Microsoft New Research Reveals Businesses Need to Prioritize Skills as much as Technology to Maximize Value from AI

Microsoft India today released new research revealing that organizations that combine deployment of AI with skilling initiatives are generating most value from AI.  Topline findings of the research underscore that mature AI firms are more confident about the return on AI and skills. Over 93% of senior executives surveyed from these companies were sure their business was gaining value from AI.  The research further highlights that employees from mature AI companies are eager to deepen their AI skills and reinvest freed up time to add value for the organization. The research surveyed employees and leaders within large enterprises across industry verticals in India, and 19 other countries, to look at the skills needed to thrive as AI becomes increasingly adopted by businesses, as well as the key learnings from early AI adopters. 

Dr Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India, said, “As we look to rebound and reimagine the future after months of economic fluidity, technology will play a key role in rebooting enterprises. AI is at the heart of digital transformation - which has accelerated at an extraordinary pace - and will continue to play a critical role in helping businesses be more agile, resilient and competitive during this time. However, the path of unlocking the full potential of AI lies in combining its deployment with skilling initiatives that focus on both tech and soft skills. We believe this will be important for us to emerge from this crisis successfully.”

AI Maturity stages of enterprises

The AI maturity of companies has been divided into three categories in the survey

* AI Beginners: AI is neither explored nor used in any way right now

* AI Intermediates: AI applications are being explored / experimented with, for a range of use cases but sporadically

* AI Leading: AI is a part of the corporate strategy and is embedded into the company’s offerings

Both the senior executives and employees surveyed found a direct link between having the skills needed to thrive in an AI world and the value organizations gain from their AI implementations. The research further reveals that employees are keen to acquire AI relevant skills that are growing in importance and are of value to them personally and to the business. In fact, organization leaders surveyed predicted that half of all employees will be equipped with AI skills in the next 6-10 years, which is nearly one-and-a-half times more than the present estimations.

Higher growth companies are combining skilling with AI deployment for greater business value

In India, 100% of the AI-leading companies say they are actively building the skills of their workers or have plans to do so.  Over 93% employees at these firms have already been part of re-skilling programs. The employees benefitting from these programs are actively providing strategic benefits to their companies through innovating, solving, and collaborating. Notably, 98% of the employees surveyed among all the AI companies were highly motivated for reskilling.

The combination of skilling and AI deployment is helping businesses succeed. 94% of senior executives from AI Leading businesses acknowledged that they are already seeing value from AI deployment. In fact, Indian AI Intermediate companies are also not too far behind in this aspect –- with 87% sharing the same view.  The gap between the two categories across all the countries surveyed, however, is much wider at 25%.

The research shows that AI-leading firms are focused on ensuring that AI is complementing the talents of their people. These businesses are cultivating employee skills across every category – ranging from advanced data analysis and critical thinking to communications and creativity.

AI is creating company cultures more focused on innovation and learning

Notably, at the time the survey was conducted, 98% of AI Leading firms in India were increasing skills investments. These companies were looking for ways to expand their employees’ digital capabilities to unlock new avenues for growth. 93% of them were actively hiring skilled workers or had plans to, to complement their internal skilling programs. It is also interesting to note that more than 97% business leaders in India are willing to provide financial rewards in some form, fast track promotion or a combination of both in order to promote job satisfaction and higher level of AI-relevant skills among employees.

Interestingly, the overall number of Indian employees were interested in skilling (85%) is more than double of that of employees across all surveyed markets (38%). 98% of all employees were keen to participate in reskilling programs, and some 92% at AI leader businesses have already done so (vs. 85% avg.) and 87% felt their workplace was doing enough to prepare them for AI. This number rises to 95% for AI-leading businesses, which is nearly one-and-a-half times higher than the corresponding number across all surveyed markets.

“We’re seeing a virtuous circle emerge among the companies seeing the greatest value from AI. These leaders have seen that having the right skills enables them to unlock value from AI, which encourages them to extend their use of AI and, in turn, continue in up-levelling skills in their organization,” said Dr Srivathsa.

For an overview of the key research findings please visit: https://news.microsoft.com/en-in/leading-businesses-reveal-power-of-combining-human-ingenuity-with-ai-rohini-srivathsa/

Methodology

KRC Research conducted a random online sample of approximately 12,000 people working with enterprise companies (more than 250 employees). Within in each market the sample was comprised of at least 500 workers and 100 leaders (director / senior executive level and above). Markets represented include: Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (combined), Hungary, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, India, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.

Microsoft Introduces the Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution in India

Microsoft has announced the general availability of its Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution across India.  Introduced at its flagship partner summit Microsoft Inspire 2020, this pre-built solution will help organizations plan, coordinate and manage the return to physical workplaces with confidence. Designed for fast deployment and customization, the Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution is a comprehensive, end-to-end set of modules built on a secure and compliant platform. Together, the modules provide an end-to-end experience for executive leaders, facility managers, employees, managers, as well as health and safety leaders. The solution will be free to download and use for businesses of all sizes as an integral part of all existing and new paid Power Apps licenses.

