While AI is rapidly reshaping how we work, many sellers still spend too much of their day on manual tasks. Typical examples include updating CRM records, writing follow-up emails and preparing for meetings. 

That’s exactly where Microsoft sales agents come in.

By helping you focus on what matters most – building relationships and closing deals – our AI-powered assistants take care of the repetitive, time-consuming work behind the scenes.

What are sales agents?  

Sales agents are intelligent, role-based AI assistants that work across Microsoft 365 and your CRM, whether that’s Dynamics 365 or Salesforce. For example, Microsoft Sales Agent and Sales Chat can support and empower sellers in different ways, including:  

• Drafting personalised emails and meeting summaries  

• Qualifying leads and prioritising your pipeline  

• Keeping CRM records up to date automatically  

• Surfacing insights and next-best actions in real time  

What’s more, these solutions aren’t just assistive. They can work autonomously, engaging leads 24/7 and passing warm opportunities to you when it’s time to close. For lower-impact leads, they can even complete a sale. 

With Copilot, agents and human expertise working hand in hand, sales teams are empowered to unlock new opportunities for profitability and growth. 

Reimagine your sales day: watch role-based demos 

To show how AI-powered agents can transform your workflow, we’ve created five bite-size videos, including “day in the life” pieces focusing on specific sales roles.

Why not start with the demo that fits your role and see what’s possible?

🎥 Demo 1: How to Empower Your Sales Team with AI Agents

An introduction to how Sales Agent and Sales Chat work together to streamline sales operations. 

🎥 Demo 2: A Day in the Life of a Relationship Manager with AI

See how Sales Chat helps you stay informed and personalise customer engagement. 

🎥 Demo 3: A Day in the Life of a Velocity Seller with AI

Watch how Sales Agent helps you qualify leads, automate outreach, and stay focused on high-value deals. 

🎥 Demo 4: A Day in the Life of a Sales Leader with AI

Discover how Sales Research Agent helps you optimise team performance and drive revenue. 

🎥 Demo 5: Get Started with Sales Agents

Explore the benefits of enhancing sales productivity and efficiency today by integrating AI-powered platforms into your workflow.

Dive deeper into seamless, agent-supported sales journeys

To explore more, watch Microsoft Discovery Hour: The Autonomous Customer Experience on-demand, which includes highlights from our Customer Experience Reimagined UK event. You’ll hear from product and strategy experts how sales agents are already helping organisations deliver more personalised, proactive and scalable customer experiences. 

Access sales agents today 

Our agents are now generally available. To access them in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, just follow these steps:

• Open your Microsoft 365 Copilot app. 
• Navigate to Chat > Agents. 
• Use the dropdown to browse pre-installed agents or select All agents  to explore the Agent Store. 
• Select the Sales Agent, then click Add or Open.
• You can now interact with the agent using prompts in the Message Copilot box. 

Remember, these solutions work with both Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. That means you can nurture and close deals without even opening your CRM. You can also fine-tune them to connect to all your business data, ensuring accurate, actionable responses.  

It’s selling, made seamless – so you can spend more time with customers, and less time with systems.

Find out more

Read Microsoft’s announcement about sales agents 

Watch Microsoft Discovery Hour: The Autonomous Customer Experience

Explore the sales agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat 

Read the e-book: AI + CX: Your guide to marketing, sales and service transformation

Watch the videos featured in this blog:

• Demo 1: How to Empower Your Sales Team with AI Agents
• Demo 2: A Day in the Life of a Relationship Manager with AI
• Demo 3: A Day in the Life of a Velocity Seller with AI
• Demo 4: A Day in the Life of a Sales Leader with AI
• Demo 5: Get Started with Sales Agents

The post Empower your sales team with AI agents: a practical guide  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In addition, a McKinsey report states that generative AI could unlock between $240 billion to $390 billion in value for retailers. When combined with non-generative AI and analytics, the total value created could reach into the trillions.

These reports suggest the retail industry is at a pivotal moment. Generative AI is no longer a future concept – it’s actively reshaping how retailers operate and compete. For software development companies, this shift isn’t just a trend to watch, it’s a transformation to build for.

From experimentation to execution

Retail-focused software development companies are no longer just exploring generative AI – they’re deploying it at scale. Microsoft partners are leading the charge, embedding AI into retail operations to deliver measurable outcomes.

Here are four standout examples:

• Blue Yonder is working with Microsoft to build next-generation supply chain solutions powered by generative AI. Their AI copilots help retailers create agile, resilient and sustainable supply chains, connecting data across ecosystems to identify issues and optimise performance in real time.
• Adobe is leveraging Microsoft Azure to deliver personalised customer experiences at scale. Through Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Campaign, retailers can unify customer data and orchestrate AI-powered journeys across channels – turning insights into action with speed and precision.
• VusionGroup, a global leader in IoT and data solutions for physical commerce, is transforming bricks-and-mortar stores into intelligent, connected assets. By combining generative AI with Azure’s global infrastructure, they enable retailers to optimise store operations, reduce waste, and deliver seamless omnichannel experiences.
• Promo.com, supported by Microsoft partner 2bcloud, scaled its PromoAI product using Azure OpenAI Service. The platform empowers small businesses and agencies to generate branded marketing videos in minutes.

Ultimately, these examples reflect a broader industry shift in how SDCs are building for the future of retail. By co-innovating with Microsoft, partners are accelerating time to value, expanding their reach, and shaping the next wave of AI-powered retail transformation.

Implications for software development companies

For software development companies, the rise of generative AI in retail is more than a technical shift, it’s a strategic inflection point. To support this transformation, Microsoft’s perspective on AI in retail is grounded in four key transformation areas, each offering a blueprint for how SDCs can build differentiated value:

1. Enriching employee experiences
   AI can empower frontline and back-office retail employees with intelligent tools that reduce friction and boost productivity. SDCs can build copilots and task-specific agents that automate repetitive work, surface insights in real time and support decision-making, whether in stores, warehouses or HQ.
   
2. Reinventing customer engagement
   Today’s consumers expect personalised, seamless experiences across channels. Generative AI enables hyper-personalised content, conversational commerce and adaptive interfaces. SDCs can help retailers deliver these experiences by embedding AI into customer relationship management (CRM), marketing and service platforms.
   
