Venter’s vision is to leverage DHL’s unique position to optimize customers’ supply chains, making them more resilient and, at the same time, more agile and flexible.
“The importance of access to real-time information was evident pre-crisis, but the pandemic exposed an even greater need for end-to-end visibility across the supply chain to enable fast response. A solid IT infrastructure and powerful tools to predict and analyze terabytes of data in real time is helping us make supply chains smarter,” says Venter.
The company’s ability to support its customers through this challenging period was because DHL Supply Chain invested significantly over the past few years in digital transformation, working in partnership with Microsoft and Blue Yonder on the strategic deployment of automation and digital solutions.
A safe working environment, high transparency and visibility along the whole supply chain, as well as a sophisticated technology infrastructure are what Venter believes sets DHL apart from its competitors. “Smart supply chains, fueled by data help us unlock higher service levels, optimize costs and enable predictive modelling – as well as faster response times. This is what it is all about,” he says.
Examples of such optimization include routing in DHL’s sizeable warehouses to pick and pack goods faster and more effectively, or the “more intelligent” allocation and the structured processing of millions of orders each day.
But it’s not just about coping with the expected, it’s about anticipating demand.
Data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are essential technology investments for DHL, as it goes beyond “just putting a bunch of robots in a warehouse,” as Venter explains. “It’s about really making supply chains intelligent and smart.”
A forklift driver, one of DHL’s “everyday heroes,” at a warehouse in Beringe, the Netherlands.
The company’s worldwide scale and access to information across regions helped it earlier on in the pandemic: “Our global footprint gave us early supply warning signals from Asia, which meant we could take quick action in Europe”.
Predictive modelling is enabling the company to better manage demand and anticipate potential disruption to keep customers’ businesses moving, and crucially, keep them competitive.
Are we ready for the next challenge? Venter considers the next big challenge for international supply chains will be the global distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, which some experts have described as the supply chain challenge of the century.
“This may sound superlative, but I can’t recall having seen any operation of that scale,” he says. “We are preparing for that, and we stand by to execute as soon as we will be assigned to do so.”
As DHL prepares for this, Venter highlights the importance of collaboration to leverage digitalization successfully and scale globally, “data is a sensitive topic and its fundamental to build your digital capabilities through a secure platform, with a partner you can trust. It’s business critical,” Venter says.
”Smart supply chains will not only save businesses and keep industries afloat – but in the truest sense of the word, smart supply chains will save lives.”
Top photo: A DHL employee uses “vision picking,” a form of augmented reality, at a DHL warehouse in Beringe, the Netherlands. (Photos courtesy of DHL)
Courts systems have an obligation to deliver justice—regardless of global or local crisis
Recently courts, like businesses and institutions worldwide, have been affected and required to modify processes. The unprecedented actions of locking down the globe presents many challenges, and unattended consequences, with the potential to impact the delivery of justice for all. While the court was racing to stand-up remote capabilities subsequent pressures including climate change, political unrest, and civil disturbances added to the complexity and urgency.
Courts have a great responsibility to our community given the continuity of justice is what keeps order and fairness. Those two elements become even more important in times of crisis. Many court leaders and administrators were fast to respond to the crisis. The quick adoption of remote working and virtual hearings capabilities helped keep the court open, eliminating backlogs. Meanwhile, court clerks were instrumental in helping the technology industry understand the unique requirements for a court
Microsoft worked with subject matter experts and the court customers to help develop a more tailored solution to meet the needs of a court. Virtual Hearings was the answer to the ask of customers to help replicate the functionality of the court process from a remote posture.
“… in our quest for digital transformation, with the aim of realizing expedited, efficient, and secure trials that are more user-friendly for court users especially during this time of public health emergency,” said the Honorable Chief Justice Diosdado M. Peralta.
After several months of remote working, we have seen the technology evolve and adoption of the technology accelerate. The courts are learning that the ability to work remotely is not only advantageous for social distancing but an efficient and cost-saving measure that could enhance the services of a court. Technology savvy courts are realizing that they may not need the huge and costly infrastructures of a courthouse, that citizens can get levels of “self-help” from a digitally connected court, paper costs are reduced or eliminated with safer storage, auto redaction, and digital filing. Attorneys can quickly communicate and submit documents—regardless of time or location—to keep the pace of justice moving even when social distancing is no longer required.
Core to Microsoft’s culture, we have applied customer feedback to help evolve our technology to support the unique needs of courts. As our world evolves and changes, the needs of the court will as well. Microsoft, who embraces the mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet is helping courts deliver on their promise of justice for all.
