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As we enter a new decade, the number of IoT-connected devices is predicted to grow 3x from 2019 to 2020, totaling 21 billion devices. As competition increases, so does innovation, and companies across the world are coming up with new uses and applications for the ever-increasing number of devices that are turned on each day. In this Entrepreneur.com article, you'll learn how companies and startups are finding new market niches to exploit the near unlimited potential of IoT technology, and how they're causing disruptive waves that ripple across different trades to nurture a near trillion-dollar industry. Read More...

It's no secret that Slack has taken the corporate world by storm. This successful collaboration app has managed to find a home in the offices and laptops of startups and multinational companies thanks to its intuitive, chat-based functionality. However, today's highly fluid, complex, and remote workforce requires more than just chat-based collaboration—it needs native integration with crucial productivity apps, as well as a secure, flexible document repository that enables multi-team and project cooperation. This is where Microsoft Teams excels. In this article, you'll learn the competitive advantages of Teams over competing tools, and how Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Office 365 corporate vice president Kirk Koenigsbauer have learned from industry pain points to create a fully integrated, holistic collaboration software solution that is empowering companies to scale and expand across the world. Read More...

"Why are my customers not listening to me?" is a question frequently asked by frustrated marketers and decision-makers. To address this question, author Carly Driscoll asks two crucial follow-ups: do you truly know who your customers are, and are you really delivering them an impactful message? At first glance it may seem intuitive or even simple, but successfully answering these questions requires a marketer to truly empathize with their audience—a task much easier said than done. Fortunately, there's a time-proven way to not only interest your customers, but also convert leads into revenue-generating relationships that will drive growth and brand prestige: great content. In this eye-opening article, you'll learn about the successful R.I.D.E. methodology for content creation, and how to effectively inform your customers with solid content marketing at each stage of the buying process. Read More...

This article describes various new features in Microsoft Teams, including enabling calls in separate windows and pinning meeting controls to the top of your screen. Read More...

This blog outlines the different methods of data migration and use cases. Your method of migrating data to the cloud will depend on many factors. Migrating large amounts of data can be done with any of the methods explained in the blog, including Azure Data Box, File Shares, Site Recovery service, and more. Read More...

It's no secret that IoT is revolutionizing business around the world. However, investing in IoT is not as simple as investing money in new platforms or applications. The real challenge lies in finding a model that works for your business and adjusts to your organization's focus and competitive advantage. In other words, it's the opposite of a one-size-fits-all approach, and making the wrong choice can have profound consequences that can take years to overcome. In this infographic, we'll cover the distinctions between Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service models, as well as explain the main variables that can determine where your business stands when choosing one of these models. View: Finding the right IoT solution for your business

Today's diverse and intergenerational workforce is most productive when it has adequate channels to collaborate in a seamless and effective way. There's a catch, however: teams are far more diverse and remote than ever before, and each organization requires its own distinct approach to digital collaboration. In other words, your workplace tools and applications must be customized based on your teams' diversity, location, and work methods. With this infographic, you'll learn about the three main characteristics that define our modern workplace and gain insight into what drives productivity and efficiency in today's organizations. After reading it, you'll have a better understanding of current trends and can keep these in mind when creating or modifying your organization's work environment. View: 3 characteristics that define the modern workplace

Dutch startup Tony's Chocolonely grew out of a journalist's exposé of child slave labor in the cocoa industry and his dream of making the chocolate trade slavery-free. The Amsterdam-based company grew quickly, but its original collaboration apps didn't support its international expansion or its work-life balance ideals. Teams enables Tony's Chocolonely workers to communicate on a personal level with their colleagues in Europe, America, and Africa. Adding telephony capabilities makes it even more powerful, with everything available in one single interface.

To best serve its clients, Grant Thornton must tie its extensive knowledge of macro-level economic and industry trends to the micro-level business needs, motivations, and challenges faced by individual executives within its client base. The global accounting and consulting firm does this by using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Azure, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator to "connect the macro with the micro" and deliver that information quickly and accurately to geographically distributed team members. They also use Dynamics 365 Sales Insights to understand the health of client relationships and where new opportunities may lie, take actions based on those insights, close new opportunities faster, and win more deals.

