Avanade Blog http://www.avanade.com/blog Exchanging ideas that drive tomorrow’s innovation Fri, 17 May 2013 20:33:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The New Role of CRM in the Contact Center http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/the-new-role-of-crm-in-the-contact-center/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/the-new-role-of-crm-in-the-contact-center/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 20:33:10 +0000 Barry Givens http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=3015 The way we work is changing.  The ongoing evolution in the access to mobile solutions, new collaboration tools and the increase in reliance on cloud-based applications has radically changed where and how we work and even what we produce. New technologies are increasing our expectations of the availability of applications and the speed with which we can receive information.

 

I’ve recently been exploring this subject with companies operating global customer service operations. They’re recognizing that these changing expectations are occurring among both their customers as well as their employees and that the contact center systems we provide need to align with these new expectations.

 

One of the conclusions we’ve come to is that the agent experience has a direct impact on the customer experience.  Applications that don’t perform well, systems that are designed to lock agents into a fixed process, solutions that don’t allow agents to share and grow their expertise no longer meet the needs of today’s contact centers. More importantly they no longer meet the expectations of customers and the agents serving them. We’re helping leading companies redesign their work by deploying scalable contact center solutions for use across their service operations, something I discussed last week on a webinar hosted by MSDynamicsWorld.

 

At the recent Argyle Executive Forum focused on Customer Care, I had the opportunity to represent Avanade and the work we are doing around contact centers leveraging Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We spoke with senior leaders in charge of customer care for enterprise organizations; companies that are engaged in raising the level of customer satisfaction. You can take a look at the perspectives we shared at this event by checking out the conversation paper.

 

Going into that Argyle Executive Forum event on customer centricity, I’d half expected my thoughts on the importance of agent experience to receive a tepid response. But the theme of agent experience arose again and again. Panelists and speakers across industries highlighted the importance of proper training, tooling and motivation among their customer facing workforce.  It was clear that the success that we’ve had as an industry in embracing self-service technologies has changed the nature of contact center work. Where customers once expected only speed and rapid fire, low skill service, they now expect expertise and flexibility in problem solving.

 

The redesign of the contact center has forced us to rethink what it means to be customer-centric. With gamification, peer based coaching tools, social collaboration and high performance user experiences, Avanade is helping organizations elevate their most important customer interactions – the ones between their customers and their employees.

 

How are you transforming your customer interactions?

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/the-new-role-of-crm-in-the-contact-center/feed/ 0 Software Upgrades Get an Upgrade http://www.avanade.com/blog/technology-infrastructure/software-upgrades-get-an-upgrade/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/technology-infrastructure/software-upgrades-get-an-upgrade/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 21:49:28 +0000 Chris Miller http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2981 At Avanade, we put a great emphasis on leading by example – if we are recommending it for customers, it is a solution we would be comfortable deploying internally. After Windows 8 launched in October, we aggressively deployed it across the company.

 

We are not only pleased to be an early adopter of Windows 8, but are also exceptionally proud about how we rolled out the new operating system. For the first time, we shrugged the traditional upgrade process of relying on CDs or USB drives as the software distribution point, and instead, turned to the cloud to upgrade our widely distributed network of employees to Windows 8 more quickly and more easily.

 

Using a solution based on Windows Azure that we call myPC, we turned the project into a self-service, low-touch upgrade. As a result, we were able to focus the update experience on the user, rather than the infrastructure. Not only were employees happier with the process, but we saw several big benefits to the enterprise, including:

  • Convenience: While previous upgrades required users to turn over their computers for a period of time – and usually not at the most convenient time, this process allowed users to choose when to upgrade, working around their schedules. We also designed the download to be ‘resumable,’allowing users to disconnect and complete the download later without restarting the process.
  • Location, Location, Location: For remote employees (and most Avanade employees are remote), OS upgrades were a cumbersome endeavor, forcing them to come into the office or ship their computer to get upgraded. With a distributed cloud-based solution, location is no longer a factor. Employees can download the software wherever they are.
  • Reduced Costs: Because costs were directly tied to actual bandwidth used, we were able to eliminate the expense and lengthy lead times associated with expanding internal data center bandwidth to support anticipated demand. This significantly reduced overall costs.
  • Network Scalability: Because the upgrade image was hosted in the cloud, downloads did not impact traffic on the rest of the Avanade network.
  • Faster Deployments: Four months after we rolled out this new deployment strategy, more than 90 percent of Avanade was running Windows 8. This approach greatly reduced the time it took to roll-out the OS upgrades to everyone, saving an estimated $800,000 in employee downtime.

