More than a business agreement, the partnership between Microsoft and Sunderland is based on shared values and aspirations. We’re joining forces to positively impact the lives of local people and businesses in this vibrant city.

Microsoft’s focus on public-sector transformation has been a driving force throughout our collaboration. We know from experience that technology and digital solutions can help revolutionise public services, making them more efficient, effective, and citizen-centric.

Working hand in hand with the council, we’re leveraging Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies and expertise to streamline administrative processes, enhance citizen engagement, and optimise resource allocation. We want to redefine what it means to deliver public services in the digital age. 

“Smart cities” collaboration: creating a connected, sustainable future 

Our mutual commitment to smart cities collaboration also sets this partnership apart. Sunderland City Council’s vision for a new kind of urban development aligns perfectly with our expertise in creating smart city solutions. We’re on a joint mission to transform Sunderland into a connected environment that offers enhanced liveability, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

By integrating advanced technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and data analytics, we’re shaping an urban ecosystem that will optimise resource management, create intelligent infrastructure, and foster innovation. Together, we’re laying the foundation for a future that embraces digital transformation, innovation, and inclusion.

Empowering citizens with new skills

It’s important to note that our partnership goes beyond technology and infrastructure. At its core, this initiative is about empowering the people of Sunderland.

We understand the importance of digital skills in today’s world. They can provide a significant boost to personal growth, employability, social mobility, and community development. That’s why Microsoft has long supported UK digital talent with events and training opportunities, as well as initiatives such as the Microsoft Connector Community.

In Sunderland, we’re equally committed to bridging the digital divide for residents by providing technology skills training, resources, and support. Through our collaboration we’ll equip individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in the digital economy. By empowering local people, we’re not only transforming lives but also fuelling innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic resilience within the community. 

“Together, we will minimise disconnects between people, technology and place.”

Liz St Louis
Director of Smart Cities, Sunderland City Council

The journey begins

Our Memorandum of Understanding with Sunderland has set the stage for an exciting journey of collaboration and positive change.

Liz St Louis, Director of Smart Cities at Sunderland City Council, said: “Catalysed by our leading smart city achievements, I am extremely proud to be harnessing this new relationship with esteemed partners, Microsoft. 

“Together, we will minimise disconnects between people, technology and place – leaving no-one and nowhere behind.  

“Microsoft’s thought leadership, technology and digital solutions will help to revolutionise our public services, whilst empowering our people, as we continue to digitally transform our smart city.” 

Watch this space to see how technology innovation and a vision help Sunderland reimagine itself as a thriving digital hub. 

Find out more

• Visit the Microsoft for Government hub
• See our skilling and career resources
• Visit the Microsoft UK Digital Skills hub
• Read the blog: New connections – how we’re bridging the UK digital skills gap

About the author

I lead the Northern Sales Team at Microsoft, working with regional government on digital transformation and using technology and digital skills to drive economic growth and citizens’ lives.

The post Enhancing citizen-centric public services in the digital age appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

This year’s theme for Earth Day is ‘Invest in Our Planet’ and focuses on engaging governments, institutions, businesses, and citizens to do their part. With this in mind, sustainability in 2023 has become as much the responsibility of each employee as it is the wider organisation’s.   

But how do you make sustainability everyone’s job?

Sustainability might not be the core focus of every role but there is an activist in us all. At Microsoft we believe there are ways to unlock this in employees and empower them to engage with sustainability in a way that is authentic and relevant to their role.

For the past 20 years, I have spent a lot of time in the ‘S’ of ESG. Alongside communications and storytelling, I now have the privilege of focusing on the ‘E’ of ESG. I’d like to share four ways we at Microsoft have found effective in helping make sustainability everyone’s job.

#1 Vision and mission

Does your vision and mission clearly align with sustainability? If employees know that their work ties in with the mission of the company, they can feel empowered in making sustainability their business too. Businesses have an opportunity and a responsibility in sustainability so look at your company’s mission and if you need to influence work with the CEO to weave in sustainability goals.

