What is a Cloud PC anyway, and what does it mean for Microsoft Partners?

This year’s Microsoft Inspire was a busy one. If you missed it, we rounded up the highlights to help you make sense of it all. Perhaps the most significant announcement to come from Inspire was Windows 365; Microsoft’s simplified cloud PC solution that echoes a new-found commitment to Windows development and innovation in the world of hybrid work. As such, we think Windows 365 warrants its own explainer piece for tech heads and Microsoft Partners who want to know more about the opportunities it brings to the table.

Windows in a hybrid world

When offices around the world were forced to close and employees suddenly found themselves working from home (including here at Fifty Five and Five), Windows 10 (and all operating systems for that matter) became a vital tool for all those needing to connect to with colleagues. The ongoing global chip shortage left many people to “make do and mend”, bringing their old PCs and tablets out of retirement and into a new era of remote working. So, what could Microsoft do to make sure people using Windows remained productive?

Enter: the cloud. Come on… did you expect anything else from the company that just announced ridiculous Azure growth? Windows 365 allows users to stream the full Windows desktop—including apps, data and personal settings—to almost any device. That means non-Windows devices like iPads, Android devices, Macs and Chromebooks can access the full Windows experience. In a world where Paul from Accounts needs to access SAGE from his son’s school-provided Chromebook (an unlikely scenario, but that’s not the point!), then he can certainly achieve that with Windows 365.

Whilst the tech is certainly nothing new (*cough* Citrix Workspace *cough*), Microsoft’s customers likely value remote desktop solutions as indispensable for employees now spending more time at home than in the office – perhaps evidenced by the fact that demand for Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) exploded just as the pandemic hit. And that’s no surprise; virtual environments are easier to manage, more secure, and workplaces can provide access to corporate apps and services without sourcing and configuring a physical device (which, again, the chip shortage is making very difficult these days).

Azure Virtual Desktop versus Windows 365

“So Microsoft have TWO virtual desktop solutions?!” I hear you yell. It’s true – and so confusion here is justified. We’ll try to break it down for you.

Windows 365 is the new kid on the block, but deep down it’s based on the same technical infrastructure as AVD. You might think that they’re the same service, in that sense. But they’re not. The differences start to become clear when we look at the pricing models for each service.

AVD operates on a pay-as-you-go basis where clients are billed based on their Azure consumption. This provides customers with some flexibility in terms of paying only for what they use, but it also means that usage must be closely monitored to avoid unexpected costs.

Windows 365, on the other hand, is billed using a predictable per-user-per-month pricing model, with different SKUs available to meet various user needs. Simply put, AVD is optimized for flexibility, whereas Windows 365 is optimized for simplicity.

Digital transformation and the partner opportunity

Despite being built on the same tech as AVD, the partner story for Windows 365 is a little different to that of Azure Virtual Desktop. Because Windows 365 is a full-service offering, there is little for partners to tailor or “make their own” with Windows 365. That’s in contrast to AVD where partners like Citrix have created their own unique solutions.

But that’s not to say that there isn’t a partner opportunity with Windows 365. The last 16 months have seen companies embark on a period of intense digital transformation to support the remote working needs of employees. Microsoft have created a lot of buzz in for Windows 365, and partners could benefit from the free marketing that Microsoft is generating here.

Whilst Windows 365 is built for simplicity, it certainly isn’t the cheapest solution available. This is where the partner opportunity lies – you can ride the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) wave by leveraging AVD and coming in at a price lower than competitors who are simply re-selling Windows 365. The benefit for partners is that they can, in essence, provide the same service as Windows 365 but at a more competitive price to customers.

Offering value to your customers

But if AVD isn’t your thing, Windows 365 can add value to your broader set of digital transformation or cloud migration solutions. Customers will make the most of Windows 365 (and AVD) due to access to Microsoft’s suite of market-leading productivity tools that come with it – including documents in OneDrive, emails in Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. Windows 365 could provide that extra value-add that helps your customers migrate fully to the cloud.

Fifty Five and Five have a rich history of working with Microsoft Partners to improve their messaging and ultimately drive leads. If you want to improve your value proposition in preparation for Windows 365, get in touch with the team today.

by James Woods

Microsoft Inspire 2020: keynote takeaways

Microsoft Inspire 2020 kicked off on Tuesday – this time in an online-only format. Like the rest of the partner network, we were disappointed to miss out on attending in person (last year, Queen and Adam Lambert played – yes, it was epic). But it hasn’t stopped us from enjoying the highlights from the comfort of our homes. Vegas will still be there next year.