 

Overall, we turned what used to be an exceptionally time consuming project for the IT department and users into a self-service task for the end users. By applying a little imagination and innovation to a routine IT demand, we have developed an approach to software distribution that changes the game for our IT department.  We look forward to leveraging this new strategy for upcoming software deployments, including Office 2013.

 

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/technology-infrastructure/software-upgrades-get-an-upgrade/feed/ 0 Enterprise Social Technologies to Power Innovation – Part Two http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-two/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-two/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 20:55:12 +0000 Jeff Cohen http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2984 In part one of this two part series we defined what innovation means in the context of enterprise social and the traditional Engage, Evolve, Evaluate, Execute model.  At a high level, innovation managed through a social tool can be represented as a pipeline not unlike traditional R&D-driven ideation cycles, again aligning with our four step process.

 

 

However as with any new tool and technology, there is a need to align implementation with a broader strategic vision and managed approach.  Prudent planning for innovation driven from social technologies uncovers several key questions:

  • How will ideas be generated and captured?
  • What is the process for evaluating, evolving, delivering and executing on ideas to ensure measurable success?
  • How will the organization engage and incent participants while maximizing the user’s experience to eliminate any barriers to adoption?
  • How will the organization manage the governance, IP, and legal implications of innovation?

 

 

Solving these questions and delivering results from social tools and technologies requires more than a solely IT-driven implementation.  Effectively deployed social tools to drive innovation require cross-cutting organizational participation and new organizational proficiencies and discipline.  Ill-prepared organizations who try to quickly effectuate change through social technology often do not see the full fruits of their effort.  The following are some thoughts on why this may be the case.

 

Specifically for innovation through social, two primary pitfalls or failures seem to occur most frequently.  Note the clear correlation with the aforementioned planning activities.

  • Inability to drive adoption of a social based ideation tool; the tool is made available but employees do not elect to participate, are unmotivated, or shy away from expressing their thoughts due to fear of repercussions.
  • Lack of preparedness or insufficient sponsorship to organize and act upon the ideas which are captured through a social based ideation tool.

 

How has innovation and social worked (or not worked) for you?  What went right, and did the results meet expectations?  In our experience, results can vary wildly from initial expectations. A good innovation program builds on itself, corrects and evolves over time, but starts with careful planning, which recognizes that technology is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to enterprise social and innovation.

 

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-two/feed/ 0 The Three Frontiers of Social Collaboration http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/the-three-frontiers-of-social-collaboration/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/the-three-frontiers-of-social-collaboration/#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 20:22:01 +0000 Florin Rotar http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2959 It seems to me that today’s organizations are demanding more and more from their employees, who are also increasingly becoming information workers. They consume increasing amounts of information and context and they are expected to be constantly informed while producing faster results and making better decisions.  It also seems that the employees themselves are expecting and demanding more transparency from colleagues and, overall, expect a “frictionless” capability so that they can do their jobs faster and smarter. In fact, data coming from Avanade soon shows a healthy majority using social collaboration tools and wanting more. There are, however, still barriers to address.

 

In my opinion, many barriers could be overcome by evolving social collaboration solutions in 3 areas:

1. A different type of Mobility: Making the solution not only mobile, but based on the notion of connected devices and continuous services as mentioned in a previous post. This would give users the ability to perform a smooth and continuous collaborative experience spanning across devices and form factors. This is not about building yet another mobile app for your intranet, it is about giving users a window into their business process – with full context  maintained regardless of the device they need (and choose), something which often leads to more transparency, effectiveness and efficiency, and actually changes the way people work.