3. Reshaping business processes
   From supply chain optimisation to fraud detection, AI is transforming core retail operations. SDCs can create modular, API-first solutions that integrate with legacy systems and modernise workflows, driving efficiency, agility and resilience.
   
4. Bending the curve on innovation
   Generative AI lowers the barrier to experimentation and accelerates time to value. SDCs that embrace co-innovation, working closely with retailers to prototype, test and iterate, can unlock new business models and revenue streams. Leveraging Microsoft’s ecosystem for co-sell, scale and technical enablement can further amplify impact.

How Microsoft partnership supports growth

We view our relationship with software development companies not just as a platform and AI provider, but as a strategic growth partner. Working side-by-side with SDCs, we help them unlock new markets, co-innovate and scale their impact globally.

Whether you’re building a new AI-powered retail solution or modernising an existing platform, Microsoft offers more than just infrastructure. We offer partnership support that includes:

• Collaborating early to shape product direction and align with market needs.
• Co-selling together through our global commercial marketplace.
• Connecting you with customers through curated industry programmes and events.
• Investing in your success with go-to-market support, technical enablement and funding opportunities.

We’re seeing the most successful SDCs treat Microsoft not just as a cloud provider, but as a business development partner – one that helps them move faster, reach further and grow stronger.

Looking ahead

If you’re a software development company building for the retail industry, now is the time to act. By harnessing generative AI, those who move early will shape the future.

As a Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, I work directly with SDCs to help them scale faster, co-innovate with confidence and unlock new commercial opportunities. Whether you’re exploring your first AI-powered solution or looking to expand into new markets, let’s connect and explore how we can grow together in this era of AI-powered retail.

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme

You can start accelerating success today by joining the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme. Meanwhile, we invite you to explore two key SDC resources via our links below – an e-book explaining how to build intelligent apps that elevate user experiences, and a webinar outlining our latest ISV Success resources and incentives. 

Find out more

Download the e-book: Transform ISV Applications with Intelligent AI Personalisation 

Watch the webinar: What is New in ISV Success – AI Benefits and More 

Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme

AI-powered retail: Elevating customer experience and operational efficiency

About the author

As a Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, James specialises in strategic engagement with software development companies in the retail and consumer goods sectors. He focuses on identifying and accelerating high-potential partners, particularly those innovating with AI and disruptive technologies. James plays a key role in enabling partner growth through co-innovation, go-to-market strategy and ecosystem alignment.

The post AI in retail: the opportunity for software development companies appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

We’re not just marking a product anniversary – we’re celebrating the progress businesses have made in delivering seamless, omnichannel experiences that are more personal, productive and cost-effective. 

A new era of customer engagement 

If you lead customer experience or service organisations, you’re already navigating rapid changes across industries. For example, subscription-based business models are putting customer retention under the spotlight, making every interaction an opportunity – or a risk. 

Yet, for too many organisations, disconnected channels, long wait times and customer frustration remain the norm. A recent study commissioned by Microsoft found that, while UK sectors varied in their contact-centre response times, average wait times for utilities, retail, and energy customers were over 8 minutes, 12 minutes, and 35 minutes respectively. Research cited in Forbes suggests that such poor service can cause customers to switch providers.

Customers now expect more: fast, frictionless, consistent service across every channel. In our commissioned study, 87% of call-centre workers agreed that customer service expectations had increased, while 78% agreed that service queries had become more complex in recent years.

Today’s customers want intelligent self-service, but with human help available for more challenging issues. Equally, service agents need tools that reduce manual effort and give them the context to get issues right first time. 

That’s the promise of our CCaaS platform – a connected, AI-powered contact centre where every part of the customer journey is integrated and streamlined. 

Unifying service with intelligence, end-to-end

Imagine every stage of your customer service journey – from self-serve to agent-assisted – was seamlessly supported by a suite of AI powered, always up-to-date, and highly efficient solutions. By integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Copilot, Teams Phone and Azure Communication Services, this vision becomes a reality: 

• Customers can start conversations in the channel they prefer and get quick answers through AI-powered bots. When human help is needed, AI-powered routing directs them to the right agent, based on customer sentiment, intent and complexity.  

• For agents, Copilot brings the full context  – from a customer’s interaction history to relevant knowledge articles – into a single view, enabling faster, more empathetic responses. 

Microsoft Teams Phone enhances voice quality and supports smooth, reliable conversations, while integrated tools make collaboration easy during live customer interactions. Analytics across the platform give operations teams clear insight into service performance, helping spot trends, improve efficiency and act before small issues become bigger problems. 

Delivering results in the real world 

This unified vision is already enhancing customer service outcomes at scale. Microsoft’s own Customer Service and Support (CSS) team – one of the largest globally, with over 45,000 agents in 92 contact centres across 120 countries – uses Dynamics 365 and Copilot daily.

Since adopting the platform, the team has seen faster first responses, shorter handling times and more cases resolved without escalation. 

Microsoft CSS statistics source: Microsoft Office of Chief Economist. Wave 2.5 study about the early impact of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service across Microsoft commercial support. The numbers reflect results from 9,900 agents from a specific five-month period (April-September 2023). Findings were evaluated at the business unit level, not across the entire CSS organization. Full results language (where necessary): 9% faster First Response rate in several areas of Azure Core and Windows Commercial Support; 12-16% decrease in Average Handle Time observed by several businesses for agents handling chat cases; 7.5% reduction in Days to Close support tickets in a portion of Windows Commercial support line of business; 13% reduction in Days to Solution of support tickets in one Developer support line of business.

Read more about how Microsoft transformed customer service and support

Organisations across the UK are seeing similar gains. VIVID, a major housing provider, has used Microsoft’s CCaaS solution to transform both customer and employee experience. Call abandonment rates have plummeted, average speed to answer has fallen from six minutes to under a minute, and digital engagement has surged. 