“At Microsoft, we have a strong purpose-led mission: ‘Empower every person on the planet to achieve more.”

Victoria Oakes, Chief of Staff for Sustainability, Microsoft

#2 Collaboration is Queen

To make sustainability everyone’s role, break down silos to make it easier for everyone to work together and foster a community that will collaborate for the greater good. At Microsoft, three things helped us to tackle this.

First, we created a sustainability board where we picked people in each area of the business to represent their teams in sustainability. This forum created a safe space to collaborate, share blockers, challenges, ideas and innovation, and disseminate information. Scaling the work and sharing knowledge is also critical, so having a board has really helped us to develop ‘champs’ in the business who share their insights via their board team lead.

Secondly, we created a dedicated channel on Teams that connects the wider business and gives us a place to share opportunities, wins, training and ideas. We often do social events centred around volunteering, which is not only a good way to give back but also a way to form closer connections with the extended team.

Lastly, having an approachable and credible Chief Sustainability Officer is critical to help galvanise people who want to become part of something that isn’t always their core remit

#3 Demystify sustainability

At Microsoft we have a Sustainability In Action badge that helps us to train the company in all things sustainability, from our own goals and pledges to our narrative, tools and products. We also have regular training and learning sessions with our core team present, so people know who to approach for different kinds of help, support and insight.

Another way to help educate and train people on sustainability is by leveraging world events to tell your story. Earth Day and COP, for example, are great opportunities to educate people when they’re most engaged. We also recently published the Microsoft report on Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap, to help businesses grasp the importance of sustainable transformation. It’s also imperative to remember the importance of social impact. Creating social value and purpose whilst doing business gives companies the opportunity to give back authentically. Companies that can do more should do more, and those that invest will go further. Here at Microsoft, we’re proud of our social impact programs both locally and globally.

#4 Reward and recognise

When people feel valued and recognised their wellbeing is improved as well as their company engagement, it’s also a great way to build community and drive momentum. We always use our dedicated Teams channel to recognise those who complete training, make progress or sign deals. In fact, we’ve recently launched our Sustainability Star of the Quarter Award, which recognises those who make an impact in this space across the business.

Stay committed to your sustainability goals

To wrap up, I want to stress the importance of bringing energy, experience and passion when galvanising cross-discipline teams throughout the business. Walk the walk, stay driven, and commit to building a programme that breaks down silos and promotes collaboration. Invest in sustainable strategies to help you achieve net zero. Look for ways to recognise and reward sustainability efforts, and ultimately try to tie in sustainability and ESG with your company’s core mission and vision.

Not only will it help you make progress towards your sustainability goals, but it’ll inspire a lot of people along the way.

About the author

For the past 20 years Victoria has spent much of her time in communications and the purpose world. Currently holding the position as the Chief of Staff for Sustainability at Microsoft, Victoria leads program management, employee engagement, strategy and thought leadership for the sustainability business. Victoria cares deeply about ESG and how companies can balance business and purpose. She believes companies that can do more should do more and that these purpose levers can drive positive growth and innovation. Victoria also holds a trustee position with African Development Choices, is a judge for the Purpose Awards and won a National Social Impact Award and Platinum Club Award for the innovation she drove in raising awareness of inclusivity.

Find out more

Microsoft Sustainability – products for a Sustainable Future

Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap: Helping businesses move from pledges to progress

The post Putting sustainability into the heart of everyone’s job: 4 ways to take action appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The way forward for getting your P&L in line is to drive revenue. However, each business is unique, and its situation depends on the company’s leadership function, ownership structure, recent financial history, CapEx and OpEx exposure, and industry-specific concerns.

While digital transformation can often be mistaken as a ‘silver bullet’, it is, in fact, the cost of doing business in today’s environment. So how should finance leaders proceed? 

Balancing cost with ROI: the three biggest challenges for CFOs 

There can be a temptation to make immediate cost savings at every turn. Yet by investing in digital transformation programmes now, astute CFOs: 

• Can deliver a rapid return on investment with efficiency savings, thanks to automation and the cloud. 