The correlation between employee experience and customer experience is clear: if the employee experience is mediocre or poor, employees will generally not care much about the company or the customers, states Phil Geldart in his Entrepreneur article, "Does Your Company Culture Lead to Happy Customers?" On the other hand, IBM found that if "employee experience is positive, and people feel valued and happy, they will care much more about the customer experience and be proud to work for the company," writes Geldart. Contributing factors for employee experience include physical environment, technological tools, and the organization's culture. Geldart shares that leaders have a responsibility to mirror how they expect their employees to treat customers. For example, if the "culture is one where employees embrace behaviors such as trust, collaboration, communication, respect, transparency and inclusion, they will, in turn, treat your customers in the same manner a

IoT is easy to understand: it's about connecting devices over the Internet so they can communicate with us, with other applications, and with each other. But while IoT may be simple to explain, putting an effective IoT strategy into practice is vastly more complex. Subscribe now to stay up to date on how Microsoft technologies deliver the flexibility and scalability you need to control, monitor, and manage your things, allowing you to capture real-time data that can be applied to uncover new business insights and revenue streams. View: Stay connected with Microsoft Azure IoT. Subscribe now.

Azure SQL databases are always up-to-date. When you migrate SQL Server databases to the Azure cloud, you can adopt Azure SQL Database managed instance for evergreen SQL that never needs to be patched or upgraded along. At the same time, you gain end-to-end SQL Server Engine compatibility for migration without code changes. View: Up-to-Date infographic

Today, success is about quality over quantity, replacing the days of cold calling and cut-and-pasting of boilerplate email copy. This infographic provides 3 key themes to each part of a successful sales process. View: Selling successful process

Having data can either be a good thing or a disadvantage—it all depends on the accuracy of the data sources and your organization's ability to unify them to empower sales and customer service teams. Subscribe now to stay up to date on how your business can use Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure to enable innovation and sustain consistent growth with insight-rich data. View: Drive better relationships with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Subscribe to learn more.

Today's global workforce relies on technology to push forward revenue-generating projects. Now more than ever, finding the correct workplace tools is becoming a crucial part of every organization's digital transformation strategy. Subscribe now to discover how Microsoft Teams is delivering tangible, scalable benefits to companies worldwide. Additionally, learn how Microsoft technologies can empower your business to become a local, regional, or global leader by driving increased efficiency and superior collaboration. View: Collaborate better with Microsoft Teams. Subscribe to learn more.

When you offload server/storage infrastructures to Azure, you can reduce up to 80% in administration costs. View: Social Asset B: Reduce up to 80% in administration costs by offloading server/storage infrastructures

The traditional educational environment was forced to change this past year, but some school districts already saw the need for transformation, even before COVID required it. The Puyallup School District in Washington state successfully shifted to remote learning last spring through widespread access to devices, integrated technologies, virtual trainings, and open collaboration for more than 23,000 students with Microsoft Education. Read this blog to learn how they did it. Read More...

Finning, the second largest supplier of Caterpillar machinery in the world, was intent on delivering next-generation, experience-enhancing services to its clients. However, there was something standing in the way: siloed databases that were forcing users to use multiple logins for multiple platforms, resulting in a disjointed and ultimately convoluted practice. Watch this video to learn how Finning used Microsoft Azure Cloud to unify fragmented data sets and streamline its customer journey roadmap.

When analyzing what steps to take with digital transformation, Helsana—one of the largest health insurance companies in Switzerland—decided to focus on rethinking its interactions with customers. However, siloed information and disjointed customer touchpoints were preventing the insurer from seeing the complete picture of its customers' journeys. In this video, you'll learn how Helsana utilized Microsoft Dynamics 365 to empower its customer service and sales teams with on-point customer insights that enabled tailored offers and services. You'll also see how Microsoft Azure allowed for an increasingly secure and flexible environment that fostered innovation and improved Helsana's ability to dynamically react to new challenges.