With simple queries handled through self-service, staff can now spend more time on complex, meaningful customer interactions. Explore how VIVID enhanced customer and staff experiences

Virgin Money has also embraced the opportunity. Their virtual assistant, Redi, built using Microsoft Copilot Studio, handles queries with a human tone – and knows when to escalate. Because it’s fully integrated with Dynamics 365, Redi stays compliant, on-brand and in sync with the rest of the service team. Read how a virtual assistant is helping reimagine Virgin Money’s customer experience

“By designing customer journeys in Microsoft Copilot, over 90% of our customers get what they want from Redi.” 

Adam Paice, Head of Digital Proposition, Virgin Money 

Experience the Microsoft difference

In today’s increasingly saturated markets, great customer experience is a powerful differentiator. Beyond resolving issues, brands that create meaningful moments inspire loyalty and trust. Moreover, when support staff are empowered with the right AI tools, they’re not only more productive but feel more satisfied at work. 

Organisations are now accessing these benefits in one connected solution. Copilot-powered tools like Dynamics 365 Customer Service are helping agents work smarter, not harder – automating repetitive tasks, surfacing insights and ensuring every interaction feels personal. 

And because it’s all built on a secure, integrated Microsoft ecosystem, you can scale confidently, backed by trusted data governance and responsible AI. 

Start your customer experience transformation

One year on, Microsoft CCaaS has already transformed the way many organisations think about customer service. But the real opportunity is still ahead. If you’re ready to connect more personally and operate more efficiently, now is the time to explore what’s possible. 

Find out more 

• Visit our website: Explore Contact Centre as a Service with Dynamics 365 

• Download the report: Modernise UK Contact Centres with the Cloud and AI 

• Watch the Microsoft Tech Brief: Transform Your Service Experience 

About the author

Ayanna is a Go-To-Market Manager for the AI Business Process team based in London, with a focus on driving pipeline growth and strategic execution for Dynamics 365 Customer Experience and Customer Service solutions. Known for her cross-functional leadership and deep understanding of customer needs, Ayanna partners closely with sales, marketing and partner teams to accelerate deal velocity and influence AI transformation across key industries.

The post Unified. Intelligent. Proven. Celebrating exceptional customer service experiences  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

As organisations seek new ways to boost productivity and engage employees, AI-powered tools are stepping in to assist with these role-specific tasks. Microsoft’s new report, Agents of Change, explores how “agentic AI” tools are transforming organisations by handling routine processes, helping leaders solve real business challenges and freeing up time for higher-value work.

🎥 Watch: How AI is transforming work – key findings from the report
Hear Microsoft UK’s Rob Smithson (Business Applications Lead) and Eleri Gibbon (SME&C Lead) discuss insights from Agents of Change report and how businesses can get started with AI-powered agents.

Why AI agents herald a new work era

AI tools are already helping organisations work more efficiently. According to Microsoft’s report, a survey of nearly 3,000 UK decision-makers and employees found that 41% believe AI can independently deliver decision-ready insights.

But agentic AI isn’t just an efficiency tool. By freeing employees to focus on more strategic work and supporting innovation, it’s a major driver of economic growth.

Businesses that embrace it fully are seeing the biggest gains. For example, Taylor Wimpey, one of the UK’s largest housebuilders, has embedded AI-powered tools into its operations to improve decision-making and enhance customer interactions. By integrating AI into its home-buying process, the company is reducing administrative burdens, allowing sales teams to focus more on personalising the customer experience.

Read more about how Taylor Wimpey is using AI to enhance customer experiences.

The adoption divide: vision vs. reality

While AI’s potential is clear, our report notes that a gap remains between the optimism of leaders and employees’ preparedness to adopt AI. While half of senior decision-makers view AI as essential, only a third of employees feel their organisation is equipped to use these technologies effectively.

To bridge this gap, Arup, the global design and engineering firm, is using AI-powered agents to streamline complex design processes and improve collaboration across disciplines. By leveraging AI in its project workflows, Arup enables architects, engineers and urban planners to work more efficiently while maintaining high-quality, sustainable design standards.

Read more about how Arup is streamlining design processes with AI.

Building trust with secure, responsible AI

Successfully integrating AI requires strong security measures and a commitment to trust and ethics, which includes fostering transparency across the organisation.

🎥 Watch: Employee experience and security in AI adoption – key findings from the report

Hear Microsoft UK’s Mark Nixon (Modern Work Lead) and Marc Carney (Security Lead) explore how organisations can build trust in AI, from security best practices to responsible AI development.

According to our report, 46% of leaders say their organisation doesn’t have a formal AI strategy and only 40% feel confident they’re using AI effectively to protect against cyber threats.

As for ethics, Microsoft’s Responsible AI development approach focuses on transparency and accountability, which help organisations confidently implement AI.

Simmons & Simmons, a leading international law firm, is promoting responsible AI use by embedding AI-powered compliance tools into its processes. These tools help legal teams more efficiently detect regulatory risks while maintaining transparency and ethical oversight. By implementing AI with a strong governance framework, the firm is building confidence in AI-powered decision-making.

Read more about how Simmons & Simmons is advancing responsible AI use.

Shaping the future of work with AI-powered agents

Agentic AI is transforming work by automating everyday tasks, and employees who use AI appreciate the value it brings. The report found that these employees are 65% more likely to say it helps them focus on the most important parts of their job.

One reason for this morale boost is that, perhaps paradoxically, AI enhances teamwork. Notably, the best outcomes emerge when humans and AI work together rather than in isolation, whether for brainstorming, task co-ordination or creative development.

For example, marketing teams can use AI to generate web copy, ads or blogs – which humans then polish for publication. Similarly, radiologists can use AI to detect early signs of disease, while human experts verify the results, make treatment decisions and communicate with patients. 

This brief review and Microsoft’s report provide insights into how AI-powered agents are reshaping work today. Watch the videos above for more inspiration on how to get started and make the most of agents. With the right strategy, you can quickly unlock new levels of productivity, security and innovation.

Now is the time to embrace agentic AI and realise the potential of your workforce.

Find out more

Download the full Agents of Change report

The post Agents of Change: unlocking the potential of AI-powered agents appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

As a society, we use apps to manage, connect and augment our day-to-day lives. So, it’s understandable that when we go to work, we expect to have the same. Apps can help organisations modernise processes, create new innovations and uncover opportunities.

