at customers’ fingertips with the highest security and compliance standards at the core

Financial services is a deeply traditional industry that has been steadily disrupted the past few years by trends like e-commerce, fintechs, and cryptos. The industry was already shifting from brick-and-mortar locations to digital services, but global lockdowns accelerated this trend.

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services brings together Microsoft solutions, unique templates, API’s and additional industry-specific standards, along with multi-layered security and compliance coverage to deliver differentiated customer experiences, improve employee collaboration and productivity, manage risk, and modernize core systems. Using these capabilities, retail banks can create a 360-degree view of the customer with greater insight and suggested next best action, embed digital collaboration into their process workflows to create real-time visibility to status and streamline hand-offs, enhance insights to help reduce fraud — all with the scalable and hybrid deployment options financial services organizations require to modernize their systems.

For example, a new feature called Loan Manager will enable lenders to close loans faster by streamlining workflows and increasing transparency through automation and collaboration — a critical function in the current world of remote-everything. Public preview is planned for March 2021, and customers like ABN AMRO and Manulife are already taking advantage of some of its capabilities.

Azure is already powering the digital transformation of AIA Hong Kong & Macau. “The global pandemic has accelerated the transformation of our industry as it changed everyone’s habits, from face-to-face interactions in the old days to everything remote nowadays. I believe that digital technologies are key to business growth, but we also have to make a step change to continue to define the industry’s future and lead its transformation, while adapting to the ever-changing environment and staying competitive. By increasing the pace of our multi-year digital transformation program leveraging technology, cloud and data analytics, we can provide better and more personalized experiences to customers, empower our financial planners and partners, and optimize our back-end operations. Throughout our journey, Microsoft has been a strategic collaborator in supporting us to define the future of the industry and stay ahead of the competition. With AI-driven insights and digital tools powered by Microsoft Azure, we are able to better understand and engage with our customers,” said Gary Ho, Head of Digitalization, Innovation and Enterprise Architecture, AIA Hong Kong & Macau.

New Industry Clouds

Manufacturing: Intelligent systems and agile factories

Manufacturers have been moving toward data-driven automation, IoT, machine learning and AI for years. If anything, 2020 showed just how critical those capabilities are. As factory floors grounded to a halt, even the most sophisticated, just-in-time supply chains were impacted.

Available for public preview by the end of June, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing is designed to deliver capabilities that support the core processes and requirements of the industry. These end-to-end manufacturing solutions bring together new and existing capabilities across the Microsoft portfolio as well as partner solutions that together can seamlessly connect people, assets, workflows, and business processes, helping organizations become more resilient.

Many of these capabilities were on display during the VentilatorChallengeUK, where a consortium of companies helped the UK increase ventilator production from 50 to 1,500 per week. Partners like Accenture, Avanade, PTC, and Siemens responded using Microsoft’s cloud capabilities for manufacturing.

Nonprofit: Enabling and accelerating mission-driven impact

Nonprofits are addressing many of our world’s most pressing challenges, providing critical services and support to communities everywhere. Yet, nonprofits are often challenged with a patchwork of disparate systems and pockets of disconnected data. Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit creates a connected, intelligent platform to empower staff and volunteers to focus on the work that matters most — their mission.

Launching in public preview by the end of June, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit connects the trusted cloud capabilities of Microsoft to the most common nonprofit scenarios, such as constituent engagement, program design and delivery, volunteer management, and fundraising, all brought together by the nonprofit common data model.

Right To Play is a global NGO dedicated to protecting, educating and empowering children using the power of play. Using capabilities of the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, the organization has scaled from 100 to more than 3,000 new monthly donors, deepening engagements and building better programs to serve more than 2 million children worldwide every week.

New Industry Clouds

Retail: Blurring the lines between the physical and the digital

Retail is a constantly evolving industry, and those efforts have taken on a breakneck pace over the past 12 months to accommodate record online sales, shifts in customer loyalty, a surge in “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) and curbside pickup.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail brings together different data sources across the retail value chain and uniquely connects experiences across the end-to-end shopper journey, using a set of capabilities that deliver more relevant personalized experiences and optimize operations for sustained profitability.

Using this industry cloud, retailers can build more targeted and relevant customer recommendations and notifications, expand their fulfillment options, simplify payment processing, and benefit from comprehensive fraud protection. Currently in private preview, Microsoft Cloud for Retail will be available for public preview in March.

Athletic headwear company Lids is already using Microsoft products included in the cloud, like Dynamics 365 Commerce, to bring greater visibility into its sales and supply chain and modernize its point-of-sale (POS) system. “We are excited to explore Microsoft Cloud for Retail as another crucial tool to bring together our stores, product, and marketing systems and unlock the power of our data,” said Britten Maughan, senior vice president of product and partnerships at Lids.

Healthcare: Increased resiliency for the challenges ahead

With the expertise of partner Avtex, Mary Washington Health System is deploying a solution built on Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare that helps securely connect providers digitally with patients who have canceled or deferred elective procedures. Solutions like this allow patients to reconnect with their healthcare providers and restart important procedures that have been delayed — while also helping providers recover in a post-pandemic world.

The core elements of Microsoft’s industry vision

“Microsoft will always be a trusted advisor, co-innovator, and partner to our customers and partners. Today’s news is the next step on our journey to deliver industry-specific clouds that enable every organization to adapt to a constantly changing new reality. Across these announcements, we believe our mission, our power of partnership, and deep commitment to security, and compliance, and trust allow Microsoft to deliver on our industry vision in a way that no other company can,” said Alysa Taylor, CVP, Business Applications and Global Industry.

First, Microsoft’s industry approach is core to its mission to empower people to achieve more. Every organization in every industry relies on the hard work and ingenuity of individuals to achieve its goals. With an industry-first approach, Microsoft is putting specific solutions in the hands of people closest to the problem. This helps the organizations act faster and make more intelligent decisions – and ultimately provide better experiences.

Second, Microsoft’s approach proves the power of partnership. Its partner ecosystem is unmatched in adding deep expertise and building high-value solutions for virtually any scenario or function. Microsoft works with leading ISVs and SIs in every industry to ensure customers have the solutions they need to address their business challenges.

Finally, Microsoft has a deep commitment to security, compliance, and trust. Its offerings incorporate industry-recognized standards from edge to cloud, with more than 90 certifications and more than 35 industry-specific compliance offerings. This creates value for partners too, because it allows them to invest in opportunities and scaling their business rather than applying for certifications. Additionally, the company’s approach to customer data underscores its commitment to trust – customer data belongs to customers, not to Microsoft.

The complexity of the world is increasing daily, and the lessons of 2020 are showing up as organizations everywhere learn to be more agile and resilient. They are counting on Microsoft to help them master this complexity so they can move faster, innovate thoughtfully, and be positioned for success.

To learn more about the clouds, we invite you to join the coming previews and tune into dedicated sessions at Microsite Ignite next week and visit our industry site for more product information.

Members of the media can find additional resources in our press room:

https://news.microsoft.com/industry 

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About Microsoft

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.

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