As well as the Nevada sunshine and musical headliners, another regular highlight at the Microsoft conference are the annual keynote addresses. In case you missed it, we’ve put together the main Inspire 2020 keynote takeaways from the speakers on the first day, which was led by Gavriella Schuster (Microsoft Corporate VP of Commercial Partners) Judson Althoff, (Executive VP of Worldwide Commercial Business) and Nick Parker (Corporate VP of Consumer and Device Sales).

The COVID-19 pandemic

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic was a central talking point for this year’s event. The speakers celebrated frontline workers throughout – highlighting how they continue to make daily life possible. Schuster, Althoff and Parker also commended the many Microsoft partners that have built solutions to help the world adapt to these trying times.

Althoff referred to the ‘digital first responders’ behind frontline workers – those that have built rapid solutions to make continued education, remote working and accessing necessary services possible. He praised these people for connecting the world digitally and helping communities to move forwards.

Accelerating the cloud shift

Althoff explained that the growth of the cloud is still crucial in helping customers achieve their economic goals:

‘Our solution areas, our cloud capabilities – from modern workplace through security, business applications, apps and infrastructure, data and AI – across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure – these are the ingredients that will help customers persevere in these difficult times.’

He continued by explaining that the world needs this innovation now more than ever. He called on partners to help in addressing customers’ needs – whether they have the consulting practices that bring these virtual solutions to life, or the assets and intellectual property as an independent software vendor (ISV) or software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider.

Opportunities for remote working

On the topic of remote working solutions, Schuster explained that the pandemic has changed the way we work forever. She referenced how demand for Microsoft Teams has surged, and highlighted how the real transformation could be seen when customers learnt the ‘full value of Microsoft 365 as a secure, remote work collaboration solution.’

To expand on this point, Schuster turned to Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) as a notable opportunity for partners moving forwards:

‘With WVD, organisations can get up and running in minutes from the Azure portal. You have the flexibility to choose the virtual machines, the regional locations, and you can set up multi sessions for the users...You can manage that environment and turn it into a managed service opportunity – without much heavy lifting.’

Moving towards Managed Services

Schuster told her audience that now is the right time to meet customers where they are. She said that, with customers uneasy about big up-front costs, it’s possible to develop a managed service practice and show up as a hero to the customer.

‘What happens if you don’t take this step? Now may be the time. Maybe this year, your investors are expecting a little less from you, and the customers are asking for monthly terms. You can make the investment into managed services that will help your customers and build your business long-term. And if you don’t have the resources for all this support, this is a great opportunity to partner together.’

Partners were ready for this moment

Perhaps the most inspiring part of this keynote was Schuster’s comments on the Microsoft partner ecosystem. She explained that, while there is uncertainty all around, the MPN manage it by creating certainty – wherever they can:

‘You were built for this moment in time. You are the certainty...we were ready because the solutions we’ve been building together over the last 18 months are the same ones our customers need right now – solutions and services around remote work, business continuity, security and cloud migrations.’

Each year at Microsoft Inspire, we discover more about the partner network and empower companies to achieve more through their digital marketing strategies. If you want to improve your marketing get in touch with the team at Fifty Five and Five today.

by Stephen Reilly

Your Virtual Microsoft Inspire 2020 preparation tips

• This year's Inspire conference is entirely virtual
  
• We share the best Microsoft Inspire 2020 preparation tips 

Around this time every year, we share our tips for attending Microsoft Inspire. Usually, our advice is based on attending the conference in person. Whether it’s making new business connections, socialising, or absorbing the sights and sounds of Las Vegas, taking part can be a pretty amazing experience. However, the current pandemic has changed our summer plans. As a result, Microsoft Inspire 2020 is going to be a virtual conference. 

While this presents challenges, thanks to the cloud and today’s communication software, we’ve all got the means to make Inspire 2020 just as successful as any other year. 

In this blog, we’re going to give you some advice about taking your networking remote. 