Five-year investment plan includes technology investments in cloud services, digital skilling and re-skilling programs, local partnerships for business innovation, and a new Sustainability Alliance
MILAN– May 8, 2020 – Microsoft Corp. today announced a $1.5 billion, five-year investment plan in Italy, marking a significant commitment to support local innovation and growth, including the intent to bring Microsoft’s first datacenter region to the country. The plan “Ambizione Italia #DigitalRestart” builds on the strategic initiative “Ambizione Italia“ launched in 2018 and will create new opportunities by empowering people and organizations and supporting economic growth. Microsoft will deliver access to local cloud services, expand its partnership with Poste Italiane, launch digital skilling and smart-working programs, accelerate business’ restart by providing access to AI Hubs and programs for SMBs, as well as support the country by launching a Sustainability Alliance.
Microsoft’s investments in Italy span a 35-plus-year history with more than 10,000 partners and 350,000 professionals. The plan marks a major milestone toward delivering its enterprise-grade cloud services globally, totalling 61 regions announced, with Microsoft Azure available in over 140 countries.
“I am proud to announce our $1.5 billion investment plan for Italy. This plan will support those working across the country to sustain and rebuild businesses, to explore new entrepreneurial opportunities and help solve some of the country’s most difficult challenges, all while meeting critical security and compliance needs. We see enormous potential to accelerate innovation within the national ecosystem through cloud services, AI and digital skilling. Our mission is to empower the people and organizations of Italy to achieve more,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, executive vice president and president, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations.
“Once again, Italy is confirmed to be a hub for attracting investment, innovation and development. The ‘Ambizione Italia #DigitalRestart’ plan will help accelerate the digital transformation of our country. Microsoft’s initiative, with cloud services and digital smart-working programs dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, will certainly help Italy move even faster in this direction. The new Sustainability Alliance that Microsoft aims to bring is also of utmost importance to the national Green New Deal,” said Giuseppe Conte, prime minister of Italy.
“We need to orient the country toward digital and technological transformation by addressing three challenges: digitalization, innovation and ethical and sustainable development,” stated Paola Pisano, minister, Technological Innovation and Digitalization. “Artificial Intelligence presents a real and tangible opportunity to revolutionize our country, and we have a duty to invest and play a leading role in its development, to ensure we don’t fall behind. This means designing, developing and experimenting with artificial intelligence solutions and applying them to administrative processes and production processes, to assess and correctly address their potential impact on society.”
Expanding technology partnership with Poste Italiane and bringing Microsoft’s cloud to Italy
Microsoft and Poste Italiane, the largest service distribution network in Italy, are extending their partnership to foster innovation among developers, startups, enterprises and public administration. The two companies will launch a joint plan to develop a new digital skilling project for the Poste Italiane workforce and a joint initiative for skilling in the country. Poste Italiane will also accelerate its own digital transformation with the latest Microsoft solutions.
“We’re going to play an important role in Italy’s digital transformation and future development. The strengthened collaboration with Microsoft is aligned with our Deliver 2022 strategic plan. By leveraging advanced cloud services, we can empower public and private companies to innovate, providing greater opportunity for the country’s growth,” said Matteo Del Fante, CEO and GM, Poste Italiane.
The new datacenter region in Milan will provide companies with access to Microsoft’s enterprise-grade cloud services. Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI and Internet of Things (IoT) services. Microsoft 365 is the world’s productivity cloud that delivers best-of-breed productivity apps integrated through cloud services, delivered as part of an open platform for business processes. Dynamics 365 and Power Platform are the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve and transform to meet the needs of customers.
Hundreds of customers and partners in Italy are already driving business transformation with Microsoft’s cloud services, including Barilla, CNH Industrial, Eni, Generali, Invitalia, Luxottica and Snam. According to joint research conducted by Politecnico di Milano School of Management and Microsoft Italia, establishing a datacenter region of this size in Italy may generate more than 10,000 job-related opportunities and an estimated $9 billion in direct and indirect business impact by the end of 2024. This forecast encompasses datacenter construction and operations as well as opportunities for businesses and the technology ecosystem.
Microsoft offers more than 90 certifications and spends $1 billion every year on cybersecurity to address security at every layer of the cloud. Microsoft’s Italy datacenter region will continue to help companies comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and will also help customers store data at rest in Italy.
“In this time of change, it is important to create private and public collaboration and join forces among companies. This plan creates a platform for growth for millions of Italians. The new datacenter region will provide intelligent and secure services, and we will continue to partner with our customers to reimagine their business models creating more innovative companies,” said Silvia Candiani, general manager, Microsoft Italy.