 

2. Being data-based. The journey to connected people working smarter is a non-linear journey that requires constant adjusting. Collaboration analytics is put to good use when the business objectives (e.g., operational excellence) are translated into a set of KPIs (e.g., improved information reach) that are tracked with usage/adoption metrics (e.g., number of virtual meetings across organizational boundaries). Essentially, one constantly monitors and analyzes in order to identify areas of improvement, which are continuously addressed through initiatives where one measures the impact.

 

 

This approach is also driving a network effect where collaborative employees also drive increasingly productive organizations. As one uses analytics to quantify the collaboration efforts, this also gives a more accurate picture of how people and the business processes actually work—something that will allow them to be even more efficient going forward.

 

3. Social applications. Focus is evolving from social being perceived as “the intranet,” to instead being something more profound: a catalyst for new ways of working. The goal is to evolve beyond social sites/siloed channels/tools and integrate social-driven collaboration into the everyday business process, essentially building interconnected social, collaborative applications throughout the enterprise. As our colleagues at Accenture are describing collaboration, this would enable employees to work smarter, to be more aware of important context for their decisions and actions, to identify problems sooner, to reliably find the fixes they need, and to share the solutions with the right people.

 

This being the frontier, few solution are ready-made or ready to be “bolted-on” to address these strategic opportunities. To fully harness the power of social collaboration, organizations will need to actively identify the core processes where improving productivity will drive the most value and then to weave in these mobility, analytics and social tools. And as with all frontier undertakings, the journey can be at least as rewarding as the destination. Go for it!

 

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/the-three-frontiers-of-social-collaboration/feed/ 1 CEBP: The Heart of all Business Communications http://www.avanade.com/blog/communications/cebp-the-heart-of-all-business-communications/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/communications/cebp-the-heart-of-all-business-communications/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 20:53:28 +0000 Joe Schurman http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2962 In continuation of the Introduction to the CEBP Series, I offer this third installment to provide an understanding of the CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes) Framework itself, which provides the heart of all CEBP application development.  At the time of this writing I am sitting in a café at El Espolon square in Logrono, Spain, taking in the beautiful view and culture here in Espana.  I cannot compare CEBP application development to the culture of Spain, but in a similar concept to how the culture of this city, and country for that matter, is to the Spanish people and all those who visit, so is the heart of what CEBP Framework provides to its subscribing applications.  Yes, I am quite passionate about the capabilities and abilities of what CEBP development can do for organizations, systems, and individuals on a massive scale.  The reason why is because at the heart of all business processes is communication.  Even for systems that currently do not possess business communications today, these applications, when integrated with a communications system like Microsoft Lync, Yammer, Exchange, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., are brought to life because communication is the driving force behind process enhancement, socialization, and evangelism (which is my job).

 

 

The CEBP Framework as it applies to the Microsoft Unified Communications and Collaboration ecosystem involves a series of APIs (application programmable interfaces), SDKs (software development kits), and libraries of pre-developed classes of application logic and code that enable applications to provide services such as Presence & Availability (notifications such as Available, Away, Busy, Do Not Disturb, etc.), Instant Messaging and SMS, Email, and Social Networking.  When you apply these services to business applications and systems, the applications become rich and full of life, sharing information to those who need it or are looking for it, and thus enhancing business processes.  We are bringing life to systems and applications now in the Call Center and specifically in applications within Healthcare, Financial Services, Hospitality, Travel, Energy, and Education industries that again, bring a richness and vibrancy to the data that the application of CEBP capability provides.  That is the heart of CEBP.

 

The technology behind these capabilities that we are working with includes the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA), which is now in its fourth version with Microsoft Lync 2013.  This API provides a granular level of control to Lync Server, but allows access to Lync features via any application, browser, or device.  New to the Lync ecosystem with the 2013 release, is the Unified Communications Web API (UCWA), which provides integration with UCMA, but also enables a HTML5 set of controls and integration for amazing UC-enabled web applications.

 

Lastly, we have access to the Lync and Lync Server SDKs themselves, which require a Windows operating system to run, but provide almost complete customization of the user experience, which is why we are developing rich applications leveraging this SDK, that are now available to run in a mobile capacity leveraging the Windows Surface Pro device similar to the solutions I have previously written about and am demonstrating across the globe.  For more complete information and technical details regarding Microsoft’s CEBP capabilities, begin your tour by visiting the Lync Developer Center.