• Will future-proof their company at a time of significant technological change. 

• Will make it easier to meet sustainability targets. 

While senior leaders recognise the need for digital investment, they want returns quickly. According to the Gartner Global CFO Poll 2022, 69 percent of CFOs are looking to increase spend around digital transformation initiatives – but their expectations for returns are one to two years. Agility, flexibility, and speed have become more pressing. 

To map out where savings can be made and how best to plan ahead, we advise considering the three most pressing, intersecting challenges faced by CFOs today – and crucially, where technology can win much-needed reprieve, helping organisations ultimately achieve more with less.  

These three challenges are:  

1. Cost optimisation

2. Supply chain

3. Energy

Let’s look at each factor in turn. 

1. Cost optimisation 

Following the global economic crisis of 2007-08, the world’s economy was fuelled by cheap money. With inflation making a return, this has become more difficult to find. Supply-side costs, including scarce affordable energy, have driven up inflation as never before. According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, the annual rate of input inflation has lurched beyond 20 percent, while input cost inflation for manufacturers leapt 24 percent compared to the same time last year (end of 2022 data).  

How to balance growth aspirations with priorities around spend

This pain may not have hit every business yet. But when companies are forced to respond to it, many will go into survival mode, and some will fail. 

CFOs are having to evaluate their areas of investment to remain competitive when consumer expectations are high, but confidence is low. They also have to prioritise incremental investments designed to deliver efficiency gains. 

Organisations, in turn, are under pressure to ensure every part of their business is working as well as it can – and the digital imperative is key to resolving this. Businesses need more innovation, agility and resilience, with less complexity and at a lower cost, quickly. Put simply, they need to do more with less. 

Making the most of existing infrastructure and technology roadmaps 

We believe organisations should look to their existing infrastructure and technology roadmaps to drive further efficiencies with the assets they already own. They can reduce operational costs by digitising based on unified platforms. 

Rolls-Royce succeeded on both counts by leveraging benefits available in its existing Microsoft stack. The company trained staff to use our low-code Power Platform – including Power Automate, Power BI and Power Apps – which has since become its most popular upskilling solution. In a few months, Rolls-Royce saw a financial benefit of about 8M across the organisation, a figure that can grow organically as more staff and teams use the platform. 

Retaining talent by digitising 

At first, the COVID-19 crisis stalled attrition rates; later, it saw employees reassess their career priorities. Many left their roles in what was sensationally termed the ‘great resignation’. As a result, the war for talent heated up.  

Retaining talent is now more pressing than ever. With employee turnover forecast to be 50 to 75 percent higher than businesses have ever experienced, they need to ensure staff are both happy and productive, with enough investment in skills to keep top talent within the organisation.  

Digital investment is the only way to meet higher staff expectations. Employees want modern technology that works effortlessly, and are increasingly expecting hybrid or remote roles as a given, with all the associated technology support. 

What the pandemic demonstrated to CFOs is that every business must strive to be a technology business, or fail. Those unable to swiftly pivot to digital were punished harshly.  

2. Supply chain

The wider supply chain is the core of most businesses and must absolutely be on every CFO’s radar – but using history to make decisions for the future no longer works. Customer demand is constantly changing, whether it’s influenced by the economic climate or making environmentally conscious purchase decisions.  

To shore up customer confidence, organisations can take advantage of intelligent automation to reduce costs, maximise operating margins and recalibrate their supply chains from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’. 

Take the UK company Spy Alarms, for example. By switching to Microsoft Dynamics, the service team have reduced the time it takes to book a service interview from six minutes to a few seconds. Their sales operations have also benefited from a much simpler and faster quotation process for its 45,000 customers. With the seamless integration of Power BI and Microsoft Teams, all levels of the team have access to data insights – empowering data-driven decision making with incredible precision and foresight.  

3. Energy 

Energy is a hot topic and is central to the boardroom conversations CFOs are becoming involved in. Data centres and offices are an enormous cost factor; a more cost- and energy-efficient answer is to retire data centres and invest in the cloud.  