According to the IDC, this growing demand for digital solutions means that 500 million new applications will be built in the next five years. And with a shortfall of 4 million developers predicted by 2025, most organisations don’t have enough developers to create the apps they need. We call this the App Gap Challenge:

The gap between the number of software developers you have today and the number of software developers you need to build the next generation of apps.

So how can organisations solve this? Low/no code platforms like Microsoft Power Apps can help speed up app development and democratise it across the organisation.

Empower developers to innovate with low/no code

Low/no code solutions allows the rapid building of solutions that automate and streamline routine tasks. This allows developers to focus on more high-value, complex work. According to The Total Economic Impact™ Of Power Apps commissioned study by Forrester Consulting, Power Apps can reduce app development and costs by 74 percent.

It can also help organisations drive a growth mindset culture in development teams. They can use Power Apps to quickly prototype a new idea and deploy this capability rapidly.

Take, for example, AstraZeneca’s HealthyMind app. The biopharmaceutical company wanted to ensure their employees had convenient, secure access to mental health resources. It took the developer team just four months to build the solution on Power Apps.

“Key to the choice [of Power Apps] was its ease of use. It is low code, so it is quick to develop and deploy. This all meant that we were able to design and build HealthyMind very quickly,” says Matt O’Halloran, Head of Workplace and Enterprise Services at AstraZeneca.

A platform like Power Apps can also connect to hundreds of different data sources including Microsoft Dataverse. This brings all your business data together into a single source of truth. Your developers can easily customise and extend capabilities in Azure and leverage business data from your systems of record such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Surface through Microsoft 365.

“[HealthyMind’s] natural integration with the broader suite that we use enabled us to deliver the application within the context of Teams, which was another game-changing factor,” says O’Halloran.

Drive digitisation with citizen development

With low/no code, development is democratised throughout your organisation. It allows anyone to solve business problems themselves.

At Centrica, citizen developers have built over 1,000 apps.

“We’ve really embraced this technology in Centrica. We’ve made an effort to be on the front foot and use the latest technology first, rather than waiting for it to be embedded and then acting,” says James Boswell, Director, Design and Engineering at Centrica. “It was a conscious risk but it’s worked really well – it’s giving us some great benefits and rewards and we’re well on the way to ensuring all our employees are digital employees.” 

For the energy services and solutions company, Power Apps has changed perceptions and steered to business-led development. Take, their finance team for example, in a couple of months they built an app that simplified and automated coordinating tax returns across different regimes. 

Build fusion teams to digitise and innovate faster

What happens when you combine your pro developers and citizen developers? You build fusion teams and unlock the true value of low/no code. According to Gartner, 84 percent of companies already have a fusion team.

By bringing together people with different experiences and knowledge into a multi-disciplinary team, you’ll build more innovative, inclusive apps, faster.

In a fusion team, citizen developers, with the support of pro developers, can rapidly build more complex applications. Citizen developers can focus on the UI, whilst pro developers can create and manage the APIs needed to enrich the application with key data sources. This accelerates time-to-delivery. Fusion teams can deploy solutions up to two and a half times faster than traditional siloed teams.

Centrica used a fusion team to develop an app that matches Centrica volunteers with people from the Trussell Trust charity.

“We’ve got people from all over the business working together. Some are working on the development work, some on the UI, some acting as scrum masters to manage the project. It’s all being done by people who came to the clinics and volunteered. And it will be a huge help to the Trussell Trust,” says Roy Young, Global Head of Office 365.

Build a fusion team

1. Find your use case

Pick a relevant problem that needs solving quickly and when solved, provides a considerable impact.

• Assemble your team

Have a mixture of proactive employees from across many lines of business, such as customer service, developers, team leaders, business leads.

• Plan your roadmap

Determine how much time it’ll take to create, implement, and produce results. Make sure you have time to troubleshoot and determine which solutions work best.

• Accept mistakes along the way

By working in an agile environment, your team will constantly be testing and may have to be ready to pivot when necessary.

Drive digitalisation and innovation

Power Apps helps organisations increase agility by giving everyone the ability to rapidly build low-code apps that drive innovation, modernise processes and solve tough challenges.

Cara Barratt, Workplace Transformation Lead at AstraZeneca agrees, “…we’re really looking at how we can empower our colleagues across AstraZeneca so those that have great ideas can develop their own use cases.”

Find out more

Accelerate innovation with low-code

Microsoft Power Apps

Join a Power App Microsoft Training Day

Make app building easier

Take the Fusion Development Learning Path

Take a fusion development approach to building apps

About the author

As a Power Platform Technical Specialist at Microsoft, Simon takes great pride in helping companies solve their business problems and generate insight into data, providing rapid answers to business questions through use of the Power Platform (specifically Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Dataverse and AI Builder). He enjoys working with the people in customer organisations who are helping to drive transformation using this technology and seeing the impact it has on their organisations and their careers.

The post How low/no code solutions can accelerate innovation and digitisation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

But despite being so vital to a brand’s success, frontline employees are often the last to be reached by the technology that retailers invests in. Typically, we see C-Suite and head office getting all the latest tech, while it takes time to trickle down to the shop floor. This has two major impacts.

Firstly, the majority of frontline workers feel underappreciated by their employers. According to a recent Retail Trust survey, The Health of Retail report 2021, many feel insecure, undervalued and uncertain in relation to their careers. In fact, 84 percent say their mental health has deteriorated since early 2020. And while this is undoubtedly connected to the impact of the last few years on the high street, there is work to be done to bridge the gap between the different levels of retail organisations, from C-Suite to the shop floor.

The other major impact is on the customer experience. Without the right tools in place, the in-store experience can feel impersonal and disconnected. Especially when comparing it to the increasingly personalised online shopping space. Here, consumers have become accustomed to being served highly personalised recommendations.

For me, empowering employees means giving them the right tools to do their best work. And in retail, that means the people on the shop floor having the right technology at their fingertips to allow them to access every type of information that customers need and expect.

Here I want to talk about some of the ways that retailers can start to empower their employees with technology. And as a result, create better customer experiences and a happier, more productive workforce.

