While every company’s digital journey is noteworthy, the midmarket financial sector’s transformation is especially impressive as they have an increasingly unique challenge.

For starters, midmarket companies must learn to navigate the digital journey without the more robust resources of their larger peers. Another challenge is these companies don’t have the same level of flexibility and agility as some smaller organizations. And finally, waiting to adopt a digital strategy can put an organization at risk of being outranked by the competition or losing industry relevancy.

For Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), this has meant diving in headfirst and embracing the change that’s needed to provide more value to the 420,000+ members who rely on them to manage their pension. For HOOPP, it’s not about a competitive or leading edge, but about delivering value and a retirement promise to healthcare workers (both working and retired) – and this is no small feat.

HOOPP’s digital transformation journey started years ago to modernize the pension administration platform, realize operational efficiencies, and provide the most secure and innovative technology and tools to service their members. One of the biggest shifts (and challenges) was three years ago when they shifted from a traditional IT physical operating model to the public cloud leveraging Microsoft’s trusted Azure platform.

“Once this cloud adoption happened, that’s when the team realized that we needed to embrace change as a constant” said Juan Diz, Vice President, Pension Solutions Group (PSG), at HOOPP. “Being in the cloud, helped us innovate faster, reduce complexities, improve performance and lower costs.”

For many organizations, the pandemic accelerated cloud adoption, but because HOOPP had already started their journey with Azure, they had the foundation in place for innovation to scale. This meant they were able to deliver new services and technologies to their members faster throughout the course of the pandemic. And this was just the beginning, the next step involved refining their operating model to become more efficient using this cloud native technology and realizing an effective data strategy.

A Microsoft survey earlier this year found that almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of Canadian business leaders agree that data – and knowing how to draw actionable insights from that data – are key to business success in today’s economy. However, only about one-third (34 per cent) say their business has a comprehensive data strategy in place and even fewer (31 per cent) feel their organization is a data-led business.

As data has become one of the world’s most valuable assets, it’s imperative for organizations to know how to gather, store, analyze, and govern that data effectively.

HOOPP is ahead of the curve in Canada as they are already working on an effective data strategy leveraging Microsoft Azure’s comprehensive data platform to inform decision making. By utilizing Azure Synapse Analytics, a limitless analytics service that brings together data integration, enterprise data warehousing, and big data analytics, the teams at HOOPP are able to access a safe and secure environment for a single source of data analytics to enable timely decisions and improve member services.

“A great example of this is the digital journey of our members through our website, said Martin Tyborski, Director, PSG Data Platform at HOOPP. “We’re able to see how our members are interacting with our services, if they’re getting value, and who we’re leaving behind to provide coherent insights for our business partners – this enables us to be less prescriptive and more predictive.”

This adoption of new technology and a data strategy has also meant HOOPP needed to put the right security and safeguards in place around their infrastructure to protect sensitive information. HOOPP’s in-house IT team recently launched iGuard, a foundational fraud detection user access monitoring tool utilized to verify records and protect data and transactions.

In the past, a service of this magnitude would take years to build, and several resources to manage, however, with cloud native applications, HOOPP can set up an instance, scale and manage, all within the confines of their current IT team. Leveraging solutions like Azure Cosmos DB, a fully managed database service, teams have the ability to offload the administrative burdens of operating and scaling distributed databases to Azure. This means they don’t have to worry about managing VMs, hardware provisioning, setup and configuration, capacity, replication, software patching, or cluster scaling and can focus on more customer centric activities. HOOPP is currently enhancing iGuard with Microsoft AI and Machine learning solutions to identify user patterns and identify risks

“iGuard is a key piece to our digital transformation journey to provide the safeguards that we need when it comes to our members’ data,” said Zach Millis, PSG InfoSec Lead at HOOPP. “By further enhancing with AI and machine learning, we are able to identify user patterns and risks to best protect sensitive information.”

iGuard is just one example of how HOOPP is leveraging the Microsoft cloud to bring new solutions to life, and we look forward to collaborating on many other projects in the years to come.

It is story’s like HOOPP’s that showcase the importance of having a trusted cloud provider, establishing a data strategy and putting the right security safeguards in place. All these steps are imperative to ensuring success in today’s increasingly world.