Underlining its commitment to enable small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country to bounce back, Microsoft is also offering the Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution with its Back2Business Solution Boxes for business continuity.  Including offers on Microsoft Teams and Windows Virtual Desktop, these boxed packages are focused on providing immediate, secure and easy-to-deploy remote working solutions.

Reopening, or returning to the workplace, will be a phased process and it will be vital for organizations to be equipped to give their leaders and employees timely and accurate information. According to Rajiv Sodhi, COO – Microsoft India, “As the economic recovery begins, organizations are returning to their workplaces with stringent new guidelines for health and safety; stewardship of employees and customers; and rebuilding the business. The ability to be agile, react swiftly to changing conditions, and adapt will be core to the success of companies. Fast feedback loops and acting on data available within the organization will matter most for accurate and informed decision making. We believe the new Return to Workplace solution will help our customers reopen responsibly, monitor intelligently, and protect continuously with solutions for the rapidly evolving needs of the workplace.”

The Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution comprises

Location Readiness: allows facility managers and task force leaders to determine the readiness of their facilities and efficiently manage their safe reopening.  Facility managers and task force leaders can use the Location Readiness dashboard to quickly make informed decisions by using critical factors like COVID-19 infection rates and the availability of supplies.

Employee Health and Safety Management:  empowers employees with self-service tools that help them work safely, confidently and productively. They can check into work remotely, self-screen before entering the building, reserve a meeting room virtually and more – including from a mobile app.

Workplace Care Management: gives health and safety leaders the tools to actively manage COVID-19 cases, identify hotspots for safety improvement, and import data from third party systems to determine possible exposure. Executive dashboards enable monitoring of all Workplace Care Management data for a consolidated view.

Location Management:  gives facility managers the tools they need to keep their locations open safely. Location Management helps maintain a safe environment with tools for monitoring occupancy, health supplies, safety procedures and other facility-related best practices.

 

The Power Platform Return to the Workplace solution provides an opportunity for Microsoft partners to help and support customers with customizations and deployment. It offers a foundation that partners can integrate and extend to meet unique customer requirements, with the solution available at no additional cost. Designed to accelerate workplace readiness for stores, factories, offices or even schools, this pre-built solution can help organizations save time and money by reducing risk and streamlining their workplace reopening process.

About Microsoft Power Platform and Power Apps

Microsoft Power Platform is a low code platform that allows organizations to analyze data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents, to meet business challenges effectively.

Power Apps is Microsoft’s low code application development platform that spans Azure, M365 and D365 as well as stand-alone applications, empowering everyone, whether a citizen developer, an IT admin or a Pro Dev to collaborate and solve business problems and innovate faster. 

Low-code platforms enable a visual approach to building apps and workflows. They reduce the time and effort to build apps, automate workflows and derive value from data. They also bridge the gap between IT, professional developers and the business, driving a collaborative approach to problem solving, lowering the technical barrier to solving business challenges with technology.

L&T Technology Services Expands Collaboration with Microsoft to Offer Solutions for Workplace Transformation

L&T Technology Services Limited (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), a leading global pure-play engineering services company, today announced that it has expanded its collaboration with Microsoft Corporation and launched its latest and enhanced version of the state-of-the-art i-BEMSTM solution on Microsoft Azure to transform buildings into future-ready smart campuses.

With growing digital transformation, there has been a clear impetus on the need for organizations to revamp their office premises to be eco-friendly, taking into consideration sustainability aspects including greenhouse gas and carbon emissions. Another important aspect for office and facility administrators today is to find balance in their buildings to ensure health, safety and wellbeing of their workforce.

LTTS’ award-winning Intelligent Building Experience Management System i-BEMSTM is a system-of-systems solution that focuses on creating digital experiences and intelligent space management. The cloud-based smart buildings/campus/spaces solution helps monitor and manage building operations and optimize business metrics leveraging advanced IoT based Edge Analytics and machine learning algorithms.

i-BEMS™ uses advanced energy analytics and fault diagnostics for energy savings, and net-zero energy compliance. i-BEMSTM has enterprise-grade security features and can create a digital twin to test changes in a virtual build of the building.

LTTS has earlier collaborated with Microsoft to develop a smart campus in Israel for a leading technology company. The two companies have also partnered to leverage  Azure IoT platform for Sustainability solutions and connect with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service to enable real-time optimization, improve ROI and employee productivity for Facility Management and Operations globally. In 2018, LTTS furthered their working relationship with Microsoft by setting up a Digital Industrial Transformation Applied Innovation Centre for shared enterprise customers.