Meeting customer expectations in-store

Like every industry, retail is still navigating the new ways of the world. Within that context, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what the future of the industry looks like and where we all fit in that jigsaw puzzle.

But one thing that has been shown clearly is that consumers are itching to get back into shops. The question is: what do those shops now look like?

Up until now, in-person retail has retained quite a consistent format. You go into the shop, you pick the product you want, you go to the checkout, and you leave. And that’s been okay until the last few years, when suddenly consumers started wanting more personal experiences.

That’s the impact of online shopping. Consumers go to the website of their retailer of choice. They get recommendations based on the data the company collects over time. Or they’ll get it personally by email. The challenge is to match this kind of personalisation in-store. And there are great benefits for retailers who manage achieve it.

Research suggests that customers will purchase more from a retailer if they shop both on their digital and in-store spaces. It underscores the importance of omni-channel retail. It also outlines a clear agenda for retailers moving forward: Striving to achieve intelligent retail. One where you connect to customers, your employees, and then your data as well, so that you can have that personalised experience in the store.

We’re already seeing many established retailers making their high street stores more like experience centres. So if you wanted to buy a Surface, for example, there’s the Microsoft Experience Centre in London. Here, you can come in and see the different devices, learn how you can interact with them, and try out accessories in-person. You may not buy the device there; you’re actually more likely to go home and order it online. But we’re definitely starting to see a blend of those online and physical channels.

It’s going to take time for everyone to catch up, especially if you’re a retailer with hundreds of stores nationwide. But devices are a great place to start with the transformation to a more blended, omni-channel shopping experience.

The importance of devices to omni-channel retail

As a society, we’ve become more used to having things instantly available at the tips of our fingers. Whether that’s a smartphone, a tablet, or a laptop, devices are what have driven the expectation. This is now being translated into retail.

With this rising expectation, retailers who don’t empower their employees to respond quicky and accurately to customers in-store are going to suffer.

Frontline retail employees need to be able to do on-the-spot inventory checks, so they don’t have to go and rummage around in the store room or warehouse, looking physically on the shelves to try and find something that could have been checked in seconds on a handheld device on the shop floor. Without those devices, they often find themselves less well-informed than the customers coming into their stores.

Devices have benefits for retail employees beyond their interactions with customers too. Retail spaces are often large. Having a designated device for communication between team members who could be scattered across the building space, or even on different sites, will make the operation more integrated and seamless from an operational point of view too. They will enhance the connection between the different levels of an organisation, helping to bridge the gap between the C-Suite and shopfloor.

This will empower employees to feel more integral to the business. At the same time, leadership teams can make better decisions based on a more accurate understanding of stores, because they’re able to get feedback from them directly.

And then of course there are the sustainability benefits of devices. M&S is a great example of a UK retailer that has embraced devices, allowing it to achieve its goal of going paperless. This is just one of many benefits the company is now reaping from its push to integrate new technologies across its operations.

Devices designed for the hybrid retail space

The ultimate role of devices in the retail space is to help create a great experience for customers. Whether that’s ordering something in for a customer online, checking inventory levels, or even checking what shifts people on a team are working so managers can make sure that the shop floor is filled with the right people at the right time. All of it comes back to enhancing the in-store experience.

But there’s an increasing understanding that within every retail space, there are different types of workers, and they have different needs. Frontline workers don’t want to walk around the shop floor with a laptop, because it’s heavy and there’s a security risk in putting it down in a busy retail space. Similarly, an information worker in the back office isn’t going to want to use a foldable in-your-palm device.  

At Microsoft, we’ve packaged this understanding into a cohesive offering for retailers. We’ve got lightweight, on-the-go devices like the Surface Go that are designed specifically for frontline workers who don’t want to be tethered to a PC. We’ve got other Surface devices designed for information processing, as well as Surface Hubs that can help improve in-office and hybrid collaboration – meaning everyone feels included.

And because our devices are specifically made to complement the Microsoft software stack, it means that retailers get the best experience from things like Microsoft Teams and Power BI when using them on their Surface. It helps to keep our employees connected with each other, and empowers them serve customers quickly and efficiently.

I am confident that this empowerment will translate into the evolution of the role of frontline workers, who can be there to genuinely support people with disabilities or accessibility needs, becoming much more of a helping hand to customers in-store. There always will be a need for that kind of support, as we adapt to the new world we find ourselves in.

Find out more

Learn how to harness digital for the future of retail

Personalise your organisation’s customer experience strategy

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Device Decisions – The future is hybrid – considerations for IT leaders in the changing workplace

Technology can help unlock a new future for frontline workers

About the author

Joseph runs the Product and Marketing Strategy of our Surface Devices and Accessories for our Small Medium & Corporate (SMC) customers in Microsoft UK.

The post Empowering retail employees: How to transform the frontline appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

When innovation becomes culture, we can solve old challenges and create new opportunities. Discover how to build strategies for your organisation that connect people, tools, and intelligence to bring ideas to life.

Tools to build an innovative culture

Power Apps

Build apps in hours, that easily connect to data with more than 400+ out of the box connectors. Use Excel-like expressions to add logic, drag and drop functionality for the UI, and run on the web, iOS, and Android devices.

Power Automate

Automate workflows and integrate them directly in your apps with a low-code approach that connects to hundreds of popular apps and services.

5 benefits of low-code and no-code apps for your business

1. Improve agility to respond to business needs

Rapidly build innovative web and mobile applications that meet the unique, evolving needs of your business.

• Infuse apps and processes with AI for deeper insights.
• Build apps in hours or days instead of months.

Connect to your data across your digital estate.

2. Empower your people to achieve more

Democratise app development across your organisation. Create opportunities for individuals and organisations alike to transform the way they work.

• Power Apps uses drag-and-drop simplicity so users can build apps quickly with no/low code.
• Use pre-built app templates to accelerate business processes.

3. Optimise budgets, time and resources to do more with less

The Forrester Total Economic Impact study for Power Apps and Power Automate, commissioned by Microsoft, concluded that organisations that adopt both technologies:

• Realise an ROI of 362 percent.
• Reduce development costs by 70 percent.
• Increase business process efficiency by 15 percent.
• Recoup their investment in only three months.