J. Walter Thompson, one of the world's largest advertising and marketing firms, needed a way for its geographically dispersed teams to effortlessly collaborate, produce great work, and increase efficiency. The agency also needed its workforce to have access to the newest digital workplace technology while enabling integration with existing Microsoft Office 365 tools and applications. Watch this video to learn how Microsoft Teams empowered J. Walter Thompson to drive projects across locations by allowing it to seamlessly add members, create and share content, and deliver on the unique value proposition that the agency has been known for since 1896.

This video highlights the many ways Microsoft Teams can help your business inspire collaboration, reduce costs and risks, and deepen engagement.

The dv01 financial reporting and analytics platform offers institutional investors transparency and insight into consumer lending markets. Based initially on PostgreSQL and Redshift data warehouse, the dv01 applications began to run slower as complexity increased. After exploring multiple solutions, dv01 eventually moved to Microsoft SQL Server 2016 running on Azure Virtual Machines. This move provided the scalability it needed to handle rapid growth, reduce query response time from 30 seconds to 1-2 seconds, and cut management time by 90 percent.

Regina Maria is a leading provider of healthcare services in Romania. Microsoft equips them with technology to optimize business processes and maintain a high level of patient care. Microsoft Teams unifies their communication applications into a single system, allowing them to reduce the approval process time and increase speed and rate of response to customer feedback. With Microsoft tools, Regina Maria's database is 20% more accurate and complaint management is 50% faster.

In an era of sensory overload—or, perhaps just 'overload'—we need to be extra-sensitive to the content and delivery of our marketing messages. We don't want to be the "one more thing" that's bombarding consumers; rather, we want to be fresh, unique and different. Lora Kratchounova, founder of Scratch Marketing + Media, says that the best differentiator in this this "crowded, loud digital landscape" is "content aimed at making audience members feel." Yes, "feel"—you know, emotions. Kratchounova writes that evocative content—compelling stories, captivating images, and uplifting video—is what stands out in today's digital world, where research shows that consumers are exposed to thousands of ads in a day. Read Kratchounova's fascinating look at ergonomics (also known as human-factors engineering) and its influence on today's marketing in a digital world. Read "The Era of Evocative Marketing Has Arrived—Are y

Use this detailed guidance document in coordination with the Implementation Guide PPT shared yesterday. This guide offers deeper insight how to implement remote learning as is organized by each specific "Layer" of the Technology Blueprint Implementation—such as Connectivity, Devices, Learning Platform, Learning Resources, and Analytics. View: Technology blueprint for implementing remote learning

This deck provides specifics of the technology blueprint implementation of remote learning, accompanied by a more detailed guidance document to implementing remote learning across large education systems. Sectioned by connectivity, devices, learning platform, learning resources, and analytics—it's designed for an implementation team to engage with specific materials as needed. View: Remote learning technology blueprint

Stay connected with Microsoft Teams. Subscribe now! View: Social Asset 7: Subscribe

Companies choose Azure for Windows Server and SQL Server because of its unmatched security. Azure delivers multiple layers of security, including the secure foundation of physical datacenters, operational best practices, and engineering processes that follow industry-standard guidelines. View: Secure Infographic

Subscribe now View: Social Asset A: Strengthen customer relationships with a unified customer data profile and predictive insights

This infographic lists the many ways you can use Microsoft Teams to drive workplace collaboration. It also provides statistics on the success and popularity of Microsoft Teams. View: Collaborate with Microsoft Teams

Windows Server and SQL Server are best on Azure. This flyer highlights Azure's unmatched intelligent security, seamless hybrid capabilities, unparalleled innovation capabilities, and unique cost savings options. View: Windows and SQL Server: The Best of Azure

The Microsoft Education Transformation Framework is an evidence-based model for designing system changes and leveraging technology to support that change. UNESCO's Global Education Coalition aims to help countries mobilize resources and implement solutions to provide education remotely, as well as seek equitable solutions and universal access. It also aims to avoid overlapping efforts and facilitate the return of student to school when appropriate. Have a look at this strategic plan and use it as the framework for your organization's distance learning outline. View: Distance learning strategic plan

FINNING, the world's largest Caterpillar dealer, started its digital transformation journey with customers in mind, but soon realized that its own operations were seeing just as many benefits as its clients. Not willing to turn down an opportunity to improve, FINNING quickly learned that the data obtained from customer-facing solutions enabled it to gain insights into internal processes and become even more efficient. Watch this video to learn how Azure IoT can have game-changing solutions that push forward internal process optimization and enhance customer satisfaction.

