As digitalization takes over the world, manufacturers everywhere need to change to survive, developing new capabilities that can drive competitiveness and growth. But what does this really involve and how do you succeed?

In a new white paper series, we address this question and much more. We share the opportunities for industrial, high-tech, automotive and aerospace manufacturers to grow, adapt and evolve to address the changing needs of their customers and capture new business potential.

Transforming manufacturing for the digital age

Digital transformation is not simply about technology—it requires business leaders to re-envision existing business models and embrace a different way of bringing together people, data, and processes to create value for customers.

The challenges facing businesses today are familiar: engaging customers, empowering employees, optimizing operations, and transforming products. While the challenges may not be new, three factors are shifting both what customers expect as the result of being armed with information in a way not previously possible and what companies can deliver to meet those expectations.

1. Volumes of data continue to rise, totaling nearly 50 zettabytes by 2020 – that’s 20,000 times the total amount of data that existed in the world less than three decades before. The digitation of ‘things,’ heightened individual mobility and collaboration, and a host of other factors continue to accelerate data proliferation.
2. Advancements in data analytics and intelligence have enhanced our ability to draw value from the data – transforming information into insight that can be acted upon, even preemptively and at the point of business processes to maximize impact.
3. And the ubiquity of cloud computing puts this disruptive power in the hands of organizations of all sizes, increasing the pace of innovation and competition.

The convergence of these factors reflects technology’s omnipresent nature, where access to digital services plays an increasing role in everything we do. And they reflect your opportunity to grow, adapt, and evolve to meet the changing needs of your customers and the new business opportunities of tomorrow by thinking and operating like a digital company.

By developing new capabilities and transforming into digital company, your business can better leverage every system, device, process, and asset in order to draw better insight out of data and convert it to intelligent action.

Microsoft is uniquely positioned to help you evolve your business to meet the changing needs of customers and capture new business opportunities. We do this through agile platforms and solutions designed to change and adapt; an amazing breadth of technologies that prioritize flexibility, integration, and trust; and one of the largest ecosystem of industry-leading partners.

Don’t be left behind. I encourage you to get started today. If you are a manufacturer in the industrial, high-tech, automotive, or aerospace sectors, and would like to learn how to quickly respond to these trends and reinvent your business for tomorrow, then I encourage you to go here to download our white papers.

If you would like to see this next revolution in digital transformation for yourself, please join us at Hannover Messe 2017 on April 24-28 in Hannover, Germany. Our industrial innovation showcases will demonstrate how some of the top manufacturers in the world are already realizing true business excellence and impactful ROI as a result of their transformations. We’ll give you a hands-on roadmap that will show you how your business can achieve similar results.

Twitter: @sanrav

The post The secrets to surviving digital disruption appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

At the event, there were exciting new technology innovations Microsoft showcased to make it easier to do just that, addressing some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing technology professionals today, spanning productivity, security, intelligence and the cloud.

Here are the top five things manufacturing tech professionals won’t want to miss.

Manufacturing Innovation Examples. Manufacturing innovators were in full force, sharing exciting examples of using technology to transform their businesses. Renault-Nissan will partner with Microsoft to deliver the future of connected driving, and Rolls-Royce’s new digital capabilities were featured, using Cortana Intelligence to minimize the cost and disruptions associated with aircraft maintenance activities. Also at Ignite, Uber shared a new security feature that uses driver selfies and Microsoft Cognitive Services to help protect drivers’ accounts from fraud and adds another security layer to Uber’s app for passengers.

Productivity/Empowerment. We’re pleased to introduce Microsoft StaffHub—a new app for deskless workers to manage their life at work. With Microsoft StaffHub, it’s easy to create and manage shift schedules for your manufacturing employees and provide relevant information needed for the job. For deskless workers, their work schedule, and other important information, is right at their fingertips—on their mobile device. Starting today, Microsoft StaffHub is available in public preview for Office 365 customers. Learn more here.

Security. Security enhancements across Microsoft’s products, including Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, offer powerful protection against security threats. Read more here.

Intelligence. New artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that span agents, applications, services and infrastructure transform what’s possible for people and organizations. You can learn more here. You’ll also want to hear more about the next milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey, with the formation of a new group to further expand our AI efforts by bringing together the company’s world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers.