7 Microsoft Inspire 2020 preparation tips 

We’ve been to Inspire five years in a row, and those experiences have taught us some valuable lessons on what to expect and how to prepare. Here are our top 7 Microsoft Inspire 2020 preparation tips, adapted for a virtual experience: 

 1. Plan for new connections  

Inspire is an ideal time to make new connections, but it requires preparation if you’re wish to make the right ones. It’s useful to take a good look at the attendee demographic of past shows. Microsoft provide detailed data on the subject, including: 

•  Attendee figures 
• Sector and industry breakdown 
• Job role breakdown 
• Areas of interest breakdown 

As a digital marketing agency whose client base includes Microsoft partners, everyone at Inspire has the potential to be a customer, lead, or useful connection for us. But even so, it’s important that we take time to study exactly who will be attending. Doing your research ahead of the event pays huge dividends. Just because you're not in the room, this year, doesn’t mean you can’t make a valuable new connection – online networking events will be taking place across the week this year so it’s important to create a list of businesses and people you’d like to speak to and seek them out.  

2. Flaunt your assets  

Every year, we produce an annual review celebrating the marketing efforts of Microsoft partners: The Fifty Five and Five Digital Marketing Excellence Report. Usually we launch each new edition from our stand at the conference, giving away hard copies to attendees. 

This year instead of handing out physical reports we will release a fully digitally version instead. While we can’t create the same kind of face-to-face interactions at the event, we’ll be making sure to reach out to all our friends in the Microsoft partner world with access to our content – and, of course, congratulating those who ranked in our report. This is an exciting evolution to the “Microsoft Top 50”, and we are very excited to share it!  

Whilst it is always worth taking a proactive role in your value adding activities, it’s particularly important now. Try to stand out in your leads’ memories by going the extra mile – perhaps consider sending a free “how-to” guide or invite them to a specialist session that they simply can’t refuse.  

3. Who do you want to talk to? 

Despite not attending Inspire in person this year, you should still have a client ‘target list’ with information such as:  

• People that you really want to connect with 
• Companies that you also want to connect with. 
• Exhibiting companies you want to check in with. 
• Past or existing clients that are attending virtually that you should say hello to.
• Relevant Microsoft employees that you want to virtually meet at the show. 

This list will help you to prioritise your time and make meaningful, valuable connections.  

4. Make the workshops work for you 

Every year Inspire hosts hundreds of workshops from some of the industry’s leading organisations and figures. We’re expecting that this year will be no different, except that these workshops will be hosted online.  

It’s important to maximise your ROI for your tickets, so create a list of the workshops you want to attend. Assign your team to different workshops and ask them to create summaries that you can share throughout your business. This can also be leveraged as content for during and after Inspire, why not turn your experiences and the advice you receive into blogs? There’s more onus on making sure you network and communicate – albeit virtually – this year, so don’t be afraid to share content that’ll get your business noticed.  

5. Follow up with leads 

When following up with your leads and new contacts from the conference, be sure to keep track of the following: 

• Who was contacted? 
• When were they contacted? 
• Who in your business should contact them? 
• When should you follow up again? 

You can use a good CRM system to automate this process. But a simple spreadsheet can sometimes be just as effective. We recommend that you take notes when talking to leads during the event so that you can remind them of the conversation when you follow up later.  

6. Get social  

To make the most of attending Microsoft Inspire, we invest time in writing blogs and sharing collateral from the show. We stay very active on Twitter during and after the conference and share videos and pictures during the week. Maintaining a vocal online presence will be crucial this year – show the leads you want, who you are!  

7. Calculate your ROI 

Ultimately, any company attending Inspire is doing so to grow their business. Understanding your ROI from the conference requires revisiting your experience of the event soon after its conclusion. 

One of the obvious KPIs is to look at the work you have won since returning. It’s very likely you need to take a long-term view that incorporates the length of your typical sales cycle or longer, as leads from a trade show will typically take longer to result in billable work or sales. Understanding how many leads you get from Inspire and what becomes of those leads is important for understanding the value of the event and if you should change your strategy when attending next year.   