 

Until next time, Beuna Noche de Logrono!

 

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/communications/cebp-the-heart-of-all-business-communications/feed/ 0 #WRDChat Recap: May 2 TweetChat with Maribel Lopez http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/wrdchat-recap-may-2-tweetchat-with-maribel-lopez/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/wrdchat-recap-may-2-tweetchat-with-maribel-lopez/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 22:46:27 +0000 AvanadeNews http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2917 Last week, we co-hosted our first #WRDChat on Twitter with independent technology analyst Maribel Lopez and Avanade’s CTIO Florin Rotar. The topic focused on what we call Work Redesigned – how the adoption of mobile and consumer technologies in the workplace are changing the way we work.

 

It was a great dialogue with folks like @bmkatz, @MattRosoff, @jyarmis,@nflambert, @jayfry3 and @SafeLogic_Walt jumping in on our #WRDChat hashtag as well as other individuals weighing in from a second TweetChat – #mobilebiz – happening at the same time.

 

Key points that came out of the conversation include:

  • The lines between work and home are continuing to blur as employees use the same devices, apps, etc. in the workplace as they do in their personal lives.
  • Social networking is bringing a new dimension to the consumerization of IT discussion. It further blurs the line between personal and work lives. It can also break down company silos and enable employees to locate expertise more easily.
  • Security is still a major consideration and barrier to consumer technologies in the workplace. Companies need policies that are easier to follow and they need to secure the data, not just the device when it comes to BYOD.
  • When it comes to what functions do people do on different devices, it depends on the form factor and the job. For example, a tablet makes more sense for editing than a smartphone. Many only do basic tasks like email and calendaring on smartphones. It’s all about the right tool for the job – not just the right device.
  • Context (i.e. location, motion, etc.) is becoming more important for mobile applications and opens up new possibilities.
  • One of the biggest impacts of consumerization is how it’s changing corporate policies, processes and the culture.
  • Beyond security, the challenges today are how do companies begin to derive real value from mobile tools and managing change. User-centricity is also still a key factor. Rather than focusing on “cool”, we need to focus on enablement.

 

Thanks again to all who participated last week! And, special thanks to @bmkatz and @PaladorBenjamin for sharing the time with us and cross-chatting with the #mobilebiz TweetChat!

 

If you missed out on the conversation, read on for more highlights below.

 

Question 1: How widespread is the use of consumer & mobile tech in your workplace?

 

 

 

 

Question 2: What are the top biz functions that employees use BYOD & mobile devices for?

 

 

 

 

 

Question 3: Has your company changed any biz processes or policies as a result of consumer tech in the workplace?

 

 

 

Question 4: Is anyone adding context (location/motion) into their mobile apps today?

 

 

 

 

Question 5: What are the challenges with user-centric design?

 

 

 

 

 

Question 6: What is the biggest struggle when it comes to enterprise mobility?

 

 

 

 

Question 7: Are companies really doing social collab yet?

 

 

 

 

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/wrdchat-recap-may-2-tweetchat-with-maribel-lopez/feed/ 0 Enterprise Social Technologies to Power Innovation – Part One http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-one/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-one/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 02:36:11 +0000 Jeff Cohen http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2914 In this two part series, we’ll take a look at leveraging new Enterprise Social Technologies to manage ideation and ultimately to realize innovation in today’s modern companies.

 

The value of fostering innovation is undeniable.  By definition, innovation most traditionally results in the creation of a novel market-ready product or service, or in ideas aimed at reforming processes and streamlining internal operations.  Such results can directly affect top line growth or bottom line cost savings, respectively.  Certainly, either scenario is a win for any business, especially those participating in an increasingly commoditized and competitive global market.  Yet the pace of innovation in organizations is limited, and historically, innovation has been restricted to happen only within R&D or specific product development groups.

 

Organizations may not realize that one of the biggest sources of “free” ideas to fuel innovation is likely to be already available within corporate boundaries, and yet is just out of reach.  Employees can be the best source of innovation, and represent a largely untapped wellspring of wisdom.  Newer, younger companies already understand this and build their culture and supporting social technologies accordingly, while existing companies must adapt and provision new services.