The current expanded collaboration leverages Azure to enable i-BEMSTM to act as a Facility Information Broker, unifying data from all systems making the building/campus a single entity rather than a heterogeneous collection of systems focused on employee health and safety and preservation of the immediate environment.

Experts from LTTS and Microsoft also shared the latest best practices on the holistic approach for enterprises planning eco-friendly and safe smart buildings, which can be read here: Smart buildings: From design to reality.

Alind Saxena, Chief Business Officer - Transportation & Alliances, L&T Technology Services said, “With digital transformation, enterprises are also increasingly focusing on finding sustainable ways to grow, while protecting the planet and its resources. Another important determinant for companies is maintaining employee safety and wellbeing within a building by reducing resource usage and improving operational efficiency. i-BEMS covers the best practices from designing to construction to operations for enterprises planning environmentally friendly and socially responsible smart building projects. We are excited to further expand our partnership leveraging Microsoft Azure IoT & Edge technology to serve enterprise customers with industry-leading solutions.”

Sanjay Jacob, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation said, “As a leader in engineering solutions for smart and sustainable campuses, LTTS’ Smart Building solutions enable modern workplaces by leveraging cutting-edge Microsoft Azure IoT, Edge & AI technology. Employee safety, energy-efficiency and sustainability is the need of the hour and LTTS delivers an integrated, advanced Azure based Smart Building solution for global enterprises to deploy smart and sustainable campuses. The whitepaper provides an excellent template with the most current best practices for enterprises to go from design to reality of their smart buildings.”

About L&T Technology Services Ltd

L&T Technology Services Limited (LTTS) is a listed subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited focused on Engineering and R&D (ER&D) services. We offer consultancy, design, development and testing services across the product and process development life cycle. Our customer base includes 69 Fortune 500 companies and 53 of the world’s top ER&D companies, across industrial products, medical devices, transportation, telecom & hi-tech, and the process industries. Headquartered in India, we have over 16,600 employees spread across 17 global design centers, 28 global sales offices and 51 innovation labs as of June 30, 2020.

Microsoft's Windows 7 free for 13 months

Microsoft Corp released a near-final version of the Windows 7 operating system to a large group of technology-savvy testers that adds a few new features, including a way to run Windows XP applications.

The Windows 7 `release candidate' will be available for anyone to download and try out on May 5. The release candidate is typically the version used by Microsoft's corporate customers to test how the new system will work for them. Software developers, hardware makers and other partners also base their next-generation products on this version because they trust that it's stable and close to finished.

Windows 7 RC, slated for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers by the general public on May 5, doesn't expire until June 1, 2010, Microsoft confirmed.

The spokeswoman, however, refused to comment why the company is giving users such a long free pass for the software.

The 13-month life span of Windows 7 RC is longer than the time limit Microsoft put on Vista’s release candidates.

The software giant published the Vista release candidate about five months before the final version went on sale. If Windows 7 were to follow the same trajectory, it could be available by the start of October. Officially, Microsoft expects to start selling Windows 7 by the end of January 2010, but has said this week that it is possible it could launch in time for the holiday shopping season.

The software maker is counting on Windows 7 to win over businesses that put off upgrading to Vista, which got off to a rough start because it didn't work well with many existing programs and devices.

And Microsoft drew criticism from consumers when many computers advertised beforehand as ``Vista capable'' were actually too weak to run Vista's highly touted new interface and other features. People who wanted to upgrade Windows XP computers found their graphics cards and other components weren't up to the task.

The new system is already set up for a smoother debut because it shares much of Vista's underlying technology, which means hardware and software makers have had more than two years to catch up to a more demanding set of requirements. And Microsoft has pushed the notion that the high-end version of Windows 7 will run on many more computers than Vista, including tiny, low-powered laptops called netbooks. Today, Microsoft sells Windows XP, a much less profitable version of its operating system, to PC makers like Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard to install on Netbooks.

Microsoft revealed that the basic requirements for running a high-end version of Windows 7 aren't much different from those needed to run the bulkier versions of Vista. However, critics said the Vista requirements for memory and other components should have been set higher, and Microsoft says Windows 7 is better at managing memory and not bogging down less-powerful machines.

Microsoft unveiled a few new features in the release candidate that didn't exist in the January beta, including something called Windows XP Mode. The feature, available for the release candidate as a separate download, will let people run many XP-era programs from a Windows 7 computer.

The release candidate also adds a way for people to access music and other media files stored on their home PC over the Internet from other Windows 7 machines.

Agencies

Is Microsoft planning massive job cuts in 2009?

Microsoft Corp is considering significant layoffs across its various divisions, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the company's plans.

But plans for the cutbacks have not yet been firmed up and Microsoft could end up finding alternative methods to control costs, the Journal reported on its website.

