Mixed reality is providing the opportunity to take people and organisations on incredible journeys;  from adrenaline-filled aerial acrobatics to distant plants, HoloLens (the first self-contained, holographic computer) is helping our customers take to new heights without ever leaving the ground.

Red Bull Air Race

Imagine the rush of racing a single propeller aeroplane at 255 km per hour through a complex obstacle course only 15 metres off the ground. It’s exactly the kind of thrill rush that the Red Bull brand has have become famous for. Of course, not every fan can experience the thrill first hand: not nearly enough room in the cockpit, for one, and second, because of the risk, however, planes were only allowed to fly one at a time rather than going head-to-head. This took away a bit of the real-time competitive feel for fans.

Fortunately for fans, creative agency, REWIND has been able to solve both problems with the help of Microsoft HoloLens. To make Air Race as accessible as possible, REWIND conceived the idea of ‘Flight Deck’, an immersive experience that would substantially enhance the live-viewing of the sport. Users can choose either fastest lap of the day or previous laps from preferred pilots to be overlaid over a miniature race track. The experience also visually illustrates the rules of the sport in an immersive manner. Not only does it allow fans a pilot’s point of view, Flight Deck also lets users have a view of pilots’ paths overlaid on a miniature race track to add to the competitive feel of the event.

More on REWIND’s Flight Deck

The Soul of a Volvo

While the Red Bull brand is synonymous with adrenaline-filled thrill rides, Volvo has built its brand around innovation in safety and design. HoloLens is helping designers and engineers take their creativity to new heights – helping them “see the soul of the car”, as Volvo’s Chief Futurologist, Aric Cromi describes.

As part of a partnership with Microsoft, Volvo Cars has been using HoloLens for more than just seeing the souls of the cars it builds. It’s really helping Volvo push the envelope of innovation when it comes to providing better and safer cars for customers. It changes the way customers choose options and make decisions while shopping for a new Volvo. They can consider features and colours at full-scale and in 3D as if on the showroom floor, rather than simply viewing a flat image on a screen. It helps engineers better visualize how their cars perceive and react to their environments.

Watch Volvo’s HoloLens story

Life on Mars with HoloLens?

HoloLens isn’t just working with vehicle on land and in the air, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the US has been using HoloLens explore space in a number of ways. For instance, NASA has sent a HoloLens device to the International Space Station to allow ground control to interact with and assist astronauts and serve as remote experts. They’re also using the HoloLens to take real data from the Mars Rover to give scientists and engineers on earth a 3D window into the red planet. OnSight, HoloLens software developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, gives rover scientists the ability to walk around, explore and really experience Mars in a way they couldn’t before.

Watch Wired’s Brent Rose walk on Mars

Where will mixed reality take you? Find out more about how HoloLens can take your creativity and your business to new heights.

Find out more about HoloLens

The post Taking to the Skies—and Beyond—with Mixed Reality appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Why Windows 10?

Digital transformation is changing the way we interact with our technology. It’s making us more mobile. Our ideas and our work don’t only happen in a 9 to 5 office environment. Today’s workforce needs the tools to carry our productivity wherever we go. Not just with mobile devices, but with mobility between devices: start an idea on your phone and continue it on a tablet. Work with colleagues on that idea with a team collaboration device. Windows 10 allows you to take your ideas with you and your team wherever they are, and on whatever device they are using.

In addition to the mobility of Windows 10, users have entirely new ways of interacting with their devices – making computing more personal. Users can save log-in time with the advanced facial recognition of Windows Hello. With Cortana, users can interface with their devices in natural language to search for files or analyse complex data. With Ink, users can touch and interact with content in ways they couldn’t before. In short, by moving to Windows 10, organisations can not only free up their employees to work wherever they want, but also however they want to be most productive.

Given the rise of security threats, every day your organisation remains on outdated systems is another day of putting your organisation at risk. According to the latest statistics[1], nearly a million new pieces of malware are created every day. The variants of ransomware – malware that restricts access to parts of your computer unless you pay a ransom to fix – tripled last year, with an average ransom topping $1,000 (up from $300 previously). While these kinds of attacks generally target individual computers, there are equally sobering statistics for businesses as well. 90% of large organisations suffered some sort of breach last year, costing £4.1M to for each to contain. Often the attack can start with an individual’s computer and work its way through a company’s network staying undetected for, on average, over 200 days[2].

