Source: Official Microsoft Blog
Microsoft Inspire, the biggest partner event of the year, was held virtually this week, and several key announcements were made including the new Microsoft Digital Contact Platform and updates to Microsoft 365, Teams and Viva that empower hybrid work.
Digital Contact Center Platform
The new Digital Contact Center Platform brings together several Microsoft products, including Nuance – which Microsoft acquired earlier this year – Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Microsoft Teams, into an open, extensible and collaborative platform to help create a seamless experience for users who are seeking help – no matter the channel.
ISVs can use the platform to build contact center experiences that work for their clients, from smarter chatbots, to faster live chat boxes, to intuitive AI solutions. The goal is to create more personalized engagements across digital channels, where customers don’t have to repeat information and businesses can work to develop deeper relationships with their customers, and reduce costs, which can only be provided by consolidation and automation.
Making Hybrid Work Work
As hybrid work has become just work, the challenge for organizations is to balance employee demands with flexibility for business needs. Microsoft is collaborating with partners to help customers understand the new patterns of work driving the future, including enabling hybrid work, bringing collaborative experiences into the flow of work and building a digital employee experience.
Microsoft is delivering new capabilities in Microsoft 365 and Teams that let people contribute whenever and wherever they are working. Excel Live enables people to work collaboratively on workbooks directly within the Teams meeting window. Collaborative annotations give participants the ability to draw, type or react to shared meeting content via Microsoft Whiteboard.
Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform that utilizes a variety of tools to increase productivity, well-being and collaboration at work. The new Viva Engage app helps organizations build connection and community, and provides employees with personal expression tools, such as the ability to create and share video posts through the new Stories feature. Stories are short videos or photos that people post to their Storyline, providing a fun, familiar way for people to stay connected with colleagues across their organization.
Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty
Governments around the world are accelerating their digital transformation, creating opportunities for social and economic growth and enhancing services while supporting the legal regulations, needs and interests of their citizenry. To that end, Microsoft is announcing Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, designed specifically for the government sector.
This new solution enables public sector customers to build and digitally transform workloads in the Microsoft Cloud while meeting their compliance, security and policy requirements. Public sector customers can harness the full power of the cloud including broad platform capabilities, resiliency, security, and scale, while having greater control over their data, residency, and transparency to its operational and governance processes.
Related Links:
- Microsoft Inspire Session Catalog
- Official Microsoft Blog: Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty: The Most Flexible Solution for Digital Sovereignty
- Microsoft Partner Blog: Microsoft Inspire: Drive growth and profitability with your partner-focused business platform
- Azure Blog: Migrate and Modernize with Azure to power innovation across the entire digital estate
- Azure Blog: Announcing the Azure Space Partner Community
- Dynamics 365 Blog: Introducing the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform: comprehensive omnichannel customer care with Nuance AI, Teams, and Dynamics 365
- Industry Blog: Microsoft Inspire 2022: Empowering partners to drive transformation in every industry
- Microsoft 365 Blog: From enabling hybrid work to creating collaborative experiences — here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365
- Microsoft Security Blog: How Microsoft Security Partners are helping their customers do more with less