If you are interested in learning more about how to establish and effective data strategy with Azure, please see below:

Register for the next webinar on Azure in our Cloud Digital Series here http://www.aka.ms/CloudDigitalSeries

To explore fundamentals and technical learning on Azure, please visit: https://aka.ms/MicrosofTrainingDays

For more learning resources on how Azure and other Microsoft solutions can help your organization, please visit https://www.aka.ms/MSLearn

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The types of cyber threats over the past couple of years included the recent crippling of Sunwing Airlines operations due to a data breach and the cyberattack on Newfoundland and Labrador’s health care system. Those carrying out these threats are primarily:

1. Nation State Actors – this includes Russia, China, Iran and North Korea that carry out attacks leaving billions of dollars in damage. Observations from the war in Ukraine have highlighted how Russian cyber-attacks further impact civilians in conflict.
2. Organized Cyber Criminals – these have varying capabilities. They function in a professional capacity within a parallel illicit economy, making hundreds of billions of dollars and operating out of countries where the risk of prosecution is minimal. Some act in collaboration with nation states.
3. Private Sector Offensive Actors – these are companies that build spyware to spy on citizens. Citizen Lab at the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy is engaged in some excellent interdisciplinary work to bring details about these actors into the open.

Learning from cyber incidents and responding to cybercrime requires full participation from governments, tech companies, the private sector, academia and individuals.

Developing and agreeing to norms of behaviour for nation states and for technology companies (the Tech Accord is an excellent example) is essential to international deterrence and resiliency building. While it may have been perceived as a bold statement in 2017, the notion of a Digital Geneva Convention is now under serious consideration.

To counter and stop cyber threats, organizations must foster a culture of security. Two easy cyber hygiene steps are: to keep systems up to date, and to implement multifactor authentication. According to Hewie, “95% of attacks would be stopped by enabling multifactor authentication and right now only 22% of Microsoft customers have this turned on.”

Fostering a culture of security also requires leading with empathy. Ongoing security training for staff is essential. Equally, Hewie advises that “these are professional attack groups, and humans aren’t going to be perfect, so making a space for employees to feel comfortable to report is important.”

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The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) offers seemingly limitless potential for organizations across industries and sectors, including operational efficiencies, real-time data-informed decision making, and even augmenting human creativity and innovation. However, a recent survey from Microsoft Canada found that just 12 per cent of business decision makers are currently using AI / machine learning, and only another 15 per cent have plans to start using it in the foreseeable future.

To help organizations recognize the benefits and accelerate the adoption of AI and other emerging technologies in Canada, we have created The Microsoft Canada Artificial Intelligence Partner Advisory Board (aiPAB). This industry group is comprised of senior-level experts in data and AI from Microsoft Canada, certified Microsoft partners and advisors from academia, industry and non-profit organizations who come together to tackle pressing issues in the Canadian technology landscape. Board members include Adastra, AltaML, Avanade, BDO-Lixar, E&Y, IBM, KPMG, MNP Digital, Moov.ai, NTT Digital, PureFacts, Slalom, and our Advisors, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and IDC.

At Microsoft, we are privileged to work with innovative business-decision makers who are leveraging new technology to transform their organizations. We see first-hand the endless possibilities that AI can provide – whether it’s chatbots to give virtual support, improved cancer screening for healthcare organizations, or fraud detection for financial firms. The goal of our new aiPAB is to help accelerate partner innovation and encourage Canadian businesses to unlock the value that new technology brings.

The Board meets regularly and frequently forms subcommittees to collaboratively tackle tangible initiatives that we hope will raise the knowledge, awareness, and adoption of AI in Canada. To learn more about Microsoft Canada’s aiPAB and some innovative AI projects conducted by Board members, you can view our 2022 Case Study Booklet or watch the first aiPAB webinar in a series about embarking on your AI journey.

ABOUT THE SURVEY
These results are drawn from a survey conducted by Fuse Insights on behalf of Microsoft Canada. A total of 658 business decision-makers from across Canada, representing a range of company sizes and industries, were surveyed online in English and French in December 2021.

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Bringing innovation to traditional industries

When it started developing RemoteSpark, its Mixed Reality remote worker support solution, Kognitiv Spark listened to and worked with its clients to come up with an out-of-the-box tool that will solve challenges across industries. The main one: reducing equipment and system downtime and the cost associated with it. In the manufacturing sector, if production is down, it can cost companies thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a minute. In the oil and gas industry, that amount could be even higher, and in the case of the nuclear sector, unscheduled downtime can cost millions per day.

Calgary-based, premier industrial contractor specializing in electrical and instrumentation services, SurePoint Group, reached out to Kognitiv Spark last year looking for a tool and technology that would give them the ability to connect remote workers with experts, while eliminating the average 14-20 hours it would normally take for a senior technician to travel to a job site. A service provider for oil and gas companies, SurePoint is often called on site to troubleshoot problems and resolve issues that can arise regularly.