With the security features built into Windows 10, users know that they’ve got the most advanced device, identity and information protection, as well as threat resistance that Microsoft has ever offered. What’s more, organisations can use features such as Advanced Threat Protection and our Enterprise Mobility Suite their employees and data can remain secure wherever they are.

Want more information? Take a look at our webinar to find out more about the benefits that Windows 10 can bring to both your End Users and IT Team.

Why upgrade to Windows 10 now?

If you want to understand the ROI for your business, please take a look at our calculator.

Windows 10 ROI Calculator

How do you move to Windows 10?

Before you start a full rollout of Windows 10, you can start by looking at other organisations, such as Croydon Council, who have have improved productivity, saved money and changed the way people work via their implementation of O365 with W10.

Watch their story here

After that, you’ve got a host of other resources to make sure your implementation is smooth and successful.

• Upgrade Readiness with Windows Analytics: if you’re not sure whether or not your organisation is ready to make the move, a good place to start is with Windows Analytics. It gives you data-driven insights to reduce to cost of deploying, servicing and supporting Windows to: Window Analytics
• Application Compatibility: we know that many customers’ applications will move across seamlessly but for others they need some support to repackage them. We are pleased to be working in partnership with Camwood and Cloud House, who will be more than willing to help with any issues.
• Windows 10 as an Image: for government customers we offer an additional Service called ‘Windows 10 as an Image’. Please watch the webinar below to find out more: Windows 10 as an Image on-demand webinar
• Training Portal: we’ve also just released a training portal which provides free training for your end users and IT professionals on Windows 10: End User and IT Professional Training
• How-To Webinar: If you want even more help getting started with Windows 10, we have a number of tools and resources, which you can access through the webinar: How to upgrade to W10: Key resources and tools

Need even more information? (We have loads, really.) Please be sure to contact your Microsoft Account Manager.

_{[1] Source: Internet Security Threat Report 2017 by Symantec
[2] Source: Cyber Security Demystified eBook by Microsoft UK}

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Mixed reality: from high altitude to high fashion

Peter Daukintis, Tech Evangelist at Microsoft, gave an overview of the spectrum of mixed reality from the fully physical to the fully digital and everything in between. From there he showed how Microsoft and our partners are using the Windows Mixed Reality platform to develop new apps that range from augmented to fully immersive experiences. He then gave a breakdown of the HoloLens from transparent 3D lenses to, spatial sound to the holographic processing unit. Seeing how much tech has been fit into such a small space, it really gives one an appreciation for just how sophisticated the world’s first self-contained, holographic computer actually is.

While the technology itself was interesting, it was the practical applications of HoloLens, from real-world organisations, that I found fascinating. Connie Miller, Space Exploration Information Technology Application Development Lead for Boeing, for instance, described how the HoloLens is helping them develop new processes and solutions for the International Space Station. This includes becoming more efficient at training, design review, and interface testing. It’s also allowing them to envision and simulate scenarios that are difficult to replicate on earth. Practical considerations such as whether or not an astronaut – who may be working upside down – can fit a water storage valve into the station’s existing space.

In walking around the exhibit floor, I came across a more earth-bound (though some may say equally far-out) application for HoloLens developed by DoubleMe and fashion designer Martine Jarlgaard. Together, they created one of the world’s first mixed-reality fashion shows at London Fashion Week.

Take a look at their story here:

Making the Business Case for IoT

As is often the case with emerging digital technology – companies can find themselves experimenting through pilots that never end up returning real business benefit. To help overcome that, Microsoft’s Patrick Ward discussed several key areas where the Internet of Things (IoT) drives business value, and a framework for how customers can plan and measure success. The first of the five areas is around cost reduction; the kind companies can achieve through improved service planning, or smarter machine utilisation to prevent machine or system failure. A second area for business value was the creation of new revenue opportunities; for example, a windscreen wiper manufacturer providing real-time wiper data to better pinpoint, measure and predict localised changes in weather. Other business benefits included better customer insights (for things like warranty claim validation), product improvement and reliability (e.g., feeding data back into the development process), and brand (e.g., being associated with innovation or product reliability). An example that brings many of these benefits together is Schneider Electric, who are using IoT to bring reliable and sustainable solar power to remote parts Nigeria.