Skilling, business support and education programs to grow Italian job opportunities
“Ambizione Italia #DigitalRestart” also includes an important focus on skilling an estimated 1.5 million students, professionals and unemployed citizens over the next three years with our partner Fondazione Mondo Digitale and the Partner Academy Program. Microsoft is also forming an Advisory Board comprising CEOs of leading companies to identify priorities for empowering people development, as well as sharing their expertise and best practices for new skilling and employability initiatives. To enable SMBs’ productivity and innovation for all Italian businesses, Microsoft and selected partners, including Borsa Italiana, Cariplo Factory, Confindustria, EY, OGR Tech, Politecnico di Milano, Poste Italiane, Sace, UniCredit, and Vodafone Italia, will also create digital programs for local businesses with a specific focus on SMBs, offering Microsoft’s cloud services to an estimated 500,000 companies and startups in Italy. Finally, Microsoft announced new “AI Hubs” in Italy to help companies in key strategic sectors get started in AI with dedicated local resources from Microsoft, its partners, and researchers from top universities, innovation centers and startups.
Supporting Italy’s Sustainability Alliance
Microsoft and local stakeholders will launch a Sustainability Alliance committed to delivering technology solutions that help public and private sectors create solutions to improve sustainability in Italy. The Sustainability Alliance will support the national New Green Deal Plan and will contribute to an open innovation ecosystem on sustainable topics. This alliance will help address the most urgent climate and environmental needs to support Italy’s sustainable future.
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
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Latest datacenter region affirms Microsoft’s commitment to enable digital transformation while acceleratinginnovation and growth in Aotearoa
Auckland, New Zealand, 6 May 2020 – Microsoft Corp.today announced plans to establishits first datacenterregion in New Zealand,a major milestonetoward delivering enterprise-grade cloud services inthe country.The New Zealand datacenter region will be the latest addition to Microsoft’s global datacenterfootprint, which totals more than any other cloud provider at 60regions announced,with Microsoft Azure available in over 140 countries around the world.
With the development of this new datacenter region, Microsoft aims to fuel new growth that will accelerate digital transformation opportunities across New Zealand. The company will alsocontinue its investments in new solutionsthat support both New Zealand and Microsoft’s sustainability goals.In addition, Microsoft will add support for educational skilling programs to increasefuture employability opportunities for the people of New Zealand.
“This significant investment in New Zealand’s digital infrastructure is a testament to the remarkable spirit of New Zealand’s innovation and reflects how we’re pushing the boundaries of what is possible as a nation,” said Vanessa Sorenson, general manager, Microsoft New Zealand. “The Fletcher School’s Digital Evolution Index characterises New Zealand as a ‘standout nation’ demonstrating to the world what the future might look like. I’m confident this investment will help accelerate our digital evolution.”
Accelerating digital transformation in New Zealand
Through the development of the new region, public– and private–sector entities, large enterprises, and small and medium-size businesses will be able to use scalable, highly available and resilient public cloud services, while also helping companies meet their data residency, security and compliance needs.
Customers will have access to Microsoft’s cloud services, including:
Microsoft Azure–an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI and Internet of Things (IoT) services.
Microsoft 365–the world’s productivity cloud, featuring best-of-breed productivity apps delivered as part of an open platform for business processes with email, collaboration, conferencing, enterprise social networking and business intelligence.
Dynamics 365 and Power Platform– intelligent business applications that enable organisations to grow, evolve and transform to meet the needs of customers and capture new opportunities.
While this new region will deliver local access to cloud services,New Zealand customers and partnersare already benefitting from Microsoft’s global scale cloud services.
Fonterra is a New Zealand dairy co-operative, which exports products to over 140 countries. Piers Shore, CIO, Fonterra said, “To meet our strategic goals, which are enabled by efficiency, innovation and sustainability, we look to build strong partnerships with great companies to drive enhanced productivity across the business. Microsoft is one of our key partners in helping us deliver our digital transformation. This is an exciting announcement — it will bring even more cutting-edge technology to our co-operative and the New Zealand technology ecosystem. This in turn will help us leverage technology to create value for our farmer owners and unit holders, and Fonterra customers around the world.”
Spark NZ,a leading digital services organisationand Microsoft cloud customer, enables its customers to quickly and securely innovate and scale operations.“Spark, New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and technology solutions provider, is delighted to partner with Microsoft to empower innovation— two organisations focused on building cloud and digital capability to help New Zealand businesses succeed,” said Jolie Hodson, chief executive, Spark.
Microsoft New Zealand’s diverse partner ecosystem of roughly 2,300 companies, employing over 21,000 people, will further benefit customers by bringing their unique industry expertise to generate new opportunities in customers’ digital transformation journeys. Microsoft partnerComputer Concepts Ltd (CCL)delivers customer-focused solutionsdesigned to meet business needs, including specialised data migrations to advanced virtual desktops and data recovery.“CCL is proud to be supporting Microsoft in this venture. It’s a game changer, unlocking the potential of Kiwi businesses to go global, at scale and securely. This is an opportunity to fundamentally change the way we consume technology and level the playing field for disruptive Kiwi innovators like never before,” said Andrew Allan, CEO, CCL.