Investing in the cloud to reduce energy consumption 

At Microsoft, our customers want to use energy management tools to reduce complexities around staffing and save costs in the near to long term. Cloud-native organisations can deliver more core value, with fully managed, end-to-end Azure cloud solutions to boost developer productivity, optimise and allocate resources, and speed up the pace of innovation. 

The East London NHS Trust has been a shining example of this. By taking advantage of Microsoft’s Intelligent Data Platform such as Azure Synapse Analytics and BI, staff can sense-check, monitor metrics and look at trends to see what’s happening on the ward. These insights are accessible from any device and even off the network, building a truly efficient integrated data system. 

Three takeaways: simplify, unify, innovate 

Every business can use technology to become more efficient and effective, whether it’s driving more value from existing platforms and assets, consolidating to reduce cost and complexity, or introducing deployments with rapid payback. 

By leveraging data and AI, businesses are armed with the data and insight on how to increase agility and growth with the assets they already have. 

At Microsoft, we’re working with our customers to define how they will survive, and even thrive, in a continually changing environment. If you’d like to understand more, visit The Microsoft Cloud – Trusted Cloud Platform. 

Find out more

Read Microsoft Azure case studies and customer stories

Announcing Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy: Enable your data to do more in the cloud

Imagining more: How organizations are reinventing operations and finding opportunity in the face of volatility

Understanding Microsoft’s digital transformation

About the author

As CFO of Microsoft UK, Mark leads the Finance Organisation supporting Clare Barclay and the UK Senior Leadership team by delivering against the strategic priorities of the company, through influencing key decisions around people, business processes and performance.

Prior to this role, Mark held the position of International CFO at Adobe and Rackspace, where he was a key part of leadership teams driving growth across all markets outside the US. With a career spread across banking, the oil industry and technology, a breadth of finance experience contributes to his dynamic, objective approach as we pursue great customer outcomes with our product portfolio.

Mark returned to the UK recently after spending time in Zurich and Amsterdam in previous roles, is a trained accountant with the ACCA, studied Economics at the University of Leeds and is married with 3 children.

The post How to future-proof your business: a CFO’s-eye view   appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In this role, I get to work with so many organisations that are determined to collectively make a difference and accelerate our journey to net zero. One such organisation is Aberdeen City Council. I met with the Corporate Management Team and Alex Nicoll, co-leader recently to discuss their vision for the Council and its ambitious sustainability goals.

The team at Aberdeen sees acting on sustainability as a social and environmental duty. The Climate Change Scotland 2009 Act set out targets to reduce carbon footprints, make the best use of resources, reduce waste and protect water. It is something that Aberdeen City Council takes very seriously.

On the council’s own progress, Andy MacDonald, Director of Customer Services at Aberdeen City Council, said, “We will achieve net zero corporate carbon emissions by 2045 at the latest, with interim targets of a reduction of at least 48% by 2025 and a reduction of at least 75% by 2030. As a city at the heart of the energy sector, the energy transition is a vital priority for Aberdeen. Using skills, knowledge, and experience as a world-leader in energy, the city is investing in net zero technology, building low carbon infrastructure and reskilling and upskilling to support a just transition to net zero.”

This isn’t a new vision for the city. It began its journey to net zero several years ago. In 2020 the Council set out its Energy Transition Vision. This is its progressive plan to position Aberdeen as a climate positive city while helping to lead the world on the rapid shift to a net zero future.  

The city has also launched Aberdeen Adapts, which is a framework for city-wide adaptation to changes to our climate. The framework incorporates the views of local organisations and communities, and sets the direction to build long term city climate resilience.

Working with its citizens is key to meeting these goals. In fact, it is critical. We are all in this together so only by bringing the community into the actions taken can we see the change we need.

The Council has developed a Net Zero City Routemap, along with its Energy Transition Vision, following public consultations and engagement with citizens. This collaborative approach with stakeholders, both public and private, and communities is what will allow Aberdeen to succeed. With investment in the plans going far beyond the Council and into the communities they are supporting, there is a collective effort to see real change.