Watch Schneider’s Story here

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQkNHJz-CXI

AI: Humans and Machines (well, algorithms really)

Another big topic covered at TechXLR8 was artificial intelligence, and while it overlaps with most of the other disruptive tech covered at the event, Dr Rob Fraser, Senior Director Technical Evangelism, gave context to the confluence of technologies that have led to the current state of AI, where it’s going, and what implications that might have. At its heart, Rob points out, AI is about the intersection of big compute (the increasing processing power available to people and organisations), increasingly powerful algorithms (like deep nets) and the proliferation of data (not just big, but massive data) made possible by the intelligent cloud. Together this combination of technology is powering breakthroughs in image recognition and natural language processing. Even though the cloud is a key part of making AI possible, Rob also talked about AI on the intelligent edge – where sophisticated AI can happen with or without cloud connected computing.

While the technology behind AI was interesting, I was even more interested in the way Rob talked about the human impact of AI. He provided examples such as the Cochrane Transform Project, where researchers can use artificial intelligence to give time back to healthcare researchers – letting them spend less time processing information, and more time finding meaning in the data to help save and improve lives. He also shared the example of InnerEye Assistive AI for Cancer, a Microsoft-enabled research project using image analysis and tools to dramatically lower the amount of time it takes a skilled clinician to assess the size and growth of tumours in a patient.
And while AI can provide tremendous benefits to humanity, Rob also touched on the fears we have of how it could – if not used correctly – displace humans. But rather than displace humans, Rob discussed the ways that AI can amplify what humans do: amplifying human ingenuity and accelerating business growth. In short AI enables us to amplify on what Rob calls the unique human capital: accountability, creativity, empathy, passion, commitment.

See more on how InnerEye is helping fight cancer

This was just a small sliver of the kind of what Microsoft had on at London Tech Week. To find out more about innovation at Microsoft, and our continuing coverage of the technology landscape, visit our Digital Transformation Hub.

Microsoft’s Digital Transformation Hub

The post Highlights of Microsoft at London Tech Week’s TechXLR8 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

First, the idea austerity cuts across the public sector. As Derrick points out, “every one of our customers is facing disruption, of some type, it varies from sector to sector. Everybody is certainly expected to do more with less.” A second, related point that stood out was the importance of digital literacy in the UK, and the staggering gap we face in the number of technical graduates we produce compared to other economies such as Poland, India and China.

Perhaps the most intriguing bit of our conversation was the discussion was the awareness (or often lack thereof) of digital transformation with senior management. In many ways it serves as a dividing line between public sector executives who will be successful with digital transformation and those who will struggle. As Derrick notes, “part of the job that we do is supporting Chief Digital Officers, CIOs, to get access to their board… and support their chief executives to understand the power of digital and its ability to help them transform. Genuinely, if you have a CEO who is a digital leader, we’ve seen quite incredible things happen with the customer.”

Watch the full video here

Want more: Read Derrick’s article on Digital Transformation

The post Digital Disruption in Public Sector: doing more with less appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Remote or office-based; where is work?

The workplace is undergoing a bit of an identity crisis. Whereas tools and technology have evolved enough to allow employees to work productively from virtually any location, long time advocates of remote working, such as IBM, have recently announced plans to bring their remote workers back into their offices. Others, such as Dell, are increasing their commitment to remote working. As Michael Affronti, VP of Product at Fuse, pointed out at UC Expo earlier this month, many companies are losing their remote employees because “there is a lack of connection to the mothership, a lack of engagement between remote employees”. So which approach is right for the future workplace, the giving employees ability to work productively from anywhere, or coming together for connection and collaboration? Fortunately, with the right tools and technology, don’t have to choose between approaches. You can do both.

