Frazer Scott on Microsoft technology and digital transformation

“No-one has the breadth of services and offerings that Microsoft brings to bear in this space”.

— Microsoft New Zealand chief marketing and operations officer Frazer Scott.

At Intergen Dynamics Day 2016, Frazer Scott outlined Microsoft’s strategy to help companies with their digital transformation. This is the context for Dynamics 365.

It all boils down to four pillars and three trends.

Scott says we are living through a fourth industrial revolution. Or, as Microsoft describes these things Industrial Revolution 4.0.

He says: “There’s a blurring of the divide between the physical and digital worlds”.

While the trends are big data, analytics and cloud computing, Scott says cloud is the underlying technology. Hence Microsoft’s massive investment in its Azure cloud service.

Microsoft four pillars of digital transformation are:

• Engage your customers. Scott says the goal is to have a “market segmentation of one”. This means using analytics tools to mine data for a complete view of each customer. Then gain insight into the customer before giving them a personalised experience.
• Empower your employees. Recognise they are mobile and celebrate individual work styles. You need to realise that allowing employees to be more creative will pay off with greater responsiveness. Also use tools to give your staff better insight so they can make better decisions.
• Optimise your operations. A modern business needs to be more responsive and agile.
• Transform your products. Is about disrupting markets with new products and services, even by introducing new business models. Instead of looking back, you can use data and analytics to anticipate what will happen.