Making progress

The Council is already further along than many. It has been leading on low carbon technology with two hydrogen refuelling stations to service its growing hydrogen bus fleet. It has also rolled out LED street lighting, expanded its range of electric and hydrogen fleet vehicles, increased connections to district heating for some public buildings and council housing, and installed several green roofs across its buildings.

This overarching approach to reaching Net Zero means every part of the Council is being reviewed and changes made where needed. It also shows the citizens of Aberdeen that their Council is taking its commitment to everyone’s future seriously.

Technology will play a vital role in how Aberdeen City Council is able to achieve these goals. In how it is able to retrofit housing projects, in how it monitors scarce resources and in many other projects. This is where we come in. It is only when we work together that we can see real progress.

Find out more

The need for urgent action: COP27 and the road to net zero

Microsoft 2021 Environmental Sustainability Report

Accelerating the Journey to Net Zero study

Microsoft Sustainability Webinar: From COP26 to COP27

Resources to empower your development team

Get started with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Training

About the author

Musidora joined the Microsoft UK Senior Leadership Team in February 2022 as Chief Sustainability Officer. She is accountable for driving sustainability outcomes for our customers, partners and internally. Prior to that, Musidora spent three years at Salesforce setting up and leading the Energy and Utilities Go to Market. She has extensive experience of the technology industry across hardware, consulting and software sales, over the past twenty years.

She featured at number 3 in the top 100 global sustainability leaders for 2022 in Sustainability Magazine, was named one of the top 100 female future leaders in 2020 by INvolve and Yahoo Finance UK, and was included in Kindness & Leadership’s Rising Star list for 2020.

Musidora is passionate about D&I and particularly in supporting more women in the STEM industries. She is an active coach, mentor and sponsor both inside and outside of the industry.

The post Aberdeen City Council shows ambition and leadership in tackling climate change appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Globally, we are facing the greatest challenge humanity has seen: To limit the planet’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. To achieve this, we should be producing less carbon than we take out of the atmosphere by the second half of the century. The World Energy Outlook Report by the IEA reported 2021 had the second-largest annual CO2 emission rise in history.

The time is now for greater ambition and faster action towards the transition to net zero. This is good for business too. As we meet and surpass our emission goals, organisations can improve efficiency, create new jobs, minimise waste and gain innovative new business value. According to a study from Microsoft and Dr Chris Brauer, Goldsmiths, University of London, 62 percent of business leaders expect their organisation to be carbon-neutral by 2035. However, only 41 percent of UK organisations are currently on track to meet the government’s targets for net zero emissions by 2050.

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Therefore, I am proud of Microsoft being the Strategic Technology Partner and Principal Sponsor at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. As a Strategic Principal Sponsor, we are joining forces with governments, organisations and communities to define net zero, measure progress, and build carbon markets that can deliver a just, prosperous future for everyone on the planet.

This is a global issue that needs a global response. To be successful, we need to understand these key factors:

Changes to infrastructure

PwC estimates that £40 billion per year needs to be invested into new low carbon and digital infrastructure over the next 10 years to meet the UK’s net zero ambition. Global CO2 emissions rose 6 percent in 2021 despite the large growth of renewable power generation. This is due to the rise in coal burning from adverse weather and energy market conditions.

Energy infrastructure needs to enable greater decentralisation while the government should support the roll out of green technology such as charging facilities. Industries should look to optimise energy efficiency by adopting a more advanced IT system:

Tackle your organisation’s emissions

Better data

Management of something is impossible if you are not measuring it. The world needs to simplify and streamline its carbon accounting and management, including data collection, digitisation and optimisation. Automating this analysis and sharing this data is essential to businesses, organisations and governments if we are going to achieve the robust reductions we need to by 2030 and remain below 1.5 degrees. Microsoft is building a Planetary Computer to address this need for better data:

Discover our planetary computer

New technology

We need to leverage new and unknown technologies to help our progress towards net zero. This includes creating advanced batteries, carbon capture, utilisation and storage, fuel alternatives, bioenergy and decarbonising building materials:

Learn how our AI solutions help empower

New business models

There’s no doubt climate change poses risks to many industries. The increase of adverse weather, for example, affects crop growth, interrupts supply chains or even prevents people from getting to work. Therefore, organisations need to shift to circular business models, to build resiliency and reduce emissions.

