Digital Transformation Journey & Solutions Interview with @Microsoft at @ARCadvisory Forum 2022
ARC's Greg Gorbach, Vice President, Digitization and IoT interviews, Jesse Alleyne, Manufacturing Industry Director of Microsoft, at the 2022 ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida. Jesse discusses Microsoft's Digital Transformation journey as well as planned solutions. For more details, watch the complete interview now:
Timestamps: - 00:00
Jesse, Microsoft is well-known in the household and consumer arena with a number of products, but you've been a big player in manufacturing for quite a long time as well, so I'm glad to see you're here at the conference today. Can you just talk a little bit about what you hope to accomplish? – 00:17
Yes, thank you for having us. As you've mentioned, Microsoft has been a significant player in manufacturing for a long time. Most people think about us from an IT perspective, whether that's Windows or office, but we've been on the plant floor for over 30 years. When you think about HMIS and the backend to HMIS and Windows 95 and Windows ce, and even historians, the backend for those SQL Server has been a player in that space for a very, very long time. Microsoft itself has transformed with the advent of the cloud, and it's given us the ability to actually offer more valuable and significant services to companies that are trying to digitally transform themselves. So when we think about iot, AI and analytics and edge computing, Microsoft has invested heavily in those spaces. We'd like to continue to be strategic partners with both the providers of solutions in the industry, but also our end customers. So what we're trying to accomplish here at ARC is really to listen first and foremost, see where the industry is going, and hear from the leaders at ARC, but also from our customers, and also share where we're going with the company and share those solutions so they know how we can help them to digitally transform.
Okay, great. Thank you. Well follow up on this notion of digital transformation. I mean, it's been here for a little while, but it seems like it continues to be a major driving force and kind of still exploding, if you will. So what trends is Microsoft seeing when it comes to digital transformation? – 02:03
Sure. That's a great question. So I'll start from an industry perspective first. Our customers are experiencing margin compression, right? They're looking at inflation and manufacturers that are exposed to raw material costs are trying to figure out how they maintain their profitability. They're looking at being good partners and great stewards to their customers. So they're absorbing some of those costs, but they're looking for opportunities to create value, but also pass on some of those costs as well. So that leads us to our next trend, which is supply chain visibility and optimization. We've seen a lot of reshoring taking place, and our customers from a technology perspective want to understand how they can simulate their supply chain, how they can get better visibility into their supply chain and kind of multi-thread instead of what we've done over the last 30 years, which is outsource and single thread and focus on optimization instead of resiliency.
So we're seeing a significant shift on the supply chain side. And the third thing that we're really seeing is a struggle and a battle for talent filling roles is incredibly difficult, and the flip side of that is the need to increase productivity. If you can't fill the roles, you need each of your employees to do more. So they're looking to Microsoft for tools to help them to do that. And in the context of these things, the longer term trends that we're seeing are around sustainability. Microsoft itself has committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 or carbon negative by 2030, and to erase our carbon footprint by 2050. Many manufacturing companies are following that trend and also following their customer's guidance and their investors' guidance that they need to be more sustainable going forward. And then finally, security wrapping around all of these trends.
Okay, thanks. So let's take a minute and talk about cloud. Cloud is an important aspect of digital transformation, but there are a lot of manufacturing scenarios where it's not really appropriate maybe yet for a cloud-based solution. How does Microsoft think about cloud? – 04:51
ARC Advisory Group is the leading technology research and advisory firm for industry, infrastructure and cities. Our coverage of technology and trends extends from business systems to product and asset lifecycle management, Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0, supply chain management, operations management, energy optimization, and automation systems.
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