Making the most of the circumstances 

Everything feels up in the air for a lot of businesses and their people right now. But one thing we can rely on is that we will all find ways to connect with each other, whether it’s for business or pleasure. We think of Inspire 2020 as an opportunity to generate new leads and make new connections, and also as a chance to feel solidarity with other businesses. And we can’t wait to hear about the great things that come out of Inspire 2020.  

by Matthew Rooke

What we learned from Satya Nadella at the Inspire corenote 2019

• Our top takeaways from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s corenote speech at Microsoft Inspire 2019
• Power Apps and AI-powered presentations
• Digital marketing for Microsoft Partners

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s corenote speech is the most widely anticipated event of the annual Microsoft Inspire and Ready conferences. 2019 was no different. After packing out the 20,000-seat T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas, as well as a ram-packed overflow theatre across the road, Nadella spoke for 90 minutes about the successes of Microsoft technology and the future direction of travel for the company.

In this blog, we discuss some of the most important takeaways from Nadella’s corenote – together with some fascinating case studies into the success of their existing technology.

An integrated tech stack

In the last four to five years, the way Microsoft sells its technology has fundamentally changed. By now, everyone knows how important the cloud revolution has been to Microsoft – transforming it from a company that sells one-time software licenses (largely Windows and the Office Suite) to selling cloud subscription – with a specific focus on enterprise technology. The transformation is so profound that the company briefly became the world’s most valuable company last year, which in turn inspired a recent feature from Bloomberg, detailing this ‘Nadellaissance’ in further detail.

To partners however, this is all largely old news. What has been far less widely discussed is the extent to which the cloud transformation has allowed different types of Microsoft technology to work seamlessly together in ways they never had before. While never directly mentioned, this interoperability between different technologies in the Microsoft stack formed a vital theme throughout Satya Nadella’s speech.

The ability of Microsoft apps to pass information seamlessly between each other has long since powered the success of Office 365. But in Satya’s opening speech, it became clear that there was plenty of further potential for developers to provide leading customer experiences by applying the same logic elsewhere to Microsoft technology.

Today, Office 365 has been widely deployed, and its benefits are well known. But perhaps the most important takeaway from Satya’s corenote was how the future of technology development would be influenced by these current platforms: GitHub, Azure, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, Mixed Reality, and Microsoft 365.

Throughout the corenote, the best case studies demonstrated how combining these platforms could allow exponential business results.

Democratising digital transformation

Microsoft have always been desperate to emphasise a higher vision than simply selling products, licenses and software. That goes as far back as 1980, when Bill Gates stated his mission statement; ‘to put a computer on every desk and in every home’.

Today, the phrase, ‘democratising digital transformation’ lies at the heart of what Microsoft are trying to achieve. So, what does that mean in practice? Satya’s opening contribution set out this vision through a set of interesting, and at times surprising, metrics. Perhaps the most important of this was that, by 2030, 10% of global GDP will come from tech companies.

This is a 100% rise from the 5% of global GDP that technology provides today. But Nadella was clear; it’s not the 10% that matters – it’s the 90%. Because in today’s world – every company is a tech company. He stated:

"Every business is going to be a software business."

In today’s business market, non-tech companies increasingly require technology to succeed. Whether this is a website, an app, or a custom data management platform, technology has become inevitable. This was emphasized by the fact that, over the next year, 500 million apps will be created.

Democratising digital transformation involves giving the 90% of non-tech companies the tools to power their own technology; creating software that non-developers can easily customise to their own requirements. The days when the keys to digital transformation were held by developers, IT companies and software experts are fast coming to an end. By combining the potential of different platforms, Microsoft are powering this transformation.

The potential of the power platform

Later in his talk, Satya unveiled another set of eye-catching statistics:

• 90% of all data in the world today was created in the last two years.
• Of this, 73% cannot be analysed, because it’s siloed in different applications and databases.

This creates two challenges. Today, the world processes exponentially more data than ever before. But, increasingly, we’re struggling to find the resources and capabilities to effectively analyse it. It’s this conundrum that inspired the development of ‘the power platform’ and Dynamics 365 - as the world’s connected business cloud.

The Power Platform includes three Microsoft applications:

PowerBI

Data analytics and visualisation

PowerApps

A dedicated custom app builder

MS Flow

Business workflow automation

Anyone who knows these applications will know they all have one thing in common: to empower non-developers to achieve more with their technology. In his speech, Satya referred to these people as ‘Citizen developers’, explaining the reason that the power platform exists, giving individual users and businesses the ability to power their own digital transformation. Satya made it clear that driving forward the potential of these applications was a vital part of Microsoft’s future strategy.