Traditionally, if a field worker comes across a problem, they would call a SurePoint Group expert, use their cellphone to record or take pictures; the expert would then take a couple of hours or more to give a diagnosis and, at least 20% of the time, according to SurePoint Group, with no resolution, the expert would have to drive over or catch a plane to reach the site.

Augmented reality for remote support

The solution built by this Microsoft Mixed Reality partner, RemoteSpark allows remote workers to establish a low-bandwidth, secure video call with subject matter experts when they need help solving a complex problem. Built and optimized for Microsoft HoloLens, RemoteSpark enables the expert to see what the remote worker sees, and to use holographic assets to help solve the issue, while keeping the user heads-up and hands-free. RemoteSpark provides a full mixed reality environment with industrial-grade security, giving experts a complete virtual picture of any problems wherever they may be.

“RemoteSpark is a real differentiator, especially in a traditional area like the oil and gas industry,” Rod Heitrich, Director of Technology and Innovation at SurePoint Group, describes. More than 60% of their calls can now be solved without an expert travelling to the site. Instead of a simple phone call and pictures taken from a cell phone, experts have eyes on the ground, remote workers have their hands free to follow instructions, and companies save money on travel, but most importantly can return their facility to full operation much faster, saving significant downtime costs. Since they started using it in October, the company has already made over 300 calls with the solution.

Immediate assistance anywhere, any time

By leveraging Microsoft Azure and IT security framework, Kognitiv Spark was able to build an out-of-the-box, secure, and scalable solution for industrial customers everywhere, regardless of their internal data governance policies. RemoteSpark can operate both in the Azure cloud on on-premise with Azure Stack. “While our software is already secure, working with Microsoft, which creates a protective onion around our whole application, really allows us to be next level and operate in government, aerospace, defense, oil and gas and other data sensitive industries,” Sean McCullum from Kognitiv Spark explains.

Solutions like RemoteSpark give companies in more traditional space, such as SurePoint Group, the ability to be game changers in their sector by combining innovation, technology and field expertise. Using Microsoft hardware, AI, and cloud computing solution, including IoT Hub, Functions, CosmosDB and Storage, Kognitiv Spark offers organizations across industries the ability to equip their workers with the knowledge and resources they need to complete any task, anywhere.

Want to learn more about Kognitiv Spark’s solution? Get in touch now.

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For organizations planning to host IaaS or PaaS workloads in Microsoft Azure, Microsoft is publishing a series of blueprint samples built in to Azure to help you proactively manage and monitor your compliance obligations. Our most recent release is the Azure Canada Federal PBMM (Protected B, Medium Integrity, Medium Availability) Governance Blueprint. It maps a core set of Azure Policy definitions to specific controls for compliance with the Canadian Federal PBMM profile.

The free Azure Blueprints service helps cloud architects and information technology groups define a repeatable set of Azure resources that implements and adheres to an organization’s standards, patterns, and requirements. Blueprints can help speed the development and delivery of governed subscriptions, support the design of environments that comply with organizational standards and best practices, and scale to support production implementations for large-scale migrations.

Azure leads the industry with the deepest portfolio of more than 90 compliance offerings that meet a broad set of international and industry-specific compliance standards. This puts Microsoft in a unique position to help ease our customers’ burden in meeting their compliance obligations. In fact, many of our customers, particularly those in regulated industries, have expressed strong interest in being able to leverage our internal compliance practices for their environments with a service that maps compliance settings automatically. The Azure Blueprints service is our natural response to that interest. (Note, however, that customers are ultimately responsible for meeting the compliance requirements applicable to their environments and must determine for themselves whether particular information helps meet their compliance needs.)

To enable the adoption of cloud computing Canada Federal PBMM takes an integrated risk management approach. To support that approach, it developed a set of standardized cloud security controls, the Security Control Profile for Cloud-based GC Services suitable for both cloud service providers and GC departments and services. This document describes the baseline security controls that agencies must implement to adequately protect cloud-based GC services and related information with a PBMM security category. The GC cloud PBMM profile applies to GC programs and services that support sensitive government operations except for those concerning international affairs, defense, or federal-provincial affairs.