Cloud. Building on the industry’s richest hybrid cloud portfolio, the release of Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 helps transform a manufacturing organization’s infrastructure to support future-ready cloud applications, while advances in the Microsoft cloud infrastructure provide a path toward an AI supercomputer in the cloud. You can learn more here. And in other cloud-related news, Adobe and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership to help businesses strengthen customer engagement with the help of Microsoft Azure, Adobe Marketing Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

You can see and learn more about these opportunities by watching the event’s on-demand keynote videos and reading all the news here.

Twitter: @sanrav

The post The top 5 things for manufacturing from Microsoft Ignite 2016 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

Last week at a demonstration event in Redmond, WA, Microsoft and Volvo Cars showed off how mixed reality technology could be used to allow customers to visualize and configure a new car in three dimensions using Microsoft HoloLens, the first fully untethered, see-through holographic computer that enables high-definition holograms to come to life, seamlessly integrating with physical places, spaces, and things.

Through the rich and immersive HoloLens experience, Volvo Cars customers could have the ability to not only see, but truly feel, what it would be like to choose the type of car they want—even before the car has been built and launched—experiencing different colors, configurations and options. Customers could also get a better understanding of car features, services and options available. To bring this concept to life, Volvo Cars used HoloLens to give event attendees a mixed-reality preview of its new S90 premium sedan, a car that has not even been built yet. Customers can experience the Volvo S90 in person at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January 2016.

The road to disruption

This demonstration shows how today’s advanced technologies can disrupt even the oldest of industries. From connected cars with Delphi Automotive, to the recent innovations with electric car charging with ABB, everything about the car is changing—and the customer experience is top priority. And that experience starts very early on in the buying process. Our research shows that two-thirds of car buying activities happen before anyone sets foot in a dealership, as more and more customers look to an online buying experience. For global automakers and dealers to effectively compete in today’s digital world, they need to transform their business models to enable an end-to-end, rich customer experience.

Technology puts the customer in the driver seat

Volvo Cars is taking a step forward in transforming that customer experience by discovering original ways for people to interact with a variety of vehicles—both from inside and outside of the car. Drivers would not only be able to see things in a mixed reality setting, but could also interact with the car very early on in the buying process. By using innovative technologies like HoloLens, Volvo Cars dealers could bring the car-buying experience to the consumer, wherever they are. For example, this kind of engaging experience could happen in a small pop-up store at a shopping mall or a busy entertainment venue. Technology is once again transforming the traditional sales environment, changing how and where we could buy cars in the future. We are already seeing early examples of this, including what Infiniti retail group UK is doing to create a unique way to bring the Infiniti sales and service experience closer to its customers with Microsoft’s Surface 3 – not from a traditional car dealership, but in a convenient retail environment.

Leveraging HoloLens could also be a dynamic way for Volvo Cars to potentially increase the impact of its brand by taking customers on an exciting adventure, putting them in the heart of the action throughout a completely different kind of buying journey. This captivating interaction with the car provides a much richer experience in terms of consumer understanding and getting close to the product. It’s all about a connection with the brand in a way that is exceptional within the automotive industry. So by the time the customer is ready to buy, they have already had a thorough and personal interaction with not only the car, but Volvo Cars itself.

The ability to sell in this way could also allow Volvo Cars to reach a new set of customers—the digitally connected consumer who demands more from makers and their products and services. It’s about enabling manufacturers to break through all the noise of traditional marketing and sales avenues to reach their customers in fresh and exciting ways—bringing the test drive to the consumer. It’s also a way for Volvo Cars to easily show off their cars to those who might not take the time for a test drive, opening up the car-buying experience to a larger potential audience.

The next era of automotive innovation

Moving forward, we are also exploring possible future areas of collaboration with Volvo Cars, including how to combine best-in-class engineering with powerful predictive analytics, machine learning, and the utilization of data to enable autonomous driving scenarios. We may also look at ways to see how information gathered by cars and their users might be used to enhance the driving experience and improve safety.

Our exploration with Volvo Cars and HoloLens could ultimately provide an opportunity to reinvent the end-to-end car buying and ownership experience in a way that is personal and truly connected—the next era of automotive innovation. And that is what today’s connected consumers have come to expect.

Learn more here and watch the video.

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LinkedIn: Sanjay Ravi

Twitter: @sanrav

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