 

What is needed for most companies then is a way to tap or “crowdsource” the collective wisdom of employees, and to unleash the pre-existing institutional domain knowledge locked away in employees’ minds and social silos.  This is where new and exciting social technologies can now take center stage.  These tools and processes can unlock and harness the organic creativity of a workforce.

 

Innovation as a strategic pillar is a natural extension to an enterprise social implementation.  We have sometimes seen this called “innovation process management” and in this field most social driven innovation programs are characterized as a four step process:

 

The social aspect here cannot be understated, as it’s impossible to effectively engage, evolve or evaluate ideas across modern distributed workforces without social tools.  However, two key trends focusing not on the technology but on enriching the process and the end-user experience are paramount in terms of getting this right.

  1.  The “Consumerization of IT” trend is defined in this context as the shift in workforce expectations such that corporate IT is expected to provide similar social, mobile and collaborative capability as do consumer oriented services outside of corporate boundaries.  Today’s workforces already understand and are expecting social tools to be a part of how they collaborate and get work done.  Ideation technologies built on top of social need to present no barrier to adoption from a usability perspective, and easily facilitate these key first three phases (Engage, Evolve, Evaluate.)
  2. “Gamification” and the ability to network virtually through communities is an increasingly familiar paradigm inside corporate boundaries.  This term refers to an incentive or reward model based on the theory that employees will participate if it’s like a game, with lighthearted competition against peers, recognition, and desirable credits or prevalent badges earned for their efforts.  This concept requires social communities and a critical mass in the user population and directly aligns with the first three phases as well.

 

What feedback do you have around the appropriateness of this four-step approach?  It’s been our experience that innovation through social isn’t one-size-fits-all, and that Consumerization of IT and Gamification are relatively new concepts and are a key tenet for Enterprise Social.

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/collaboration/enterprise-social-technologies-to-power-innovation-part-one/feed/ 0 Sports Leagues Driving Home Wins with CRM http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/sports-leagues-driving-home-wins-with-crm/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/sports-leagues-driving-home-wins-with-crm/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:11:41 +0000 Sarah Dziuk http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2897

A view of the Melbourne Cricket Ground

Seattle is a town that loves its professional sports teams and April means the beginning of baseball season when hopes run high…but disappointment is not far off. Maybe that sounds a bit like the expectations companies have when it comes to choosing and implementing a CRM system–the visions of success can all too soon be overtaken by a “slump.” It’s been interesting for me to track how many professional sports teams around the globe are starting to use CRM, and it’s not just pre-season hype…it’s fundamentally changing the game for spectators and the boardroom (even if not always changing the results of the score board!)

 

You will find Microsoft Dynamics CRM being used across the major sports leagues in the United States—NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB—as well as minor league teams and non-US sports clubs.  The focus is on creating new ‘sticky’ experiences for the fans (and it’s not with the cotton candy). Teams have different programs whether for ticketing, merchandise, or newsletters, etc. Bridging the gap for customers helps streamline marketing and selling opportunities. But while optimizing and integrating systems is certainly a valuable component, some teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder are using the opportunity to enhance the personalization experience for fans. Or there’s also the Cincinnati Reds who are using CRM information and ticketing data to spot trends and create targeted offers.

 

This focus on the customer experience is what many companies are using to increase competitive differentiation and create business value. Forrester Research writes about customer experience discipline this in a recent piece on CRM trends in 2013. And in fact Avanade’s own recent research also reveals how the customer-centric business is improving sales and profits while enabling greater agility in responding to the market…something we’ve labeled Work Redesigned.

 

Baseball or basketball not your game? Well, then take the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) where Avanade recently helped deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With 102,000 members plus the responsibility for running the largest sporting stadium in Australia (the Melbourne Cricket Ground), tackling member management and the event experience was critical. Now MCC can better track what activities members participate in and drive more targeted communications.

 

Hmmm…now can someone bring me some peanuts and cracker jacks?! How have you changed the customer experience in your company?

