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The Internet of Things (IoT) and its advancements in connectivity and intelligent cloud services have become a powerful force in its ability to transform how products are designed and what they are capable of. By turning consumer products into smart, connected ones, manufacturers can provide new value-added and personalized services and experiences that go along with them.

Industry leaders in manufacturing and retail are already looking at ways to harness the opportunity of IoT to provide those rich, connected experiences. A great example is FORTUNE 50 home improvement company Lowe’s.

Lowe’s says it was the first company to target the consumer market with a broad home automation solution to help its customers better monitor, manage and maintain their homes, and the first to introduce a truly open platform – allowing devices across its stores to connect with one another.

And it just got even easier.

Earlier this month, Lowe’s introduced the next gen of its Iris smart home solution, built with Microsoft Azure’s cloud technology.

According to Microsoft’s Sam George, partner director of Azure Internet of Things, “By utilizing Microsoft Azure IoT technology, Lowe’s was able to realize more business value with less effort, all while dramatically improving scalability and time to market for Iris.”

This latest version of Iris enhances Lowe’s smart home offering with new functionality and faster performance and includes updated software and hardware that make Iris simpler, more intuitive and more personalized. Redesigned from the ground up, Iris now also works with more than 75 devices and more seamlessly blends the digital and physical worlds, giving users an intuitive interactive way to communicate with their home and make their lives easier.

It’s an exciting example of how IoT and the cloud can create new, personalized experiences and long-term relationships with customers in ways never before possible.

To learn more about Iris’s new features, you can visit IrisbyLowes.com. And check out the Microsoft Azure IoT page for more on the technologies behind this customer engagement transformation opportunity.

LinkedIn: Rebecca Needham

Twitter: @ReNeedham

The post The DIY connected home: Lowe’s makes customers’ homes easier to manage and smarter than ever appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

Just like today’s digital technologies have transformed the way we shop, change is taking root in the retail workforce and in the way it works.

In their role as consumers, most retail employees—especially millennials—use technology to increasingly manage almost every aspect of their lives. And those skills have amazing potential in the retail environment. With modern technology tools in hand, those retailers that harness that potential stand to leap ahead of their competition in productivity gains, customer satisfaction and employee retention.

So what is needed to take advantage of those capabilities and create a digital workplace that motivates and enables your employees to do their best work?

To truly empower a workforce, it’s essential for enterprise IT to consumerize the internal experience for employees, including features such as social integration, mobile, personalization and targeting to solutions, to create new efficiency and innovation. But with a myriad of digital tools to consider, how do you bring them all together to create a seamless experience?

We would like to invite you to join an upcoming webinar on October 13 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (4:00 p.m. BST) with Microsoft and BrightStarr as we discuss how to achieve an exceptional digital workplace for your employees.

During the webcast, Chris Barnard, Worldwide Retail Industry Solution Director at Microsoft, and Glen Chambers, Senior Vice President of Operations and Delivery at BrightStarr, will talk about the following:

• Why internal experiences matter
• Closing the user experience gap
• Our customer stories – seeing their employees are the new customers
• How to become customer-centric with your employees
• How enterprise IT can drive these experiences with SharePoint & Office 365

We hope you can join us to learn how to enable new ways of working that tap into your techy-savvy employees’ skillsets, empower your retail workforce for big productivity gains throughout the organization, and ultimately increase both customer and employee satisfaction!

Register Today!

October 13, 2015, 11:00 AM Eastern Time

LinkedIn: Rebecca Needham
Twitter: @ReNeedham

The post Creating an empowered retail workforce for big gains in today’s digital age appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

In the battle for market share, the customer experience can set brands apart from the competition. To increase their competitiveness, retailers and brands are testing new business models and rolling out new technologies and services to drive customer experiences that are personal, seamless and differentiated.

Infiniti retail group UK is one such brand that is leading the charge in modernizing retail, creating a whole new way to sell cars and a unique customer experience.

To do that, in dense cities like London, they’ve moved from a traditional car buying lot to a new, convenient retail environment in luxury shopping malls. And to help bring the Infiniti experience and service even closer to its customers, they are bringing the Surface 3 along for the ride.

Literally.

The Surface 3 is helping navigate the sales process at every step along the way, from the time the customer steps into the showroom, to showcasing the car inside the retail space and through the test drive.

As Andrew Furneaux, manager for Infiniti Retail says in this video, “I see the future of retail in taking the service to the customer and the Surface 3 really enables us to deliver that.”

You can read this Microsoft Surface Blog post to learn more about how Infiniti has been able to put the customer in the driver’s seat and revolutionize how people buy cars in the UK.

LinkedIn: Rebecca Needham
Twitter: @ReNeedham

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