4. Automate time consuming processes

Power Apps and Power Automate integrate across the core apps you already use. Automate mundane, time-consuming business processes into streamlined workflows.

• Digitise paper-based processes and reduce errors and cost while saving time.
• Use AI to quickly process information, approvals and get smarter insights.

5. Maintain security and customer trust

The solutions you create are secure because they exist within the compliant Microsoft environment.

Get started building your no/low code apps

Now you understand how Power Apps and Power Automate can drive innovation in your organisation, the next step is to get started! You can empower everyone in your organisation to turn ideas into solutions that solve business challenges. Productivity can be boosted by automating manual processes, so employees can have more time to do value-adding work.

Low-code Power Platform lets more people in your organisation build apps and processes required to transform. Whether working solo, or delivering in partnership with professional developers in Fusion Teams, you can combine the best of both to help scale the impact of pro developers in delivering business value together.

We’re sharing a handy checklist on how your people can get started building their apps today:

Find out more

Digital Innovation that delivers a seamless experience with real impact

Join a Power Platform Virtual Training Day

About the author

Matt heads up the Digital Transformation and App Innovation team within Microsoft UK’s Solutions business. He leads a team of innovation and development-centred Specialists focussed on helping customers understand, plan for, and adopt some of the most cutting-edge services in Microsoft’s arsenal – from GitHub for developer productivity, managed container offerings such as Azure Kubernetes Services, PaaS and serverless with Azure Functions and Logic Apps, Integration Services, Event Grid, and more, through to engaging wider stakeholder audiences in the development process through adoption of low-code development with Power Apps.  

Matt’s background is firmly in engineering for innovation. With a master’s in computing and over two decades of experience from hands on ecommerce, payment and billing systems development in the late ‘90s and early 2000’s, to leading a global consulting team designing and rolling out bespoke Budgeting, Planning and Forecasting products for FTSE 10 integrated energy companies, and on to launching an IoT Pet Tracking start-up, founding, building, and selling a Digital Transformation consultancy before joining Microsoft in 2018. 

Consistent to all of Matt’s endeavors is an understanding of what is possible, how it aligns to solving real world business challenges, and always starting with the “Why”.  

The post Make app building easier: The benefits of low-code and no-code appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Frontline workers have suffered ongoing disruption throughout the pandemic which has led to considerable exhaustion and burn out. Increased working hours and pressure means they are also likely to experience a feeling of disconnection from their organisation and their team. As a result, organisations need to support healthcare staff wellbeing. Based on the Work Trend Index Special Report, one of the main focuses organisations should have when it comes to building an inclusive team culture is ensuring frontline workers have the digital tools to stay connected to core organisational messages and resources.

Improving connections to organisational knowledge

Technology like Microsoft Viva Connections can play an important role in shaping the organisational culture to include frontline workers. Viva Connections brings together relevant news, conversations and resources from around your organisation into one place within Teams. It provides both a desktop and mobile experience. Viva Connections is built on the current Microsoft 365 ecosystem within your organisation. It’s powered by SharePoint to help inform, engage, and empower the hybrid workforce. The Viva Connections experience is fully customisable to your organisation’s requirements. Living in Teams, this allows all employees to access information no matter what device they are using and where they are. As a result, all healthcare workers can complete their roles without the need to search for different websites, use different and outdated applications or load resources and tools which only work on a PC.

An improved and updated intranet brought into the flow of daily work in Microsoft Teams provides a simple way for health organisations to deliver all relevant news to frontline workers. It can also create a safe and collaborative space for healthcare teams. This can support organisations in their efforts of keeping employees engaged which can result in higher levels of retention.

Every day, new healthcare regulations are put in place by governments. Often, healthcare workers struggle to find the latest government regulation or guidance and may struggle to pro-actively locate this information. With Viva connections, organisational leaders know they can deliver this content in a uniform experience to all employees, regardless of role.

Delivering connections to new employees

Viva Connections can be particularly useful for new healthcare workers. When joining an organisation it is often difficult to embrace and understand the organisation’s culture and mission. Especially remotely when on the frontline and not in an office setting. Viva Connections provides a virtual resource portal for a new healthcare worker. It supports onboarding through a customisable dashboard which can be personalised to different employee roles. The dashboard delivers a tailored view of these resources through adaptive cards. These can be targeted directly to frontline workers and their own needs. Popular use cases can include weblinks to view pay and benefits, submit holiday requests, view and manage shifts or access time sheets. All these are opened within the Teams browser on a mobile device.

Through the dashboard experience, Viva Connections also provides an extensible platform, where 3^rd party integration such as ServiceNow, LifeWorks or Talentsoft can be plugged directly through adaptive cards. This means that employees can access and complete even more tasks directly from the Connections app. As a result, healthcare workers can save large amounts of time. This is because they no longer need to search the organisations intranet for scattered resources.

Take control of your organisation’s internal communication strategy

In a hybrid working world where healthcare workers are likely to be more disconnected than ever from their organisations, both information workers working from home and workers using mobile devices on the frontline have benefitted from using Microsoft Teams. Now, in this evolution of Microsoft Teams, Viva Connections can ensure healthcare workers stay in touch with their organisation’s latest news, legal requirements and their organisation’s mission and purpose.

To learn more about Viva Connections please connect with Edward Adamson and Ioana Marinescu on LinkedIn. Or, contact your Microsoft account team and we can organise a Viva Connections envisioning session.

Find out more

Get started with Microsoft Viva Connections

Work Trend Index Special Report

3 ways technology can help rebuild your frontline workforce

What’s a Simple Definition of Employee Engagement?

Viva Connections mobile and new partner integrations are now generally available

About the authors

Edward is currently a Modern Work Specialist working with healthcare organisations across the UK, helping on their journey towards digital transformation. Focussing on hybrid working, frontline technologies and wellbeing and productivity management, connect with Edward on LinkedIn to follow content relating to healthcare and Microsoft 365 optimisation.

Ioana works with healthcare organisations across the UK to improve their journey towards digital transformation using Microsoft 365 technologies. She helps healthcare organisations utilise Microsoft Teams to connect multi-disciplinary communities across the organisation, bring wellbeing and productivity management into the flow of everyday work and surface knowledge and learning across the organisation.