The right devices for collaborative teams

Whether you’re working in an office or remotely, having the right devices makes all the difference. For flexible workers this means having devices that are powerful enough to manage multiple processor-intensive apps simultaneously without compromising on mobility; the ability to stay connected wherever you are. For office workers, this means devices that are built for teamwork, enabling productivity in any space where people come together to get things done, from large conference rooms to informal huddle spaces to offices. It means having a flexible environment that helps teams create and ideate together whether that’s on an interactive screen or in a mixed-reality setting.
The workplace of the future will be built on our ability to move seamlessly between these devices without missing a beat: a small screen on a train, becomes a collaborative digital canvas in the office, becomes a mixed reality hologram that works anywhere. For collaborative teams, that future is now, with the Microsoft HoloLens and the Surface family of devices. Together these solutions can create an immersive ecosystem that brings together place and technology to help people seamlessly flow from idea, to concept, to implementation. Get a glimpse of the future of these creative environments at our new Studio Spaces at London Tech Week.

Collaborative Teams need Teams

Having devices that allow employees and teams to be creative and productive in any workplace is only part of the puzzle. Businesses of the future need the right business apps that foster true collaboration regardless of where their teams are based. Given that collaborative work takes up 80% or more of employees’ time, and that today’s employees are on twice as many teams as they were just five years ago, the ability to work productively in teams is a business imperative. This means being able to securely work together in and outside of your company’s firewall. It also means being able to connect across locations and time zones, as well as providing tools that fit the way each team member communicates most effectively.
Fortunately for teams, Microsoft Office 365 provides a universal toolkit for collaboration. From email and calendars on Exchange, to voice and video conferencing with Skype for Business, Microsoft allows teams to connect and communicate across a broad set of tools. At London Tech Week, we’ll introduce an evolutionary step forward in collaboration with Microsoft Teams: the chat-based workspace in Office 365. This hub for teamwork gives teams access to everything they need right in Office 365. Come visit us at London Tech Week to find out how Microsoft Teams works for your team.

Collaboration woven together in the cloud

The enabling technology that weaves together your teams, and allows employees to remain productive anywhere, is the cloud: the shared computing capabilities available through the internet. As more of this interaction takes place in the cloud, the more rich data gets created and stored – ready to be used to make your teams and employees even more connected and productive. With the analytic capabilities built into our apps and devices, individuals, teams, and businesses can get granular insight into how they’re performing. But this use of data stretches well beyond enabling your employees – it’s the fuel that powers digital transformation. Whether you want to change the way you engage with customers, optimise your operations or create better products, data makes this digital transformation possible. Find out how technology such as IoT, artificial intelligence, cognitive analytics and bots relies on data to help businesses survive, and thrive, in an era of digital disruption. Join Microsoft’s Alex Montgomery on June 14th, will be discussing how you can exploit your own data to achieve competitive agility at London Tech Week.

Plan your own workplace of the future now

Whether you’re planning your future workplace around the right devices, apps, or infrastructure you’ll be able to get a glimpse of that future at London Tech Week 12-16th of June. Start your journey by registering today.

Register for London Tech Week

The post Where mobile meets the cloud: the workplace of the future appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

We can trace the origin of the phase to the height of the second industrial revolution – the one in which technological advancements exponentially increased productivity and economic growth, and mass production brought new technology (such as the automobile) into the hands of everyday people. Thinking of the state of the art in this context, then, gives new relevance to the term as we find ourselves in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution – one where data is the new fuel for innovation. In the run-up to London Tech Week (June 12-16), we’ll be taking a look at the impact of state of the art technology on the way we’ll learn, live and work. In this series, we’ll also examine the art of the possible in the very near future.

State of the art-ificial intelligence: it’s about data

No technology represents the state of the art of the fourth industrial revolution better than artificial intelligence. There’s a tremendous amount of buzz about AI: people worried that AI will take away jobs or that it’ll be the magic bullet to solve every business and societal problem. At its most basic level, AI really boils down to data, and a practical set of tools, techniques and technology used to make sense of it. It’s about having the computing power available anywhere to develop an increasingly complex set of algorithms that allow AI to sense, comprehend and act within its environment. I’ll examine how this is applied in various industries in a later post, but for now, here’s an example of how the evolution of data is connected to the evolution of AI

Our cars have, for a few decades now, on-board computers that could record a fault and share that data with a mechanic. That’s a reactive use of data. Now you can add a small data collection device to your car so that your insurance company can predict how safe a driver you will be. That’s predictive. Moving to AI in its current state, Uber drivers are using facial recognition (a type of AI) to log into their systems, and a number of companies are using data to develop self-driving cars.