At the same time, organisations must look at new and innovative ways to democratise the access of new technology such as solar panels, heat pumps and electric cars to customers.

Amplify your progress with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.

Channelling investment

The world needs financial and human investment across the economy. Money and jobs must flow into carbon reduction and removal markets. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assets are growing upward of 15 percent annually. As more organisations are tying ESG criteria into their values and evaluations, more work needs to be done to support initiatives that help our collective net zero goals.

Learn why ESG is good for business

Upskilling

As organisations implement innovative technology, or job roles change over time, they need to support their people with developing new skills and ensure they invest in a skilling culture to attract and retain talent:

Microsoft has a range of free learning paths, webinars, training to help people build their digital skills.

How we’ve been supporting net zero goals

See our sustainability journey so far: 1.3M metric tons of carbon removed, 20 water replenishment projects funded, 60K metric tons of waste diverted from landfill, 10 petabytes of environmental data available.

Since announcing our own sustainability goals in 2020, we’ve been focussing on reducing waste, improving water access and defining the technology that will help everyone achieve these goals. We have also taken an innovative and exciting approach to helping our customers and partners reach net zero.

Carbon

To decarbonise at pace, Rolls-Royce is using Microsoft Azure to process, model and interrogate flight data. These insights are used to improve the performance of plane engines and drive sustainability.

Waste

Recycleye is revolutionising the waste management industry by automating the detection of everything on a waste management facility’s conveyor belt and identifying it in granular detail, improving recycling.

Water

Anglian Water is helping its customers love every drop with a smart metering scheme that leverages data. While empowering customers to adapt their own behaviour, Anglian Water can use the data to identify leaks, manage supply and reduce water waste.

Ecosystems

SSE Renewables is protecting the ecosystems surrounding their sustainable energy assets by using AI to monitor and protect puffins.

Taking meaningful action towards net zero

COP27 is a place for everyone to unite for positive change. We aim to continue helping people, governments and organisations to better understand the transformative potential of technology to help solve many of the complex climate challenges we face.

Building for a sustainable future

We know that to achieve real, global net zero, every organisation needs to reduce emissions as much as possible and physically remove the rest. 64 percent of UK business leaders say cutting their carbon footprint is part of their organisation’s sustainability strategy. However, only 17 percent have implemented a detailed programme for mapping emissions and less than half monitor them. Our study, Accelerating the journey to net zero, shares practical tips and guidance on how UK organisations can accelerate their sustainability progress.

COP27 is a timely reminder that our work has just begun. But it also shows us that sustainability, when engrained into organisational goals and values, brings innovative new ideas to life. At the same time, it optimises the work we do, and creates a stronger brighter future for all.

Find out more

Learn more about sustainability with Microsoft

Accelerating the journey to net zero

Microsoft Sustainability Webinar From Cop 26 to Cop 27

About the author

Musidora joined the Microsoft UK Senior Leadership Team in February 2022 as Chief Sustainability Officer. She is accountable for driving sustainability outcomes for our customers, partners and internally. Prior to that, Musidora spent three years at Salesforce setting up and leading the Energy and Utilities Go to Market. She has extensive experience of the technology industry across hardware, consulting and software sales, over the past twenty years.

She featured at number 3 in the top 100 global sustainability leaders for 2022 in Sustainability Magazine, was named one of the top 100 female future leaders in 2020 by INvolve and Yahoo Finance UK, and was included in Kindness & Leadership’s Rising Star list for 2020.

Musidora is passionate about D&I and particularly in supporting more women in the STEM industries. She is an active coach, mentor and sponsor both inside and outside of the industry.