The Canada Federal PBMM Governance blueprint provides governance guardrails using Azure Policy which help towards Canada Federal PBMM attestation and enable customers to deploy a core set of policies for any Azure-deployed architecture. The control mapping documentation provides specific details on policies included within the blueprint and how they are mapped to various controls within the GC framework. When assigned to an architecture, resources will be evaluated by Azure Policy for non-compliance with assigned policies. These control mappings include:

•  Account management. Helps with the review of accounts that may not comply with an organization’s account management requirements.
• Security attributes. Assigns Azure Policy definitions to monitor the use of security features.
•  Audit generation. Helps ensure that ensure system events are logged by assigning Azure Policy definitions that audit log settings on Azure resources.
•  Authenticator management. Assigns Azure Policy definitions to help ensure that system authenticators comply with the organization’s identification and authentication policy.
•  Vulnerability scanning. Helps with the management of information system vulnerabilities.
•  Boundary protection. Helps with the management and control of the system boundary.
•  Protection of information at rest. Helps enforce organizational policy on the use of cryptograph controls to protect information at rest.
• Malicious code protection. Helps with the management of endpoint protection, including malicious code protection.
•  Information system monitoring. Helps monitor a system by auditing and enforcing logging across and data security across Azure resources.

At Microsoft, we will continue this commitment to helping our customers leverage Azure in a secure and compliant manner. Over the next few months we plan to release more new built-in blueprints for HITRUST, FedRAMP, the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmark, and other standards.

If you would like to participate in any early previews please sign up, or if you have a suggestion for a compliance blueprint, please share it on the Azure Governance Feedback Forum

Learn more about the Azure Canada Federal PBMM Governance blueprint.

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Automation is a thriving part of every job, data is driving more decisions than ever before, and thus the pressure for modernizing an organization is growing rapidly. But transformation isn’t always easy. Who will create the solutions? Who will inform them? How will solutions be connected with the data that makes them relevant?

If built in a silo, top-down solutions can miss their mark and frustrate the users they’re meant to support. They can also be expensive and difficult to implement. With that in mind, the Microsoft Power Platform was designed to provide a way to create bottom-up solutions that hit targets and empower workforces.

Samit Saini’s journey at Heathrow Airport exemplifies how an employee with a learning mindset and a drive to make a difference can leverage PowerApps to create solutions. Samit left school at age 16 and took an opportunity to work at Heathrow Airport as a security officer, a position he held for 13 years. In his spare time, he enjoyed tinkering with technology like Excel and Visual Basic for Applications. When he got access to PowerApps, he used it to quickly build and deploy an application that addressed an operational problem at Heathrow.

Samit wanted to digitize time- and resource-intensive processes that had been done on paper. His app was useful for providing translations for questions from international passengers, customer experience audits, and assisting passengers with reduced mobility. This was just the beginning: a community of PowerApps users grew around Samit, creating 17 more apps. The outcomes of quantitative benefits and cost-savings are significant, but Samit’s story also shows the potential for technology to empower a more engaged, proactive workforce with higher morale.

The Power Platform is a collection of three cloud-based services that allow users to Analyze, Act, and Automate. Power BI enables analysis and visualization of data from different sources. These dashboards or reports can then be included during the creation of mobile and web apps in PowerApps. The apps and dashboards are integrated into business processes to increase automation and efficiency with Flow. The combination of this set of tools empowers a new generation of digital inclusion for anyone in an organization to build rich web and mobile applications.

Most importantly, PowerApps has low coding requirement—making it easy for anyone in an organization to quickly come up with a solution. Removing the technical talent barrier also helps lower costs, as a vastly larger group of people will be able to create impactful apps to solve their own problems, without extra hiring or consulting. These factors help reduce the burden on information technology departments, meaning less backlogs and more efficiency.

The Power Platform is engineered with enterprise-grade security and scalability. Extensive governance and data-loss policies means that compliance and regulatory concerns are covered. Security and privacy are also safeguarded by using the same Azure services you know and trust. Together, the PowerApps environment minimizes potential vulnerability issues.

There are vast benefits to be gained from including the frontline into the digital transformation process as active participants. The low-code, feature-rich environment of PowerApps, combined with the data and automation possibilities of the Power Platform, means that operational inefficiencies can be erased. Empowering users to digitize processes brings with it an environment where fruitful collaboration becomes the new norm, as entire teams gain the ability to share work and ideas. Once the basic solution is created, professional developers can then add advanced functionality.

PowerApps can be a powerful opportunity for change and evolution in any organization. Being more inclusive in the process of business digitization means that problems can be solved with first-hand insights and experience by those that live and breathe it everyday. When any person in an organization can be an innovator, there is no limit to what can be achieved.