You’re already using it

In the context above, the state of the art for AI is much more practical than scary. In fact, you’ve probably already used AI several times today: from the machine learning capabilities in the spelling and grammar check of a Word doc you’ve written, to the facial recognition you may have used to log into Windows 10, to the natural language processing you used when you asked your phone to search for something. Behind the scenes, AI is hard at work doing things like keeping your devices safe as part of Windows 10 Advanced Threat Protection. In other words, AI is already part of the apps and devices you use every day.

Humans vs. and Machines: Augmented Humans

As AI continues to evolve, it will become more ingrained into the fabric of our everyday lives. While there’s a great deal of concern about the way AI will replace humans in the economy, we see the relationship with this technology as enhancing what we do, not replacing it. It’s very much machines and humans, not machines versus humans.  A recent Accenture study on AI in 12 developed economies reveals that AI could double annual economic growth rates in 2035 by changing the nature of work and creating a new relationship between man and machine. Accenture estimates that AI could add over $800 Million (USD) to the UK economy by 2035. This benefit will come from UK start-ups such as Hippo Data, who use machine learning to provide an algorithmic trading platform, or Metail that provides a computer vision platform for retail / fashion industry.

Democratising of AI

As AI evolves, however, it’s important to make sure that it remains available to everyone, not just a select few. In the same way Microsoft’s vision to have a PC on every desk in the 1980’s was key to the broad adoption, we see the same need for AI to be democratised. It should (as with everything Microsoft strives to do) enable every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. That’s why we make much of our AI functionality available free for developers through our cognitive services APIs. As more powerful algorithms for AI make their way to our mobile and IoT devices (the intelligent edge), it’s important that the raw compute power existing because of the cloud is available to all developers. And while this broad availability of AI (from smart assistants to AI-enabling cloud infrastructure) enables developers to create the businesses of the future, this blog is primarily a look at where we are today. We’ll delve more into the art of the possible – where technology is taking us in the near future – in subsequent posts and at London Tech Week.

If you have a chance to attend London Tech Week – a festival of live events across the city, showcasing and celebrating the best of tech whilst providing networking, social, learning and business opportunities – please come visit our interactive Studio Spaces @ 110 Pennington Street, London or hear from Microsoft UK CEO, Cindy Rose, at the LeadersInTech summit.

Find out more about London Tech Week

[1] Another bit of overused jargon that’s in need of a comeback

The post Augmented Humans, AI and the State of the Art appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

1. Communication and collaboration are evolving

A few interesting statistics from Tiffany Wissner, Microsoft’s Senior Director, Skype for Business: employees are on twice as many teams as five years ago. The amount of time employees spend engaged in “collaborative” work has increased 50%. As we see this increase in collaborative environments, we also see the need for new ways of working together. There’s a need for a universal toolkit for collaboration: one where email, chat, video, voice and content collaboration all work together seamlessly (as they do in Office 365). But then Tiffany discussed the evolution of collaboration in Microsoft Teams which delivers on four core promised to create a digital workspace for high performing teams: chat for today’s teams, a hub for teamwork that is customisable for each team, and provides enterprise security that teams can trust. We think this approach to collaboration will take customers’ unified communications programs to the next level.d

2. Keeping you connected requires a lot of moving pieces

One of the things that struck me, as I wandered through Microsoft’s Partner Zone was just how many ways Microsoft, and our partners, are helping to connect users and make their unified communications journey a success. This included folks like Nexus Open Systems who are helping businesses plan and execute their move from legacy systems to true unified communication using Skype for Business. There was Polycom, who can integrate existing video solutions with their secure voice, video and content solutions to work seamlessly in Office 365.

Perhaps my favourite stop in the Partner Village was at the Plantronics booth. As someone who works in a lively (i.e., very noisy) collaborative environment, I’ve come to appreciate how much of a difference having the right endpoint device can make. In chatting with one of their account managers, he described how Plantronics’ experiences in a similarly lively (i.e., very noisy) environment at a Microsoft campus led to the development of the Voyager Focus UC with advanced noise cancelling and immersive stereo sound.