The post How to keep frontline healthcare workers connected with digital technology appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Let’s dissect this a little. Firstly, what is culture? It’s quite an ethereal term and one I have often struggled with. Someone once shared a simple definition that resonated with me: Culture is “what you do when your boss isn’t watching”. Culture is something ingrained into how you work and think, which is important. You can’t simply say you have a culture as an organisation. You must live and breathe the culture.

And what do we mean when we say data-driven? It’s not about collecting all data. In fact, lack of data isn’t a problem for most organisations! However, what they often struggle with is extracting value from that data. Therefore, what we are really talking about is decisions that are driven from data. Because we use the data to inform and justify our decisions, it needs to be good quality.

So, a data-driven culture is one where the organisational norm is that decision making is driven by data. How can leaders successfully build this culture? If we look at the journey to a data-driven culture, I think of four steps.

1. Create the right mindset for a data-driven culture

To me this is the most crucial step – leadership must be clear. I don’t just mean that leaders need to talk about using data. Leaders need to demonstrate how they place data at the heart of what the organisation is trying to achieve every day.

In order to thrive, leaders must be clear about what their organisation’s purpose and outcomes are. A great way to create accountability and direction is to tie those purposes and outcomes to measures of success.

At Microsoft, we use an approach called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to organise and align our activities to transform. The focus on key results inspires a data-driven mindset across the organisation. It also provides a common data driven focus and language for everyone in the business – we all start to think about the measures that matter.

2. Find organisational and individual value in a data-driven culture

When looking at driving change I have to say that unfortunately we, as humans, can be a selfish bunch. Often, one of the biggest drivers of successful change is understanding what is in it for the individual. Within Microsoft we apply the PROSCI change methodology. At the heart of this is the ADKAR change model. There is the adage: organisations don’t change, people do. ADKAR is an acronym for five elements of change for individuals:

• Awareness of the need to change.
• Desire to participate and support the change.
• Knowledge on how to change.
• Ability to implement desired skills and behaviours.
• Reinforcement to sustain the change.

To embed the change within our people and therefore to drive change in the organisation, we really need to create the desire to change. If people are told the future is a data-driven culture they simply won’t buy into it and commit to it. Therefore, demonstrating change and demonstrating value from data fast is important. When people see that the change works and is more effective, they’ll want to change.

3. Build your and your employee’s skills

If we are working on changing our mindsets, we also need to prepare our people with the right skills and tools. Everyone needs basic data literacy skills and we all different levels of knowledge. Some people have inherent data literacy skills. Others may need support to be able to understand and assimilate data then interpret and analyse it. Then, once we have the basics in place, we need to progress to understand how we can use the tools at our disposal to answer the business question we have. However, we can’t just throw tools like Excel, Tableau and PowerBI at our people and expect them to be able to optimise and transform our organisations.

Leaders need to help their employees on their learning journey by democratising data access, building learning opportunities and give employees the time to take those opportunities. One way you can do this is to build re- and upskilling into employee KPIs. In our data journey we move from a data consumer to data analyst, citizen data scientist and beyond. Not everyone starts in the same place. Everyone’s learning path is different and the KPIs need to reflect that.

Microsoft provides access to great learning tools to support you and your employee’s individual journey. These include Microsoft Learn – the front door to all your training needs whether you are just starting out or an experienced professional, with role-based learning paths. You can also explore how to use AI in your organisation with the Microsoft AI Business School.

4. Empower employees with the right tools

So, now you’ve changed your mindset and the mindset of your organisation. You’ve seen the value of a data-driven organisation and are building relevant skills. But what tools do leaders need to get insights?

Firstly, organisations need quality, curated data that is easily accessible. Not everyone in the business is a data engineer who can find, cleanse and prepare data for analytics. You need an easy way for everyone in an organisation to find the business data that they need. It also needs to be presented in a manner that is easily understandable – using the language they understand. This is where a data marketplace or data catalogue is invaluable. At Microsoft we have Azure Purview, our unified data governance platform. This is a platform that automatically discovers data wherever it lives in your organisation. It can classify data and identify data lineage; but importantly it also presents a data catalogue of your data using business language. The data catalogue is a core element of a successful self-service strategy.

Using self-service data insights tools like PowerBI provides easy access to pre-prepared and certified datasets. This enables your people to be confident in the quality of the data source and empowers them to discover new insights from the data. It also allows the data owners can enable controls to ensure colleagues can only see the data they need to.

A continuous journey to a data-driven culture

These four steps will help you build a data-driven culture. I also want to remind you of the final step in ADKAR: Reinforcement! It’s critical that this is not seen as a one-off initiative. You need to work hard at reinforcing the change to build a successful data-driven culture. If people don’t use these new skills, mindset and tools, it is the case of use it or lose it. This can be tough – but creating a champion network focused on data is a wonderful way to organically drive and embed the culture.

Find out more

Build a data-driven organisation

Peer to peer interview: Unite your data strategy and culture

Create a data culture

About the author

James is a Digital Advisor in Microsoft Consulting Services. He is focussed on helping customers realise their business outcomes and purpose by enabling their digital transformation with advanced cloud technologies – with a particular focus on data, AI, automation and sustainability. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2014, James held several roles across financial services (HSBC, Schroders), public sector (Scottish Water) and consulting (PwC).

The post The role of leadership in a successful data-driven culture appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

To truly take charge in this intrepid new workplace, leaders need to take a step back, reflect on the lessons learnt and design for the future.

Let’s explore a framework and ideas for hybrid working.

To start, an effective hybrid workplace takes effort. You need a clear strategy – one that adapts to individual and organisational needs found both inside and outside the office. These decisions will impact everything from your culture, how you attract and retain talent, how you respond to change and how you innovate. Organisations will need to make sure strategy underpins experimentation. Don’t be afraid to roll out new initiatives or encourage creative ideas within your organisation. Use data and your employee’s own engagement to gauge success. Learn and correct as you go.

To build successful hybrid working, organisations need to think about three things: People, process and place. Underpinning these are empathetic and motivated leaders, and secure, inclusive technology powered by the cloud.