Insurance customers want the ability to buy and be serviced from anywhere, at any time. To meet this desire, GEICO decided to focus on two key aspects: abandoning its legacy infrastructure and focusing on digital transformation from a customer engagement perspective. Watch this video to learn how GEICO evolved from a traditional, silo-based infrastructure to an integrated, automated, and collaborative model. This transition allowed for increased flexibility and productivity thanks to a DevOps approach using Microsoft Azure.

How do you empower great ideas across a digital workspace so that they evolve in a fluid and organic matter? This is a critical question to answer for any company with a remote workforce—and with teams growing more diverse and intergenerational every year, it's becoming increasingly complex. In this video, you'll learn how Microsoft Teams complements the already-robust applications found in Office 365. You'll also discover how both solutions together are enabling some of the world's leading companies to create frictionless digital workplace experiences for their employees.

How can your organization benefit from Microsoft Teams? Learn from Frank Lusko, the EVP of Sales and Marketing at CWPS, to hear how his sales team has benefited from this collaboration tool through features such as notification alerts and planner scheduling.

This video highlights the types of security features customers have been asking for and how Azure SQL Database wraps these features into a unified package of intelligent security capabilities. You'll also learn about the three major pillars of this advanced data security: data classification, vulnerability assessments, and threat detection.

Fortnum and Mason uses Dynamics 365 to support efficiency and growth for the future. The system provides important insights such as how often a customer shops with them and what their spend is, giving Fortnum and Mason the tools to make sure they are offering customers the products and services they want. Overall speed and usability, as well as closer control on costs, allows Fortnum and Mason to be proactive about achieving goals and serving their customers.

Last spring, the global pandemic forced schools around the world to experiment with online learning. Schools that leverage technology to elevate education are finding the most success with this transition. Microsoft Hong Kong's #FutureReady Limitless Learning Program supported over 50,000 teachers and 800,000 students from all 1,000 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. Read this blog to see how they did it. Read More...

Many studies over the past decade show a correlation between gratitude and happiness—the more people feel and practice gratitude, the more contentment and joy they experience. We know this is true in our personal lives—and it's true in our professional lives as well. In his article, "A Grateful Culture is a Healthy Culture. Here's How to Create it," John Hall writes about gratitude in the workplace; specifically, how to create an appreciative company culture amongst team members. The first step, writes Hall, is to start with yourself: "Make time to reflect each day on the positive things that have happened to you, what you've already accomplished, and what you like about yourself." While it's nice to communicate your appreciation to others, it's not essential that you do so repeatedly. Just by making time to consider what you're your grateful for, you've stimulated your hypothalamus which regulates a lot and affects empathy, social cognit

More than ever before, organizations are augmenting human skills, ingenuity, and business acumen with data analytics, productivity, and enterprise solutions to gain a competitive edge. Subscribe today to stay informed on how solutions like Dynamics 365, Power BI, and other Microsoft services and solutions are enabling modern businesses to take the lead over competitors and finish first in the marketplace. View: Shift your business into overdrive. Subscribe today.

While there are multiple ways to distinguish yourself from your competitors, one sure way to set yourself apart is to create and deliver personalized experiences to both existing and prospective customers, tailored to their unique needs and preferences. One sure way to accomplish this is with Dynamics 365. Subscribe today, and stay informed on how Dynamics 365, along with other leading Microsoft solutions, can help elevate and transform your engagements with both current and future customers. View: Bulk up your business. Subscribe now.

For team members to work in concert together, they need a set of tools designed to work in concert together. Office 365, with Microsoft Teams at the center, enables real-time communication and collaboration among team members, whether they're located across the hall or across the world. And with business intelligence solutions like Microsoft Power BI hosted in Azure, data can be shared and analyzed across the entire enterprise to uncover insights that can help improve the business as a whole. Subscribe now to stay informed on how Teams, Office 365, and other leading Microsoft solutions can help elevate and transform communication, collaboration, and teamwork throughout your organization. View: Never miss a post—never miss an opportunity. Subscribe today.