 3. “If you build it, they will come” isn’t a strategy for UC

Here’s a stark statistic from the sessions at UC Expo: 70% of change initiatives fail to meet their goals. Just adopting the latest unified communications technology (whether on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid model) isn’t a recipe for success. A few different presenters provided some practical advice for getting the most of one’s unified communications initiative. Chris Martini (VP Skype for Business at Voss) described a systematic approach to UC that includes understanding and maximising legacy data, and taking into account key elements such as bandwidth, endpoint devices and geographical differences in one’s strategy. Perhaps the most useful (and easy to remember) approach Chris described were his four A’s – adoption, assurance, analytics and action – as the building blocks for successful deployments.

Microsoft also provided practical tips for successful deployments in their aptly named session “Learn how to successfully deploy Skype for Business.” If you’re responsible for UC adoption, success is as much a mindset as it is a methodology, not about mandating new business processes, but viewing your organisation’s users as partners who you take with you on the journey. Our research has shown that this approach increases speed of adoption, and subsequently your return on investment. And while we have a number of tools to help you have a successful Skype for Business deployment (from Value Discovery Workshops, to Customer Immersion Experiences, to Fast Track), it starts a partnership approach to ensure that both technology and end users are on the journey together.

4. Artificial intelligence has now entered the meeting

While much of the conversation on the floor and in the sessions was about enabling people through unified technology, there was a definite thread about the way we engage with machines though artificial intelligence. Simon Michael, Senior Tech Evangelist at Microsoft, talked about how the democratisation of AI is bringing bots and natural language processing to unified communication. While he discussed the availability of these APIs for all developers through Microsoft Cognitive Services, I couldn’t help thinking of the practical applications within a UC setting.

The natural scenario that comes to mind is real-time voice translation in Skype for Business. Imagine a Skype meeting between stakeholders in Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Berlin and Slough – all speaking their native languages, but all understanding each other through the artificial intelligence built into Microsoft Translator. Another near-term application – which developers can create now using the Microsoft Bot Framework – is a chat bot integrated into other parts of Office 365 that could participate in calls: taking notes, providing verification (e.g., “hey Cortana, did we cover the FY18 Operations Plan last time?), or assigning follow-up actions in Teams.

5. The future of work is still about people

This idea of artificial intelligence interwoven in our daily lives, creates quite a bit of buzz, and was one of the main topics covered in the panel session “The Future of Work.” In addition to panellists from Vodafone and Fuze, Rich Ellis, Senior Director for Microsoft Office discussed the proliferation of devices and meetings, and the potential for AI to help us keep on top of this deluge of information. As Vodafone’s Phillip Fumey noted, natural language processing (a function of AI)  could be used to help capture the 80% of organisational knowledge that is never captured.

Keeping the collaboration conversation going

All in all, day one of UC Expo provided a lot of food for thought, from moving from legacy telephony to bots and AI. It is, of course, just a starting point for a wider conversation on the ways that unified communications and collaboration is changing how we live and work. To continue with the discussion, download our ebooks Five Reasons your IT Team Will Benefit from a Collaboration Suite,  and Five Tips for Improving your Collaboration

Download Five Reasons your IT Team Will Benefit from a Collaboration Suite

Download Five Tips for Improving your Collaboration

The post Five Key Takeaways from Day 1 of UC Expo 2017 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

All around England, the NHS and local councils are coming together with other local organisations to find innovative new ways to provide better care for citizens through sustainability and transformation plans (STPs). Although it’s a national scheme, each of the 44 plans is place-based and built around the needs of the local populations.

For Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, their first step in that transformational journey was thousands of miles long – literally. To provide the 60+ services to 300,000 patients across its many locations in the STP footprint, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust has a team of mobile and peripatetic staff, clinicians and service providers who work across the entire region. Together they were travelling nearly 7 million miles each year to see patients at home and in specialist centres.

In a move to provide these services in a more streamlined and efficient way, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust turned to Microsoft for a mobile working solution. They chose Skype for Business. “What became apparent quite quickly,” says Damian Parkinson, Director of IM&T for the Trust, “was the significant savings in travel time and the mileage reimbursement costs. But what we also found was that by not having to drive somewhere, it freed up more productive time for our service providers.” In its first year, Parkinson says, the Trust saved over £500,000 in travel expenses and estimates more than £1.5M in savings for the third year of the programme. For many, this money and time saved would have been enough of a business benefit; for Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust this was just a first step.