The post The need for urgent action: COP27 and the road to net zero appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In the current economic environment, banks and other financial services firms recognise the need to embrace digital transformation to get maximum value from their technology investments and do more with less. Leveraging technology also helps businesses to navigate emerging risks while driving sustainable and responsible business outcomes internally and with their customers. But how are they approaching these challenges? Last week I attended Sibos 2022 in Amsterdam, where business leaders, policy makers and technologists came together for deep dive debates and big picture outlooks on the future of the corporate banking market, including lending, trade and treasury solutions, and the related capital markets instruments. The energy and excitement on the pace of innovation was clear and I saw many themes that resonate with where we aim to lead the market in our Microsoft UK Financial Services business.  

Geopolitical tensions, the economic environment, evolving cyber threats, the race to Net Zero, the competitive landscape and ongoing reimagination of business models, modernising policy and regulation, and the continuous innovation of what is possible with people, process and digital technology are driving rapid change in the industry. When managed correctly, this change can unlock new opportunity. 

The industry is leading in many areas of technology, product and operating-model innovation, but a responsible business purpose and sustainable societal outcomes are now firmly embedded as objectives that banks are expected to deliver. “We should not seek innovation for innovation’s sake,” noted HM Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in the opening plenary. “With each new technology, we must always ask ‘What problems are we trying to solve?’” At the same time, we need to ensure any innovation is done securely and collaboratively while being additive to interoperability of data and platforms. The IMF predicts technological fragmentation can cut a country’s GDP by five percent; the benefit of collaborative industry approaches and ecosystem business models is clear. 

Through all the customer, partner, and colleague conversations at Sibos 2022, and while contributing and learning as much as we could about new ideas and technologies, the Microsoft UK Financial Services team took away four main action points: 

1.      Transform securely  

One of the key things that was highlighted by industry leaders was the importance of getting cyber security basics right to enable secure transformation. “The human firewall is the first line of defence,” said Nicolas Trimbour, Head of Fraud Prevention and Chief Data Officer for Cash Management at BNP Paribas. It’s important to educate employees and customers to recognise phishing, scams and ransomware attempts especially while the attach surface grows with increased digitisation and growing ecosystem business models. 

AI/ML solutions can work at high performance across large amounts of data to spot fraud or suspicious activity in transactions and endpoints. An industry-specific cloud solution that uses a completely private data model, while offering full data portability can help organisations as they shift from on-premise to hybrid or cloud-native architectures. At the same time, organisations can benefit from built-in security and compliance offerings that infuse healthy cyber hygiene. 

Our security experts have pulled together resources, training and more to help your teams empower and educate your employees and customers to be cyber aware. This is the right time to focus on this with October being Cyber Security Month. Check out our Cyber Security Awareness Month resources. 

2.      Build a talent and collaboration model that supports your digital ambitions   

Banks need access to the right engineering and digital skills at scale to drive industry digitisation and innovation. This is not just about attracting the talent, but re-skilling and up-skilling current resources and creating an empathetic, flexible culture. I’ve often heard it said that the number one headwind on many banks’ ability to execute on their digital transformation strategies is access to the right talent and skills. “We need to make sure we invest in our people and support them in their growth,” says Erika Irish Brown, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and Global Head of Talent at Citi.  

At Microsoft, we’re helping financial services institutions give their employees the digital skills they need. Whether that’s showing how decentralised teams can work collaboratively while working remotely, using tools to securely automate processes and workflows, or empowering pro dev, citizen dev and fusion dev teams to develop new apps, processes and reporting to make their work simpler in their domains. With 53 percent of employees more likely to prioritise health and wellbeing over work, leaders must take an empathetic approach to building a hybrid workplace. A culture that embraces flexibility and prioritises wellbeing will build a thriving organisation and drive long-term sustainable growth. This webinar with my colleague Craig Wellman goes into the importance of planning, leadership and culture in transforming financial services. 

3.      Align your ESG objectives to your business value 

The banking industry has a societal obligation to direct funding, capital, investment and lending to businesses in the real economy that will move the needle positively on ESG measures and on carbon reduction. And not only do customers, stakeholders, investors, regulators and governments expect it, but it’s also good for business. “$97 trillion needs to be invested to get to net zero. That’s a massive opportunity. It’s the most strategic and important thing we can do as an industry,” says Marisa Drew, CSO at Standard Chartered. 