Learn more and start empowering your organization with the Microsoft Power Platform today.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the defining technology of our time. Organizations that take advantage of all that it has to offer are arming themselves to compete now and in the future. A recent study of European leaders highlights how businesses that are actively implementing AI are more than twice as likely to be high-growth companies. Those that are not considering their AI strategy risk being left behind. I engage with partners and customers from across Canada daily and they regularly share with me that change can be overwhelming.  When it comes to AI, many leaders do not know where to start. Curious companies committed to success need to look no further than the companies that are doing incredible innovative work right here in Canada, demonstrating what’s possible with AI. In March we brought business leaders together from across the country to showcase, celebrate and learn what’s next at Future Now in Toronto – a focused business decision maker event where we explore innovation in action.

We started and ended the morning with amazing young Canadian talent and it is clear the future is bright. Tanisha Bassan, an ‘older and wiser’ 18-year-old former Microsoft Canada high school intern and winner of the CES 2019 Young Innovators to Watch Award for her project in quantum machine learning, opened the day with her inspiring keynote on her journey and work to fight cancer. Samin Khan, an incredible Canadian student and innovator, closed the day with a demo of his simple, inexpensive prosthetic arm, smartARM. Samin and his innovation partner Hamayal Choudhry’s ingenuity earned them the grand prize at last year’s Microsoft’s Imagine Cup – a global competition of the best and brightest innovators from 33 countries. These students drove home for me what can be achieved when you embrace technology, approach a challenge with a growth mindset and are passionate about the results.

We simply must commit to accelerating the growth of AI in Canada so students like Tanisha, Samin and Hamayal can reach their full potential here at home. Microsoft Canada is investing more than $100 million in cloud technology so Canadian organizations have the tools they need to compete in the digital age. And yet, in spite of local investments and a proliferation of AI incubators and research centres in places like Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal, Canadian businesses are not taking advantages of the enormous opportunities made possible by AI. A recent study from Gartner found that Canada is a very poor 9 out of 10 when it comes to countries adopting and deploying AI in business applications. On top of this challenge, Canadian employers are facing an enormous skills gap in the digital labour force. So how should we address this incredible challenge and ensure growth for the Canadian economy?

The solution is twofold. Not only does the Canadian workforce need the skills to work in AI, but Canadian businesses need to actively adopt AI to provide the interesting and innovative work that will keep skilled workers and innovators in Canada. We are seeing amazing innovations, life changing and life-saving, happening in every sector that will inspire our future Canadian AI workforce.  A terrific proof point is the sheer number of Canadian organizations recognized by Microsoft to receive AI for Earth grants. Many innovators stand out and we heard from several at Future Now:

Benjamin Haibe-Kains, a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at Toronto’s University Health Network, and his team are working to develop a shared database for clinicians to run biopsy results that leverages AI and the Microsoft Cloud to assist in determining personalized treatment plans for cancer patients. An initiative to enhance patient care and, ultimately, save lives.

And Humza Teherany, Chief Technology and Digital Officer at MLSE, is using data and the cloud to completely transform the fan experience and help Toronto sports fans get closer to the teams they love both in and outside of the arena.

We also provided a sneak peak at the amazing innovations that are possible with mixed reality with a demo of the recently launched HoloLens 2. The digital world has gone beyond two-dimensional screens and entered the three-dimensional world. We are seeing a new ecosystem of Mixed Reality Partners evolve, including partners like Kognitiv Spark who is working with the Canadian Army and Air Force to infuse Mixed Reality solutions and HoloLens into training support services, to ultimately improve operations and advance communications. The possibilities are truly endless.

Today was about showcasing these leading-edge examples and to helping others realize the value that AI and the power of cloud computing can bring to an organization. It was also about providing the insights organizations need to develop a new strategy and unlock the full potential of AI and machine learning.

For many business leaders, events like Future Now are just the start of their digital transformation journey. Because of this, we’ve recently launched AI Business School, a free comprehensive AI business training that helps organizations define an AI strategy, enable an AI-ready culture and understand the implications of responsible AI in business.

With all the innovation on display and the enthusiasm I heard from attendees about what’s in store, I know we are on the path to incredible and life changing innovation right here in Canada, but we need to act now. Our keynote speaker Futurist Jim Carroll said, “Do something. The time is now. The future is going to be here before you know it,” and he’s absolutely right.

Let’s continue to partner, to imagine and to bring our aspirations to life. Future Now is all about unlocking the art of what is possible, now lets go make it happen!

Learn more about how you can empower innovation with Microsoft AI.

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