This Forbes article shows how nonprofits can pivot to virtual peer-to-peer fundraising during this unprecedented time created by stay-at-home mandates. For more information on Microsoft solutions that facilitate the hosting of online events, contact us today. Read More...

With the increased usage of Microsoft Teams to conduct virtual meetings, the need for tactical best practices to protect your privacy from intruders is also on the rise. This thought leadership article explores how to protect the privacy of your Microsoft Teams Meetings with easy ways to mitigate the risk of such problems by updating your settings. Read More...

Read the success stories of companies that increased workload performance and cut costs by moving Windows Server and SQL Server to Azure. Download this eBook to learn about the different cloud migration paths that Allscripts, Carlsberg Group, Epos Now, and TraXall France used. See how Azure helps to smoothly migrate legacy data and keep pace with innovation, among other features. View: Cloud lessons learned: four companies that migrated their Windows Server and SQL Server workloads to Azure

Today's B2B buyers have high expectations, and those expectations will not be met if B2B buyers are accustomed to sophisticated consumer interactions in their personal lives. Executive B2B buyers are not impressed by marketing driven by large, relatively impersonal data analysis that leads to inconsistent and conflicting interactions or sales outreach that doesn't cater specifically to their needs at the right time. This blog recommends taking a new approach that unifies relationship data across the full customer lifecycle. Read More...

"If we had known the pandemic was coming, we probably wouldn't have done it much differently than we did," shares Kurt Madden of the Fresno Unified School District, the fourth-largest in California. In this webinar, Madden and his colleague Philip Neufeld share how their school district was already implementing elements from the Microsoft Class of 2030 Report and the Microsoft Education Transformation Framework to address future readiness. They were in the midst of transitioning their teaching and learning when the pandemic hit. Even with 90% of their students at poverty level, the district managed to minimize disruption and positioned themselves to successfully navigate with a focus on overall well-being, quality teaching, and health and safety. Listen to this webinar for inspirational insight. You also have the option of reading the transcript of the webinar. Read More...

"Best practices for producing a Teams live event" presents tips on audio, video, and screen sharing that put nonprofits in the driver's seat when they produce their next live event. For more information on Microsoft solutions that facilitate the hosting of online events, contact us today. Read More...

"8 ways to rethink virtual events for the age of social distancing" provides nonprofit organizations with useful ways to rethink the process of hosting virtual events in the age of social distancing and how to make large-scale online meetings work effectively. For more information on Microsoft solutions that facilitate the hosting of online events, contact us today. Read More...

With Microsoft Teams private channels, you can have focused, private conversations with specific people on your team. This Microsoft Teams tutorial video will show you how to create private channels as you're working remotely.

Discover how the Carlsberg Group has successfully migrated SAP to Microsoft Azure. Migrating their environment to the cloud has helped them drive business performance and achieve digital transformation by streamlining their IT infrastructure.

This infographic represents successful companies' consensus about which sales tools are most effective in enabling their sales teams to engage at scale with target accounts. View: Engaging at scale

We are experiencing a paradigm shift in education. Fueled by a continually-increasing demand for student centered learning and continuing advances in digital technology—and now healthy and safety concerns by the fallout of COVID-19—stakeholders are transforming education across entire systems. This paper explores the changing landscape of education. It navigates the disruption, transition, and reimagining phases of teaching and learning, with data, examples, and recommendations for each step. View: Education reimagined

To monitor every aspect of performance, a Renault Sports Formula One race car is outfitted with over 200 sensors that generate more than 35 billion data points over a typical race weekend. Since two or more sensors can be matched to form around 20,000 different virtual channels, cars relay an enormous volume of data back to the Renault Sports team during races and tests. By pairing Azure-based Dynamics 365 for Operations with Microsoft Power BI, the Renault Sports team can bring up and track this data in real time, enabling them to make exact modifications and adjustments at lightning speed to squeeze more performance out of the car. Watch this short video to see how the Renault Sports Formula One team capitalizes on the features of Dynamics 365 for Operations and Microsoft Azure to make its cars faster than ever and reach the finish line first.