The best way to start building effective ESG strategies is to tie it into your business value. Some institutions are already including their sustainability results in their financial statements. However, the industry faces challenges. A lack of global standard around climate reporting, mixed with slow manual processes and siloed data can affect how quickly you can build an effective strategy. “We don’t have perfect data, but we have actionable data,” says Gill Lofts, Global Financial Services Sustainable Finance Leader at EY. 

A unified and resilient cloud infrastructure like Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability can help you gain visibility across your data, drive efficiency, track and minimise your environmental impact and create sustainable value chains. We also need to drive more cross-industry collaboration.

“This is a planet-scale problem that needs planet-scale innovation and collaboration,” says Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft.

When we made our sustainability commitment in 2020, we also decided to share our learnings, results and practices, and increase our focus on supporting our customers drive their own ESG agendas. 

4.      Lead on innovation that can open new sources of value  

Recent innovations are increasingly moving from POC to production adoption across digital assets such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). 

While AI has been leveraged in organisations for a long time to reduce risk and streamline operations, organisations need to take a novel approach to AI to create new avenues of growth. “People don’t think of AI as a way to get to a new digital business,” says Sameena Shah Managing Director, AI Research Executive, and Chief Transformation Officer for Client Onboarding at JP Morgan Chase. “You need to bring people with a business mindset together with people with AI knowledge.” These groups, known as fusion teams, can help organisations deploy solutions up to two and a half times faster than siloed teams. 

“Cash as a form of payment has been declining, but cash in circulation is growing. We have also seen over the past 10 years the rise of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and CBDCs,” says Marion Laboure, Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank. 

One thing digitisation can do is help with financial inclusion. The 1.7 billion people who don’t have access to financial services can potentially use CBDC to start using financial services without a bank account. 

NFTs are currently used to tie ownership to a digital asset. However, as they evolve, it could allow the construction of the end asset to be more sophisticated. “That’s when it becomes more interesting to us in Finance. We can look at a new type of securitised asset, a new type of yield profile that may or may not be totally uncorrelated with traditional markets and assets,” said John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier at BNP Paribas. In fact, the US Securities and Exchange Commission are already looking into NFTs as a security. With no intermediaries, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is less complex and more agile than the traditional central counterparty model. However, it is probably riskier. Experts suggest a hybrid model for DeFi, with the right regulatory guiderails to manage AML, fraud, conduct risk, and cybercrime. 

“Web3 and blockchain technologies are unique because they create a different, efficient way of executing processes. They can be best served to decrease complexity, increase security and transparency,” says Willayna Banner, Microsoft’s Head of Web3/Blockchain in Financial Services. Learn how organisations are using blockchain to transform functions such as trade finance and commercial specialty insurance. 

Collaborating for industry growth and responsible innovation 

As we shared these thoughts and ideas on the future of banking at Sibos 2022, a recurring theme was industry collaboration across the widest perimeter of stakeholders. To drive growth while being resilient, secure and compliant in our changing industry, our key priorities must be removing friction, increasing interoperability and improving the service experience for our customers, empowering our teams, and driving inclusive, sustainable innovation. 

Find out more 

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Service Webinar for Financial Services: The changing role of the Digital Contact Centre

Rethinking the Customer Experience | Microsoft

About the author 

Niall is responsible for defining and leading Microsoft’s strategy for Financial Services in the UK. His focus is on helping Microsoft’s customers’ address industry-wide challenges, adapt to new regulatory frameworks and achieve business transformation through the adoption of Microsoft technology and partner solutions. He works to deliver on the cost, growth, risk and regulatory agenda front-to-back through the enterprise. 

Niall has experience in consulting, partner ecosystems, and large programme delivery in Financial Services. Niall has focused on operating model transformation and technology solutions for business challenges in Banking and Capital Markets, often in the regulatory change context. He has worked mostly with international banking groups and has lived in Hong Kong and London. 

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