I’m continually impressed at how our clients can find new ways to harness their data and create real business value. Last week, I had an incredible opportunity to see first-hand how much excitement that surrounds the experts and organizations driving innovation with data-driven insights.

The 2022 Data and AI Summit, hosted by our partner Databricks, buzzed with thousands of participants at the in-person conference – not to mention the tens of thousands joining virtually from around the world. People from across the Databricks ecosystem, including everyone from engineers to industry visionaries, gathered to learn about what the future holds for the lakehouse, the data platform championed by Databricks that’s also integral to many Avanade clients’ success.

On the first day of the summit, Databricks named Avanade and Accenture its 2022 Global Partner of the Year – the 4th year in a row we’re honored to receive this recognition. Additionally, Avanade was named the Databricks 2022 EMEA Partner of the Year. Both awards recognize our joint results we’re driving with clients around the globe as well as for our deep collaboration with Databricks, including our unique data solutions tailored to solving industry-specific challenges.

We were also delighted with another accolade where Paul Huynh, solution architect at Avanade, won the Databricks Partner Champion Award. This award was given to just three Champions in the Databricks partner ecosystem this year, recognizing outstanding contributions to their Centers of Excellence and Databricks practices.

Sessions highlight emerging tech, client results
At this year’s event, Avanade’s Alan Grogan showcased some of our client’s success in using data to transform its business. Zsolt Nadas, the head of technology from Europe’s fastest growing airlines, Wizz Air, described how the company is harnessing data insights in near-real time to make better business decisions more rapidly.

Zsolt shared how data-driven decisions improve everything from flight staffing to dynamic pricing – ensuring the best customer experience at the lowest-possible pricing. In addition, by migrating and modernizing data onto the Databricks platform, Wizz Air is accelerating its sustainability goals by precisely optimizing fuel consumption across its entire fleet.

On the emerging technology front, Timur Mehmedbasic led a session on one of the hottest topics of the conference: data mesh. Described as the next-generation data platform, a data mesh approach decentralizes data access, gives more employees self-service access to data and analytics tools, and creates a common data framework at scale. Look for rapid innovation in the next three years as leading organizations adopt data mesh principles to accelerate business value.

Powering up success with our alliance partners
At the summit, thought leaders from Avanade and our alliance partners Microsoft and Accenture to discuss how to ready an organization’s data estate to achieve artificial intelligence (AI) outcomes. Avanade’s Tripti Sethi said that while the overwhelming majority of organizations have AI aspirations, only a fraction have achieved AI maturity: the business advantages you can achieve with a truly intelligent enterprise.

At the close of the event, Avanade, Accenture and Microsoft hosted a reception to celebrate success with clients and teammates alike. We toasted to Avanade and Accenture being named Databricks 2022 Global Partner of the Year. And together, we had another reason to celebrate: while at the summit, we also learned that Avanade and Accenture were named the Microsoft Partner of the Year for the 17th year in a row – an unprecedented achievement.

See you at next year’s summit…and talk to you soon
At the Data and AI Summit, we aimed to show clients and the broader Databricks ecosystem how Avanade can build more value with data: from our expo booth, where our Databricks Champions led four technical Databricks demos, to our recruiting station where our talent team showcased the best of Avanade. Across the expo hall and throughout the conference, I kept spotting our colleagues who were #AvanadeProud to #GoOrange at the summit. Our team started hundreds of conversations around what’s possible with Databricks and the Azure ecosystem.

If you’d like to discuss what’s possible when you infuse intelligence across your entire organization, sign up for our AI maturity workshop today.