Many businesses are already using Microsoft cloud technology to accomplish a broad range of goals ranging from collaborating more effectively to improving customer service, goals shared by innovative governments of all sizes around the world. Consider the following examples:

Creating a culture of collaboration

Henkel, a worldwide company with brands and technologies in adhesive technologies, beauty care, laundry and home care, recently took a major leap forward by deploying Microsoft Office 365 to 47,000 employees. By doing so, it has created a culture of collaboration in which company employees use video conferencing, shared workspaces, team dashboards, and the latest productivity Office software to connect and collaborate with colleagues across the organization. Employees take advantage of desktop sharing during meetings to deliver presentations and edit documents. They also share documents such as calendars, newsletters, social commentary, and training materials on team sites. Reporting has been improved for the finance team, Excel has helped identify performance improvements for research and development, and project work across geographically dispersed teams is easier to manage.

In the same way, Office 365 can make it easier for government employees to more easily communicate and collaborate across departments. Employees can immediately see who’s available and initiate ad hoc video conferences across offices. They can share their desktops to collaborate on documents in real time. And they can create team sites to provide secure access to important materials such as calendars and training materials. Simply put, Office 365 can improve efficiency by fostering a connected culture of collaboration and providing a modern workplace that helps attract and retain skilled staff.

Cost-effective data analytics

Few industries are more conservative than the insurance industry.  Towers Watson, a consultant and software provider to the insurance industry, analyzes massive amounts of data to help customers price auto insurance policies based on drivers’ actual driving habits. With telematics and mobile-phone technologies, it’s now possible to stream real-time data on driver behavior, including how fast they drive, how hard they brake, and how they adapt driving behavior to changes in the weather. Yet processing and analyzing all this information can be a massive computational workload. To quickly and cost-effectively store and analyze big data, Towers Watson uses Microsoft Azure in a hybrid cloud environment. By doing so, the company expects to save up to 40 percent in capital and operating costs compared to building an on-premises solution, while giving its customers the detailed information they need to more accurately price auto insurance policies.

Imagine what government agencies can achieve by learning from the Towers Watson’s experience with Microsoft as a model for creating hybrid cloud environments to analyze large amounts of data. As government agencies collect more information, not just through the citizen services they provide, but also through sensors monitoring their vehicle fleet, building energy use, air and water quality, traffic flows and many other applications, Microsoft Azure can provide the cost-effective analysis , quickly turning the data into advanced insights that help governments save costs and better serve citizens.

Streamlining payroll/HR workflow with the cloud

Governments of all sizes can benefit from optimizing their core systems with the cloud. Shangri-La International Hotel Management Pte Ltd manages nine properties in Malaysia including hotels and resorts where it employs 5,000 individuals. The company’s HR department wanted to streamline its workflow in order to improve efficiency, as well as enhance service delivery to constituents. The group utilized different payroll systems across its various properties, causing a bottleneck of information, often resulting in delays in processing that required manual efforts to resolve.

Shangri-La migrated to a cloud-based system from a Microsoft partner that runs on Microsoft Azure to enable management to make data-driven HR decisions while maintaining compliancy with strict government regulatory standards. Now it only takes a few minutes to generate and analyze reports. In addition, employees can access their pay slips on their own computers, tablets and smartphones, saving the payroll department time and effort while reducing the need for paper. Running on the Azure cloud also ensures business continuity and disaster recovery, meaning Shangri-La no longer has to worry about data loss or corruption.

These three examples from the private sector demonstrate just a small selection of the many organizations taking real benefits from their digital transformation with applications that can be utilized by government agencies.

To learn more about how Microsoft technology and digital transformation can help governments improve their efficiency and effectiveness, download our free Office 365 for Government Trial as well as our Azure Government Trial.

The post Key digital transformation insights for government from the private sector appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

With a projected urbanization growth rate of 86 percent by 2050, Latin America’s city governments, like many others around the world, will face the issues of citizen health and well-being, public safety, education, transportation, and sustainability. These challenges of growth will, I’m sure, feature strongly in the keynote speeches at this week’s Puebla event.

Smart City Expo Puebla 2016 will hopefully build on the valuable discussions, ideas, and best-practices that took place in Barcelona. For example, MIT Senseable Lab is exploring the interfaces and interactions between urban design and technology to improve urban living at SCE in Puebla. This echoes that of Fundación Metrópoli, a Microsoft CityNext partner recognized by SCEWC as part of its 2015 Innovative Idea Award. The award acknowledges the urban “Diamond” concept used in defining the urban and territorial dimensions of issues affecting 11 major cities in the greater metro area of Bogotá, Colombia, which has a population of more than 14 million.

Following SCEWC in Barcelona, we produced a Sway as an illustrated summary consolidating the key 5 topics from the conversations with leaders and solution experts during the event:

• Digitization is at the core of any smart city’s people-first transformation, and involves the cloud, big data analytics, mobile technologies, social media and more.
• The Internet of Things is fast emerging as a key element in a growing number of smart city solutions, illustrated by the use of sensors, cameras, GPS mapping, and analytics.
• Optimal citizen and visitor experiences require cities to be safe, clean, and easy to get around in to ensure citizens want to stay and visitors come back to visit again
• A data-led approach to safer cities is helping officials to protect citizens by anticipating, preventing, and detecting criminal and terrorist activity.
• Digital equality will be critical to keeping all citizens engaged in their cities’ futures, no matter how diverse their demographics.

To find the right solutions to city challenges, you can’t work alone. At Microsoft, we work with our CityNext partners to help cities use technology to deliver citizen-centric services that help them become safer, smarter, healthier, and more sustainable places for their people to live and work — and for others to visit.

Learn how Microsoft CityNext and our partners can help your city achieve more by reading our Sway, visiting our website, and by following us on Twitter.

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