Just as every person's fitness goals are different, so too are the individual paths to achieving those goals. But when it comes to creating customized experiences for its 4+ million members across the U.S., 24 Hour Fitness realized there was only one sure path to success: Microsoft Dynamics 365. In the crowded wellness industry, 24 Hour Fitness distinguishes itself through both its innovative approach to fitness and its personalized approach to member service. Today, the company is applying data analytics to member marketing by connecting Dynamics 365 with Adobe Experience Cloud hosted on Microsoft Azure to personalize marketing messages to millions of members at its 400+ health clubs. Watch this video to see how 24 Hour Fitness is connecting marketing and sales data to reach people in exciting new ways, attract record numbers of members, and ultimately help more people attain their fitness goals.

Why would a sports fan or music fan choose to attend a live event rather than watch the game from home or listen to their favorite band on headphones? For AEG, a global entertainment company that owns and operates 100+ facilities across four continents as well as produces concerts, festival, and special events, the answer is simple: it's the experience. More to the point, it's the whole experience—not just the event itself, but also everything else surrounding it, from ticket purchases and event access to the pomp and circumstance during the event, all for the express purpose of delivering a more visceral and unforgettable experience for fans. To achieve all of these things—as well as simplify the business side of producing and hosting a larger-than-life event—AEG relies on Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Power BI, and Azure cloud to analyze and share massive amounts of data across its diverse business units, and utilizes Surface devices and the new Surface Hub t

How does a global company connect its salespeople to customers in an efficient yet personal way? Rotterdam-based Broekman Logistics decided to add the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing app to the company's existing Dynamics 365 Sales app to make it even easier and more efficient to find and develop high-quality leads and nurture customer relationships. As a result, Broekman Logistics not only increased its sales, but also gained valuable insights that it uses to sharpen sales management. The real engine behind global logistics? It's all about a smooth collaboration between sales and marketing.

This series includes just over 50 short "how to" video tutorials that tackle specific remote learning tasks and tips, such as how to create a class Team, how to create an attendance report in Teams, how to add a quiz or poll and more. Great reference videos—you'll want to bookmark these! Read More...

"Plan your upgrade webinar" helps nonprofit organizations discover everything they need to facilitate a successful upgrade to Microsoft Teams. For more information on collaboration solutions provided by Microsoft, contact us today. Read More...

Customize and expand your remote collaboration with @Microsoft Teams, keeping your team engaged, connected, and secure. Subscribe now! View: Social Asset A: Expand Collaboration

While innovation has supplanted cost savings as the primary driver of cloud migration for many businesses, moving to the cloud needs to make sense for your bottom line. Learn about the unbeatable costs offers and benefits of migration to Azure cloud. View: Reduce Costs Infographic

Orchestrating data from multiple sources is important when compiling an accurate "big picture" to inform strategic action. This infographic offers 5 keys to provide insights and recommendations to your team. View: Digital selling insights

"Getting started with your Microsoft Teams upgrade" provides an upgrade framework to guide nonprofits through the Microsoft Teams upgrade process—whether upgrading from the online or on-premises version of Skype for Business. For more information on collaboration solutions provided by Microsoft, contact us today. Read More...

This eBook delivers an overview of breakthrough tools and tips that can help empower nonprofit teams to do more with Microsoft Teams. For more information on the collaboration solutions provided by Microsoft solutions, contact us today. Read More...

In today's digital world, a positive online reputation relates to much of a business's success. Good reviews and high scores along with relevant content help consumers find your website. That's why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be a main part of your online reputation management. SEO involves tailoring your website's content to rank high in search engines' criteria—and put you at the top in buyer searches for products and services. It includes identifying and using key words, content optimization, link building, and blog and social media presence. In her article, "Improve Your Brand's Online Reputation with SEO," Jessica Wong explains that the "right blog can contribute to your SEO ranking, generate more clicks from the search engine results page and help turn those clicks into sales." A blog post should have a good mix of search keywords, relevant videos and pictures, and links to and from your page, she explains. Read Wong's e

How do we, as human beings, make decisions? While most people would like to believe that they take a rational, calculated approach by considering all the variables, research shows that we go with our "gut feeling" instead about 95 percent of the time. In his Forbes article entitled "Making Choices With Data And AI," author Mark Robinson discusses the proper role of AI in human decision making. AI shouldn't be making decisions for us, he contends, but rather, guide us by interpreting the data at hand and presenting the facts and variables surrounding a given choice—effectively balancing out our "gut feeling" with rational objectivity. Read the full article to learn how AI-assisted decision making can help guide your business toward greater growth and success by mitigating human bias in choice. Read More...