New models for team collaboration

Once the Trust saw how convenient it was for their mobile teams to use Skype for Business, it identified several new use cases to further their digital transformation. For instance, a significant challenge faced by clinicians was being able to coordinate care and enable shared decision making about treatment plans during Care Programme Approach (CPA) meetings. These meetings are critical forums where treatment and discharge plans are discussed and agreed between patients, carers, health and social care community-based staff and the ward team.  The meetings involve the coordination of many professionals’ diaries, across various teams in multiple locations so even finding a time and location that worked for everyone was quite a challenge. By using Skype for Business for the CPA meetings they are much easier to schedule. Also, it is easier for everyone to attend and contribute, from wherever they are.

Deputy Medical Director and Chief Clinical Information Officer, Dr Chris Linton, regularly uses Skype for Business to coordinate these meetings. “The use of Skype for Business has reduced the delay in convening such meetings as health and social care professionals can join in the CPA from within their own locality,” Dr Linton notes.  “This reduced delay results in earlier decisions about treatment for patients and earlier focus on discharge planning.”

Improving patient care and engagement

The Trust is also using Skype for Business to provide better care for patients directly. They’ve begun piloting the use of Skype for Business with their Speech and Language services. If a patient has internet access and a computer or suitable mobile device, a therapist can use video conferencing to interact with and monitor the patient’s status in their own home. Not having to travel or wait in a reception area makes life that much easier for the patient.

Beyond patient convenience, Lancashire Care is also seeing the clinical benefits to health and wellbeing. In their Adult Mental Health Services practice, clinicians have been able to interact with patients and families through the in-patient service in the patient’s home. In some cases, carers have seen clinical behaviours diminish significantly because a patient was either in a familiar environment or didn’t have the added anxiety of travelling and waiting in reception.

Connecting services with the broader community

Building on the success of their team collaboration and patient engagement initiatives with Skype for Business, the Trust is looking beyond just healthcare to connect with teams and services provided by the local authority, joining up care. Whether that means being able to collaborate with social care teams or police and probation, the ability to collaborate and share information will lead to better outcomes for all Lancashire residents.

It’s not an IT project, it’s a business change project

One of the main reasons the Trust has been successful is the approach they have taken introducing Skype for Business. As Parkinson notes when it came to implementation: “We tried to make it not feel like they were adopting technology. We tried to get rid of the reasons why they would say it was hard to change.” Initially, Parkinson says, users viewed the adoption of Skype for Business as an IT project, but with a roll out team that helped to remove the barriers – everything from making it easy to add Skype for Business to meeting requests, to making agile help teams available to work Skype for Business into existing processes that depend on collaboration – users soon began to see it as an important tool that enabled them to improve the way they work, benefiting patients and themselves.

As users become more comfortable with Skype for Business, Parkinson says, they’re much more adept at finding new innovative ways to apply the technology, and it’s clear that the adoption continues to be a success. Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust continues to see month-over-month growth in the use of Skype for Business to enhance normal, everyday communications and continue their journey towards wider digital transformation.

Come join us at the Microsoft UK Healthcare NExT Summit

Find out more about the Virtual Health Experiences on Skype for Business demoed in the webinar with Digital Health and about other recently announced technologies for healthcare in Microsoft’s Healthcare NExT programme.

To hear from industry thought leaders and your NHS colleagues who are helping to shape the future of healthcare through Digital Transformation join us at the Microsoft UK Healthcare NExT Summit on June 7^th, 2017 in London.

Click here to register and secure your place at the Microsoft UK Healthcare NExT Summit

The post Improving Services at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

It’s clear to most businesses across the globe that their future relies on the cloud. For many, it’s the driving force for the fourth industrial revolution. The Cloud powers the apps and systems that are redefining the way that businesses engage with their customers, empower their employees to be more productive, optimise their business processes, and create entirely new products and services. But how ready are UK businesses for this cloud revolution? In our new study of 250 mid-sized to large UK organisations, we found that there’s a wide gap between those who have the right skills and those who don’t. Here are five key findings from our report:

Cloud Skills are critical to transformation:

We asked participants how important cloud skills were to transformational success and the response was clear – more than 80% said either they were important. Indeed more than half (57%) went further to state they viewed cloud skills as critical to digital transformation. Given that business initiatives such as the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, advanced analytics, blockchain, and servitization are all reliant on the cloud, it’s no wonder that businesses in the UK recognise the importance of these cloud skills to their success.