AI Builder

A new addition to the Power Platform is the AI builder. In the same way as the other platforms bring data analytics, app creation, and automation to non-developers, AI builder aims to do the same with artificial intelligence.

 When released, the AI builder will feed into other platforms like PowerApps; allowing businesses to feed AI into a range of business functions. Harnessing the data fed through from PowerBI will allow the AI and machine learning algorithms to make predictions on common business scenarios, such as:

• Will a customer convert?
• Will we get paid on time?
• Will we have the resources to process this customer/client request?

This is just yet another example of how Microsoft are working towards seamlessly passing information between different platforms. With the addition of the AppBuilder, this interoperability is further increased.

Technology in action

Satya’s talk wasn’t just about discussing the future of Microsoft cloud technology. In fact, at various points, we were also treated to fascinating demonstrations of technology in action. While there’s not enough space to discuss every inspirational story in detail, there’s certainly room to discuss two of the most memorable. In both cases, the focus on different platforms working together lay front and centre of these success stories.

1. Holographic corenote

One of the most eye-catching moments of Inspire 2019 came when we saw a virtual reality hologram of speaker Julia White delivering a corenote speech in Japanese – a language she doesn’t speak. She stated:

"What you're about to see is an exact hologram of me wearing the same outfit that we recently captured at a Mixed Reality Studio. Using Azure AI technology, I can translate my English into Japanese and train it to sound exactly like me. The same voice tones, the same inflections"

This might seem like a wildly futuristic concept, but in fact it just uses a synthesis of different Azure powered technologies, many of which businesses already use today:

• Mixed Reality Technology to create the hologram and render it live
• Azure Speech-to-Text capability and English transcription to record the English speech
• Azure Translate to create the Japanese translation
• Neural Text-to-Speech technology that recreates the Japanese translation with her own voice and inflections

Individually, these technologies are well-known and widely available in Microsoft Azure. But when combined, they have the potential to redefine the landscape of what businesses can achieve.

2. AI powered presentations

Let’s consider another example of AI in practice that’s perhaps a little closer to home. Almost all knowledge workers or first line workers will be familiar with the experience of hosting a presentation or sitting in a meeting – perhaps remotely. With AI, both these experiences can be enhanced, as Raanah Amjadi demonstrated during the corenote speech.

In one particular example, an AI assistant, plugged into Microsoft Teams, was on hand to assist the process of preparing for a presentation. The bot provided a range of real time information as Raanah rehearsed her presentation live, including feedback on:

• Language choice
• Using fillers
• Pacing
• When speech was too dependent on slide information

In one instance, the AI assistant even managed to identify when Raanah could have used more gender inclusive language.

Once the performance was over, the assistant provided a detailed list of performance metrics to summarise this advice.

Anybody who’s ever had to prepare for a stressful presentation or meeting will certainly appreciate the insights that this AI software can provide.

But this wasn’t the only way that AI could improve the presentation. It also helped enhance the meeting experience for those dialling in remotely. If for example the presenter of the meeting got up to brainstorm or write on a whiteboard, it could be difficult for remote viewers to feel included.

Raanah also demonstrated how AI technology in Microsoft Teams could find and focus on the whiteboard image, as well as make anyone standing in front of it transparent, to make it easier for remote viewers to appreciate what’s being shown.

By combining the power of AI with the remote meeting potential of Microsoft Teams, Raanah demonstrated how technology can continue to enhance the everyday operations of knowledge workers everywhere. Though a small isolated instance, this is a classic example of Microsoft’s guiding vision in practice. With technology, everyday workers in everyday companies can be empowered to work better, smarter, and achieve more.

A step forward for the Microsoft Partner Network

Microsoft Inspire is a vital opportunity for partners to gather, collaborate, share and network each year. It’s an opportunity to gain leads, share ideas, collaborate with other partners, and establish a cornerstone from which progress can evolve over.

But most importantly – and the clue really is in the name – it’s an opportunity to inspire each other and discover what the potential is for us to achieve more with technology. With inspirational case studies, eye-catching technology, and fascinating statistics, this is exactly what Satya Nadella’s corenote speech of 2019 achieved.