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on layoff rumours. The number of potential job cuts is likely to be far less than the 15,000 positions that have been rumoured in recent weeks, the Journal reported.

Microsoft might announce the job cuts when it reports quarterly earnings next week, the Journal said.

The software giant employs about 91,000 employees globally.

Agencies

Microsoft delays Windows 7 beta download

Microsoft Corp said on Friday it has paused offering downloads of the public test version of its new version of Windows due to "high demand."

The "beta" launch of the highly anticipated update to Microsoft's Windows franchise began early on Friday, but the company had to halt downloads to add more servers.

"We are adding servers as fast as we can add them," a Microsoft spokesman said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

He declined to say when Windows 7 downloads would resume.

Microsoft said at CES on Wednesday it would let consumers test the next generation of its computer operating system starting Friday.

Microsoft, the world's biggest maker of software, has said Windows 7 will incorporate touch screen technology and allow users to more easily personalize the system. It promised more user-friendly features, such as a new taskbar that previews all open windows from a single application by hovering over the program's icon.

Windows Live Search to be rebranded Kumo?

Microsoft is expected to rebrand and relaunch its Windows Live Search, according to various reports on the Web.

There have been tremors on the Web that Microsoft was considering a new brand name for Live Search, and now LiveSide.Net is reporting that Microsoft has taken control of the domain name Kumo.com from its registrar and directing internal traffic to it as a test site.

The rebranded site is expected to launch early next year, according to a TechCrunch report that cited a source within the company. According to that report, very few people in the company are privy to the chosen name of the new brand and it could still change.

And while this doesn't mean that Microsoft is definitely going to adopt Kumo as its new search brand, taken together it's pretty clear evidence that Microsoft has decided to focus on revitalizing its own search effort over its former ambitions for Yahoo's search business.

Microsoft's recent move to acquire Yahoo search talent is another sign that it is beefing up its own search muscle. Microsoft confirmed that it had hired Yahoo search executive Sean Suchter to be general manager of Microsoft's Silicon Valley Search Technology Center "working on Live Search."

Kumo--a Japanese word that means "cloud" or "spider"--is certainly sexier than Windows Live Search, but is it enough to jump start Microsoft's search effort?

Tech results show resilience, future more gloomy

Microsoft Corp and a diverse group of technology companies met or beat Wall Street earnings targets, but uncertain outlooks undermined a short burst of enthusiasm from investors.
Microsoft itself initially gave investors some relief by dropping its forecast less than feared, but an after-hours rally in its shares fizzled.

"Even where earnings outperform expectations, there is still not a lot of good guidance going forward," said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial. "It's very hard to give guidance, even if you have done well. It's very hard to know where the world is going."
Shares of Microsoft, whose products range from the Windows operating system to the Xbox video game system, were flat in extended trade after closing at $22.32.

"The company continues to set reasonable expectations and meet or beat them as they did here," said David Katz, chief investment officer of Matrix Asset Advisors. "The expectation was that they would bring down guidance, they only did that in a modest way. They seem to have a grasp on all their business."

Technology firms over the past few weeks have repeatedly complained of poor visibility into the December quarter and beyond, and worries about the global economy have prompted many to issue cautious forecasts.

Ingram Micro Inc, the world's biggest computer hardware distributor, elected to end its practice of issuing guidance altogether, citing the "unpredictability" of global markets. It reported quarterly sales declines in Europe and Asia, indicating that economic pain is spreading across the globe.

That report, combined with the forecast from Microsoft, are signs that technology spending will not hold up next year, said Fred Hickey, editor of the High-Tech Strategist Newsletter, a publication widely read by investors.

"The weakness has spread everywhere. All the regions are affected," he said. "They did not give much hope going forward. It's going to be a rough year."

Ingram shares were flat in extended trading after closing at $12.18. They've dropped 28 percent over the past month.

Flextronics International Ltd , the world's biggest contract manufacturer, reported adjusted results that met analysts' forecasts. Its shares added 4 percent after closing at $3.74, though they've lost half their value over the past month.

Hilliard Lyons analyst Thomas Carpenter said Flextronics' results were likely better than people were looking for, but said the future did not look promising. "There was a little bit of slowing in the quarter, mostly toward the end, and things are slowing further in this quarter. I think this is going to be a multi-quarter slowdown as we unwind the credit crunch."

More signs of slowing came from Juniper Networks Inc, which reported higher earnings and revenue but issued a cautious outlook, sending its shares down 5 percent from its close of $17.83. "A disaster scenario is already priced into the stock market. The uncertainty is where the fly in the ointment is," Swonk said.

Western Digital Corp, the world's second-largest maker of hard disk drives, said its net profit more than tripled, while revenue edged past analysts' average forecast. The company's shares were unchanged in after-hours trading after closing at $13.05.