Finding the right people is a challenge:

One big challenge facing our survey respondents, though, was finding people with the right skills. 38% of those who had been involved in recruiting people with cloud skills in the past 12 months said it was difficult to find the right skills. Where gaps exist, companies are looking close that gap by a combination of three methods: retrain their existing staff (60%), use external partners (53%) or recruit new people with cloud skills. The approach of utilising people currently outside of their companies may be a bit of a challenge for the reasons laid out below.

Expectations on cloud skills availability are misinformed

While nearly half of our respondents (48%) believe it will be easier to recruit people with cloud skills in the coming years, the data suggests that finding these skills is actually getting harder. In fact, last year marked the fifth consecutive year of a rising UK skills shortage, particularly in the technical engineering and specialist technology roles into which cloud skills fall. Even as the number of people with the right skills grows, the demand for those skills will increase at a faster rate. This means it will likely become more difficult to find people with the right cloud skills, and with the rules of supply and demand being what they are, companies competing to recruit that smaller pool of talent can expect to pay a premium to hire people with these very in-demand skills.

Paying a partner premium

Paying a premium isn’t just limited to recruiting new employees – it applies to businesses looking to fill the skills gap with partners. A majority of our respondents say that formal cloud certifications are important (63%) when selecting partners to provide cloud-based consulting or services. Furthermore, when engaging staff for important cloud projects, almost half (48%) say they’d expect to pay more for resources with relevant cloud certifications: in many cases this means an extra £300 or more per day.

Gender imbalance is a problem

A third costly issue is gender imbalance. As our CEO, Cindy Rose, noted recently when we look at technical work teams those with a more balanced gender mix found they were more likely to adhere to project schedules, have lower project costs and achieve higher employee performance ratings. However, in our report on average the gender mix amongst technical IT staff was 20% female, 80% male. Only 21% of respondents said the female mix within their organisation was 40% or greater. Beyond the social implications of this imbalance (though it is an issue that Microsoft is examining) it’s also holding UK businesses back in their digital transformation journeys.

Next steps to the cloud

The degree to which UK businesses will adopt the cloud will vary, but I think it’s safe to say there will be a strong correlation between those that address their cloud skills issues and those who will achieve long-term success. In our Microsoft Cloud Skills Report, we delve deeper into the challenge and provide examples of what companies can do to find, train and retain the right talent.

Download the full report here
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It’s Humans and Machines

We start with a conversation with Christopher Bishop, who heads up Microsoft Research Cambridge. Chris dispels some of the myths about artificial intelligence, and discusses the what he anticipates the widespread partnership between people and AI. In the very near future, machine learning will be able to do everything from helping senior business executives process huge amounts of information to automating customer service interactions. The most compelling part of the conversation, to me, was how machine learning is being applied to language recognition and translation.

Watch Chris Bishop’s video on machine learning here

More on Microsoft Research Cambridge

How digital technology is transforming businesses

How will artificial intelligence and other types of digital technology impact businesses? That’s the question that Dr. Nicola Hodson, Vice President of Field Transformation, explores. She talks about the ways business models will be disrupted in the next few years, even giving a word of caution for folks who would consider nicking a dressing gown from a fancy hotel (spoiler alert: it has to do with IoT).

Watch Nicola Hodson discuss digital transformation

Download our report on digital transformation

Tackling larger societal issues with the cloud

It’s exciting to think about the ways digital technology is transforming business. It’s inspiring to think about the way that technology can be used to help society. That’s precisely what Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector and Industry, discussed. In particular, she talks about how the cloud is being used to address UN goals such as reducing extreme poverty, climate change and gender equality. The example I found most poignant was the way we’re utilising Bing data to help track migratory patterns of refugees in order to provide aid.

Watch Toni Townes-Whitley talk about cloud for global good

More on Cloud for Global Good

We’ll be sharing more from Future Decoded in future Friday Sit-Down, but to find out more about the flagship event, please take a look at the Future Decoded homepage

Visit the Future Decoded Homepage

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