1. People 

Your people are the heart of your business. And their wellbeing is critical. Over 70 percent of employees want flexible remote working to continue, while over 65 percent crave more in-person time with their teams. Hybrid working requires leaders to ensure employees have the flexibility to work when and where they want.

A successful hybrid organisation embeds empathetic leadership and prioritises individual wellbeing to help people focus and be their best. Almost half of the global workforce is likely to consider leaving their current employer this year. This means to stay competitive you need to take a people-first approach to your hybrid working strategy. At Microsoft, we’ve taken this approach, building wellbeing into our daily priorities, including implementing Wellbeing Days – additional paid time off for employees to focus on themselves.

The NHS took this approach when building its partnership with Microsoft. GPs, consultants, nurses, therapists, paramedics and support staff now have the digital tools to help them collaborate more effectively and access the information they need, when they need it.

 “Adopting the most up to date digital tools and operating systems are crucial for a modern day NHS – allowing staff to work as efficiently as possible which will deliver even better care for patients.” 

Matt Hancock, Secretary of State 

A major benefit to hybrid working is the growth you’ll see in your talent pool. Because job roles are no longer required to be near the office, you’ll attract more diverse talent. And with secure digital tools that improve accessibility, productivity and anywhere collaboration you will drive a more inclusive workplace. 

Building digital skills

And speaking of skills, underpinning the hybrid workplace is technology. Cloud-enabled devices and intelligent apps that support operations, collaboration, and productivity all require digital knowledge. Our research found that 63 percent of UK employees said they don’t have the digital skills needed to fulfil these roles. You can help start your employee’s learning paths on Microsoft Learn, and take advantage of on-demand training and events. 

Building your employee’s skills is essential. To keep your organisation competitive and innovative. To help your employees learn, reinvent and grow. And ultimately, to help our nation’s economy. This isn’t a one off. You need to implement an always–on culture of learning. This will help support employees and drive innovation.  

2. Process 

According to Accenture, organisations are focussing on digital transformation to the sum of $1.2 trillion globally, but are neglecting culture change. While technology can empower the hybrid working culture, it cannot create it. It needs to be a whole organisational shift. Leaders need to come together to unlock the data, expertise, and knowledge of the organisation.  

Equip employees with both digital skills and secure low/no code enterprise app technology to give them the autonomy to solve challenges and reimagine traditional processes. When you automate processes and workflows, you can innovate manual work, reduce errors and discover new insights to improve services.

We’ve partnered with Refinitiv to help financial firms connect, collaborate and unlock the power of their data. By doing this, organisations can make critical business decisions faster and gain new insights into their markets and customers, helping critical business decisions.  

“When you add tools within that collaboration platform to help people surface information quickly, you create a seamless experience that brings the best of technology and data together with the human expertise needed to move markets forward.” 

Ben Shepherd, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Refinitiv 

Make sure you provide policies and technology that support synchronous collaboration – meetings, voice and video calls – as well as asynchronous collaboration – where team members can dip in and out of projects and work when they have the time. Lean on your collaboration platform to build variety and encourage connectivity anywhere. For example, encourage non-work related check-ins, voice-only walking calls to prevent screen fatigue, or even buddy up colleagues from different teams for informal chats. 

Leaders will need to embed a process of continuous testing, observing, and adjusting to processes to ensure they grow with your organisation and adapt to your employee’s needs. 

3. Place 

Now we’re planning a hybrid workforce, office space is no longer limited to the office. 

Leaders must balance virtual and physical workplace to ensure equality and inclusion for everyone. To do this effectively, we need to restructure the physical workspace and invest in digital tools.  

Humans are social creatures. Everyone – from those working at home, in the office or on the frontline – needs to be able to have a voice and feel included in your culture. Cloud-enable AV solutions such as Teams Rooms and interactive screens such as the Surface Hub 2S placed in meeting and social spaces can enhance collaboration and inclusivity. 

However, it’s equally important that offices don’t become event venues. Your space must reflect the changing nature of the hybrid workplace, with the flexibility to adjust the physical environment for different scenarios, for example, collaboration spaces and focus areas. 

Nationwide is integrating technology into their London new digital hub. Their ambition is to ensure Microsoft Teams is in every meeting room to ensure colleagues can join physical meeting rooms remotely, supporting greater collaboration and efficiency. 

“The workplace of the future will be about choice, with the flexibility to be where we need to be to do our jobs as effectively as possible. Technology is essential as it provides the infrastructure needed so we can work dynamically.” 

Patrick Eltridge, Chief Operating Officer at Nationwide 

Use data to improve hybrid working flows

At Microsoft, we are surveying employees and looking at data such as social graphs and employee traffic patterns. This helps us provide the right spaces for teams, while understanding how those needs evolve over time. 42 percent of employees say they lack essential office supplies at home. Therefore, it’s important to ensure you equip your employees with the right tools both at home and in the office. Microsoft Graph enables you to pool data across Microsoft 365 to inform business intelligence. This can boost user productivity, creativity, and team collaboration, while protecting business resources and users’ data from anywhere. 

Leaders need to set the tone for hybrid working. The strategy and plan to embed collaboration, creativity and culture into the hybrid workplace must come from the top. You need to ensure you look after your own wellbeing, taking regular days out of the office and logging offline when the day ends. This will help avoid the rise of presenteeism at the workplace or online.  

Building sustainable growth with hybrid working

We are no longer bound to traditional notions of working. Our hybrid working framework lets us set aside our assumptions and start building a more flexible, people-focussed approach. 

We believe this is an opportunity to progress. To drive sustainable growth and foster an accessible, innovative, and supportive culture. One ​where everyone is inspired, and no one is left behind.  

Find out more 

Discover how to help your organisation be more agile and resilient 

Create an agile and innovative workplace 

About the author

Nick leads the Modern Work and Security business for Microsoft UK and has a passion for helping individuals and organisations to become more productive. Personal and organisational productivity is high on the list for every leader right now; Nick and his team dedicate their working hours to the role that Microsoft technologies can play as part of a business transformation journey.

The post 3 steps to build a successful hybrid working framework appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.