At Inspire, we experienced this inspiration in action: chatting with clients, partners, and Microsoft themselves about the direction the network is heading. All that remains now is to look forward to Microsoft Inspire 2020.

Each year at Inspire, we discover more about the partner network and empower companies to achieve more through their digital marketing strategies. If you want to improve your marketing get in touch with the team at Fifty Five and Five today.

by Matthew Rooke

Four focuses from Gavriella Schuster’s 2019 Inspire Corenote speech

• Our four highlights from Gavriella Schuster's 2019 Inspire Corenote speech
• Microsoft's transformation, Machine Learning, IoT, and more

2019 marks the fourth consecutive year that the Fifty Five and Five team have attended the Microsoft Inspire conference. And just like every year previously, we’ve had plenty of exciting and insightful conversations about the future of Microsoft technology and digital marketing.

Over the years, the two corenote speeches by Gavriella Schuster (Corporate VP, One Commercial Partner Organization) and Satya Nadella (CEO) have become the bedrock around which the rest of the conference revolves. 2019 was no different. In the first of these, Gavriella Schuster set out the direction the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) is travelling in and took stock of the successes it would experience over the coming twelve months.

If you missed the speech, don’t worry. We’ve pulled together four main focuses of the corenote in summary right here. Read on to find out more.

1. Focus on: Being a partner

In what has since become a hard-learned lesson in timing, Microsoft announced controversial changes to their internal user rights (IUR) program, just two weeks before this year’s conference kicked off. The program, among other things, guaranteed that members of the Microsoft Partner Network (MNP) had free access to Office 365 licenses for their employees. The changes would have rolled back on these benefits, since the growth of the Partner Network was fast making the costs unsustainable for Microsoft. Or, as Gavriella Schuster herself said: ‘We just can’t afford this’.

In the days before the conference kicked off, however, predictable controversy abounded from partners who weren’t enthusiastic about the heavy costs associated with purchasing these licenses.

With such an overwhelmingly negative response to the changes, Microsoft had no choice but to roll back on the rollback. On Friday 12^th, just days before Inspire 2019 kicked off, they announced that they were indefinitely reinstating the IUR benefits. Naturally, the controversy and discussions from the weeks that led up to this formed an important part of Gavriella’s speech. In fact, it was almost the first thing she discussed:

“In my mind there was no choice for us but to walk back on that change. We’re going to keep the IURs just as they are. You have my commitment that I will continue to listen and learn – and though we may stumble, we will learn and grow together.”

Regardless of the controversy and the timing of the decision, this theme of reconciliation and partnership continued through much of the rest of the corenote.

2. Focus on: Microsoft’s transformation

These days, you’ll have to travel quite far in the Microsoft Partner Network before you hear a bad word said about Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Since the start of his tenure in 2014, the company’s fortunes have drastically changed – to the point where they overtook Apple to become the world’s most valuable company for a period towards the end of last year. At the start of this decade, the thought would have been unthinkable.

Nobody directly mentioned that particular fact in either of this year’s Inspire corenotes, but it reflects an important theme that did come up: Microsoft’s transformation. Since 2014, Nadella has ushered in a new era, in which the company turned its focus towards its strengths; business IT and software. After a decade of trying to chase the innovations of more fashionable tech companies like Google and Apple, Microsoft decided to go its own way.

Since 2014, Microsoft has almost exclusively turned its attention to cloud-focused products like Office 365 and Azure – updating their popular Office and Windows products for the modern, cloud-based age. Today, Office 365 has more subscribers than Spotify and Amazon Prime combined. In what Bloomberg recently described as a ‘Nadellaissance’, Microsoft’s fortunes have improved year on year since he took the reins.

This news won’t come as much surprise for most Microsoft Partners. But during the corenote, various speakers came back to this theme on many occasions, making it clear that it was only with the help of the vast Partner Network that this spectacular transformation was possible.

This was particularly prevalent during a contribution by Judson Althoff, the Executive Vice President of the Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business. In focusing on just the contracts won by Microsoft over the last two quarters, he demonstrated the success of this transformation. These include:

• Adobe
• Canadian Government
• Coca Cola
• Ford
• Danish Government
• Barclays
• Unilever

The fact that all of these organizations have moved to the Microsoft cloud in the last six months just goes to show the remarkable impact that the company is now having on the wider cloud market.