When it comes to choosing a customer relationship management (CRM) system for your business, your options have never been more abundant. Established vendors are releasing new features and functionality at an impressive pace, while new vendors are entering the market just as quickly. Solutions range from systems designed for large enterprises and SMBs to decentralized mobile workforces, and everything in between. All of this choice is giving rise to two very important questions: how to you determine which CRM solution is right for your business, and more important, how do you get business users to make the most out of the system—and out of your investment? In her article for CIO magazine entitled "8 CRM implementation best practices," author Jennifer Lonoff Schiff addresses those questions and CRM in general, distilling feedback from CRM vendors, users, and experts into eight suggestions for maximizing the effectiveness of a customer relationship management system. Read t

It's no secret that teamwork is one of the key ingredients to a successful business. But in today's interconnected, wireless world, teams don't necessarily need to be in the same location to make teamwork work—that is, as long as each team member is equipped with the right tools for collaborating and communicating on a project. So how do you determine which tools are right for your organization and teams, and what should you look for when evaluating prospective solutions? Read this Lifewire article, "The Benefits of Online Collaboration Tools," to see what author Gabriela Warren feels are the greatest benefits of adopting such tools and, by extension, what features you should look for when shopping around. Read More...

Microsoft Teams continues to invest in experiences that will make it easier for teams to communicate and collaborate. This article by Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, informs how new capabilities reflect commitment to two things: building the very best online meeting experience for customers and bringing technological solutions to traditionally underserved professionals, including Firstline and healthcare workers. The latest features include new integration between Teams and RealWear head-mounted devices, real-time noise suppression during meetings, booking apps, pop out chats, the raise hand feature, and more Read More...

There are many new features that developers don't know exist with Microsoft Azure SQL. Learn why Azure SQL is a post-relational, cloud-native database with these ten simple points, including complete storage control, complete monitorability, and full insights. Read More...

Streamline your sales collaboration with Microsoft. Subscribe now! View: Social Asset 2: Subscribe now

No longer just science fiction, AI has the potential to radically change just about every aspect of modern life, especially business. From automating simple tasks to more complex feats like uncovering insights from massive volumes of unstructured data, AI is fast emerging as one of the centerpieces of digital transformation, not least of all for its ability to assist with critical business decisions. View the infographic to discover seven ways how AI can help drive better decisions for marketers, and for businesses in general. View: 7 ways AI can help improve decision making for marketers

If customers are the lifeblood of business, then customer relationship management (CRM) is the daily checkup to ensure that the heart is still pumping steadily and that the entire body is in good health. Metaphors aside, CRM describes the processes, tools, and activities that companies employ to understand their customers and respond rapidly to their ever-changing needs and preferences. Given the importance and widespread use of CRM across today's businesses, it would be natural to assume that CRM implementation is a fairly straightforward and routinely successful process—but rarely is this the case. This raises the question as to why—and more important, as to what your company can do to ensure that your CRM efforts pay off. In this infographic, we address those questions by distilling input from vendors, users, and experts into eight best practices that your company can follow to help deliver a successful (and ultimately, fruitful) CRM implementation. View: 8 best practices for a

Dr. Thomas is an oncologist whose day is divided among seeing patients, reviewing charts and x-rays, meeting with colleagues remotely and in-person, and improving patient services at his practice. With so many tasks to do and only a finite number of hours during the day, Dr. Thomas relies heavily on Microsoft Teams to prepare for upcoming appointments, review confidential patient information, and follow up with nurses and radiologists on test results. He also utilizes Power BI dashboards to visualize and address trends in his practice, like patient wait times and quality of care issues. View the infographic for a play-by-play account of Dr. Thomas' day, and how Teams and tools like Power BI enable him to more effectively focus on patient care. View: Spend a day in the life with physician Dr. Thomas