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/crm/sports-leagues-driving-home-wins-with-crm/feed/ 0 TweetChat on May 2 – How Consumer Technologies are Impacting the Way We Work http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/tweetchat-on-may-2/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/tweetchat-on-may-2/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:25:50 +0000 Florin Rotar http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2889 I’m excited to co-host Avanade’s first-ever TweetChat next Thursday, May 2, at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. We’ll be chatting with technology analyst Maribel Lopez (@MaribelLopez) and industry leaders about how mobile and consumer technologies in the workplace are changing the way we work.

 

It’s well-known that the use of certain technologies in the enterprise is increasingly being influenced by employees. Our own research shows that companies are not only accepting employee-owned technologies in the workplace, they’re embracing them. As a result, businesses are redesigning how work gets done and are building entirely new business processes to reap the benefits of consumer technologies in the enterprise. And, those that have embraced mobile technologies and have established progressive policies and business processes to support them are seeing measurable positive impact on sales, profits, product development and employee satisfaction.

 

We’d love to hear what impact this trend has had on your organizations. Please join us, it’s sure to be a lively conversation – full details are below. You can also reach me on Twitter at @FlorinRotar or @AvanadeNews for more information.

 

The facts:

 

 

Questions:

  • Q1: How widespread is the use of consumer and mobile technologies in your workplace?
  • Q2: What are the top business functions that employees use BYOD & mobile devices for?
  • Q3: Has your company changed any business processes or policies as a result of consumer technologies in the workplace?
  • Q4: What benefits do mobile and social technologies bring to the workplace?
  • Q5: Are IT and business users on the same page when it comes to consumer tech in the enterprise? How do they get there?
  • Q6: What is the biggest struggle when it comes to enterprise mobility?
  • Q7: Are companies really doing ‘social collaboration’ yet?
]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/consumerization-of-it/tweetchat-on-may-2/feed/ 0 Opportunities and Change: How Technology Evolves Our Business http://www.avanade.com/blog/business-of-technology/opportunities-and-change-how-technology-evolves-our-business/ http://www.avanade.com/blog/business-of-technology/opportunities-and-change-how-technology-evolves-our-business/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:40:21 +0000 Aziz Virani http://www.avanade.com/blog/?p=2854 I recently had the chance to participate in a panel discussion in hosted by the Financial Times on technology and innovation in Canada. Dubbed as the FT Global Investment Series: Focus on Canada, my fellow panelists included:

  • Natan Aronshtam, Partner, Global Managing Director – R&D and Government Incentives, Deloitte & Touche LLP
  • Kenny Rosenblatt, Co-founder and CEO, Arkadium
  • Fabrice Sergent, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Cellfish

 

The panelists represented entrepreneurs, investors and established companies. The discussion therefore brought to the fore different aspects that make Canada such a great place to do business. We covered topics ranging from Government incentives, immigration policies, and work-life balance to the innovation culture that exists today.

 

The event in New York attracted 100-150 senior execs from across the energy, banking and technology sectors in Canada and the United States. It was a great opportunity to talk to others in the North American community and hear perspectives from both government and business leaders about the opportunities in Canada.

 

Whilst listening to the conversations, it struck me how much has changed in the past few years. The enterprise is a vastly different place than even just five years ago. Trends like big data, cloud computing and the consumerization of IT have dramatically altered business and opened up new opportunities to drive value.

 

For example, mobile and consumer technologies are transforming how work and business is done. In Canada, this trend is very prominent across multiple industries. We recently worked with a Canadian manufacturing company to create a mobile app based on Windows 8 technology that provides real-time access to shop floor incidents to decrease downtime in the production process.

 

This is a prime example of the opportunities we see today. In the consulting business, staying focused on the needs of our customers (e.g., improving the production process), while at the same time, continuing to innovate and stay ahead of the curve on technology trends (e.g., mobility and Windows 8), is paramount. Technology innovation needs to happen fairly quickly, and we have worked to hone our skills to make us more agile.

 

At Avanade, this culture of customer-centricity and innovation is a core function of our business and remains one of the reasons why I enjoy working for Avanade. I look forward to seeing what the next few years hold.

]]> http://www.avanade.com/blog/business-of-technology/opportunities-and-change-how-technology-evolves-our-business/feed/ 0