Althoff explained that there were five important pillars that have allowed Microsoft to experience such clear success over the years:

• Becoming industry focused
• Focusing on technical solutions
• Investing in customer success
• Creating a tangible digital impact
• The success of the One Commercial Partner model (OCP)

The final point was arguably the most vital. With over 95% of Microsoft’s revenues coming through its partners, there’s no question that the MPN is a vital part of Microsoft’s transformation.

3. Focus on: Digital transformation in practice

Unilever was one of the companies that have recently turned to Microsoft technology to power their digital transformation. To demonstrate the success they’d experienced, a significant part of Judson Althoff’s speech was dedicated to exploring this case study in further detail. During this demo, he was joined by Unilever Chief Engineer Dave Penrith to explore the success the company has experienced with Microsoft technology.

As a large consumer goods company, Unilever are responsible for over 400 everyday household brands. In their talk, Althoff and Penrith focused on the production of Dove soap, to prove exactly how technology could deliver real benefits to businesses.

Using IoT and Machine Learning from Microsoft Azure, Unilever created a ‘digital twin’ of the machines in their factory, which collected and analysed data about the performance of these technologies. This is a popular model of leveraging data and analytics, in a way that Microsoft describes as a ‘next generation digital model of a physical environment’. Using analytics, they identified trends that allowed them to improve the productivity of these machines and identify any faults in advance. Through this technology, they’ve boosted productivity by 3%, and saved €2.5 million, with energy and material savings.

As well as this, Penrith and Althoff focused on how Microsoft Teams and PowerBI had allowed them to work towards their target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. Using data extracted from IoT technology, and routed through PowerBI, they managed to create a database that compared the energy usage of major Unilever factories around the world, over time. That database was then shared universally among all of them in a simple interface using Microsoft Teams.

Sharing information in this way allowed the different factories to easily compare where positive workplace practices were being demonstrated across all their factories. From there, engineers in each factory could be encouraged to share best practices and improve processes right across the board.

But these weren’t the only improvements they made. Unilever managed to largely automate the quality control stage of their soap production process. In a live demo, they showed how they’d trained machine learning algorithms to assess the quality of the products, including perfume quality, colour, texture, shape, and logo stamp quality. In providing us with these case studies, Unilever gave us the opportunity to see the reality of how digital transformation can transform an organisation’s success.

4. Focus on: The Future

Of course, there’s only so much time we can spend congratulating ourselves on the success the MPN has had over the last few years. Inspire is also about setting out a roadmap for the future. On this point, both Judson Althoff and Gavriella Schuster were clear; the future is bright and ambitious – though with clear opportunities and challenges ahead.

To help focus efforts forward over the coming twelve months, Gavriella’s closing statement outlined three main things that Microsoft will focus on over the year ahead. These three themes were:

1. Technical intensity

This is all about raising the level of the conversation Microsoft and their partners have with customers to match the technical intensity of their working lives. ‘Every company is a tech company’, Gavriella said, and the resellers themselves need to raise the bar on the conversations they’re having with people to match the expectations and expertise of the 21^st century customer.

2. Customer centricity

Customer centricity involves understanding the needs of the customer. To achieve this, partners need build a trusted network around each and every customer. To achieve this, partners should aim to offer a service that provides, integrates, manages, deports and supports the development of Microsoft technology at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

3. Simplicity

Simplicity involves making it clear to all customers and partners where Microsoft products are heading in the future and honing down on the customer-centric nature of their mindset.

A step forward for the MPN

Controversy about IURs aside, this year’s Inspire event was a useful and motivating look into the state of the Microsoft Partner Network as it moves forward into the future. With inspiring successes over the past year, and plenty to drive more motivation in the future, there’s certainly plenty to keep partners busy for the rest of 2019.

With technology improving each year and customer expectations higher than ever, competition has never been more important within the Partner Network. To continue generating leads, partners are employing ever more complex marketing strategies to stand out from the crowd. In our work compiling this year’s Top 50 Digital Marketing Excellence Report, as well as speaking to partners on stands at this year’s conference, we’ve been lucky to experience this excellence first hand.

If you want to find out more about how to succeed in digital marketing as a Microsoft Partner against this competitive backdrop, get in touch with the team here at Fifty Five and Five to start discussing your strategy.

by Matthew Rooke