Continued commitment to sustainability
Microsoft has committed to become carbon negative by 2030and by 2050 remove all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption from the environment since it was founded in 1975.Through its AI for Good initiative, Microsoft combines itstechnology and expertise in artificial intelligence and data science with the talent and expertise of groups around the world to address humanitarian challenges, preserve cultural heritage, and create a more sustainable, healthier, and accessible world.
New Zealand organisations, including National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and Sustainable Coastlines, are already leveraging Microsoft’s cloud services and resources from this initiative to address global issues.
NIWA wasawarded a Microsoft AI for Earth grant to analyse past weather data and major events, such as “The Week it Snowed Everywhere”to help predict future weather patterns. In a world-first project with Microsoft, NIWA is pioneering the use of AI to scan historic weather observations and turn this information into data to help evaluate how our climate is changing over time.
Secondly, award-winning NGO and Microsoft AI for Earth grant recipientSustainable Coastlines, which launched a Litter Database,makes citizen scientists out of New Zealanders by arming them with data to keep beaches clean. Creators of the Sustainable Coastlines app have been working alongside the Ministry for the Environment, Department of Conservation and Statistics NZ to create an additional first-of-its-kind resource, Litter Intelligence. This resource is developed in alignment with a United Nations Environment Programme methodology, which has the potential to scale globally and benefit other countries’ sustainability agendas.
Skilling for the future
Microsoft is also working to bridge the skills gap among the IT community and enhance technical acumen for cloud services to support future employability opportunities.
Microsoft has worked alongside Massey University and The Collaborative Studio to launch i4 Accelerator, a public-private education program that addresses skills shortages in primary industries, such as manufacturing and technology.The i4 accelerator supports digital skilling efforts by providing access to training for targeted skills, leadership education and workplace-based training programs to support the adoption of digital technologies. Through this work, i4 Accelerator aims to enable New Zealand logistics and technology companies to build better solutions through co-creation and collaboration.
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.
The new datacenter region in New Zealand is subject to approval from the Overseas Investment Office.
Plan combines investments in long-term talent upskilling, strong local partnerships, support for digital transformation and latest cloud technology to help realize vision of “Polish Digital Valley” and boost digitalization and innovation for companies, government and citizens
WARSAW, Poland – May 5, 2020 – Microsoft Corp. announced today a comprehensive $1 billion investment plan to accelerate innovation and digital transformation in the “Polish Digital Valley.” Foundational to this multifaceted plan is the opening of a new Microsoft datacenter region in Poland as part of its global-scale cloud to provide the country’s broad ecosystem of startups, entrepreneurs, enterprises and government access to secure, enterprise-grade cloud services. Microsoft and the domestic cloud provider Chmura Krajowa have signed a strategic agreement to provide digital transformation expertise and broad access to cloud solutions across all industries and enterprises in Poland.
The plan builds on Microsoft’s nearly 30-year track record of working successfully with Polish organizations and businesses of all sizes and with a network of more than 6,000 local partners. The initiative extends over the next seven years and combines extensive digital transformation expertise with a strong focus on upskilling local talent with the latest cloud-based competencies to empower local organizations to drive and accelerate their digital transformation, boost competitiveness and support employment opportunities in market.
“I deeply believe that Microsoft’s investment in Poland will be important for enterprises, public institutions and the education system and will enable them to digitally transform and implement new work standards. Our primary goal is to accelerate Poland’s transformation into a technological hub for the region of Central and Eastern Europe,” said Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland.
“I am proud to announce our $1 billion dollar investment in Poland’s continued digital transformation and the development of the ‘Polish Digital Valley.’ Today’s announcement builds on our nearly 30-year presence in the country. Microsoft’s global-scale cloud in Poland will allow an ever-wider use, faster implementation and more benefits to those public institutions and businesses in critical sectors along with Poland’s thriving start-up community. This investment will also provide strong support for the continued success of Poland’s developer talent pool and beyond, creating critical skilling and learning opportunities for an estimated 150,000 employees, partners and students. Our mission is to empower the people and organizations of Poland to achieve more,” said Jean-Phillippe Courtois, executive vice president and president, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations.
A new cloud partnership for the “Polish Digital Valley” To support local organizations in their transformation and innovation with the new cloud datacenter region, Microsoft and Chmura Krajowa have signed a partnership agreement to support Polish public institutions and businesses in critical sectors such as government, health, education, manufacturing, retail, energy, finance, insurance and more.
“Today, we are celebrating the signing of a strategic partnership between Chmura Krajowa and Microsoft, a great global technology player. One of the biggest. This is another important step on the road to digitization and accelerating the development of the entire Polish economy. A special step in the face of irreversible changes that are taking place before our eyes in the socio-economic ecosystem. Digital transformation is a great opportunity to deal with the current crisis faster and more effectively. Cloud technology is the future that we want to pursue today,” said Zbigniew Jagiełło, CEO of PKO Bank Polski, one of two founders of Chmura Krajowa.
“Poland has the opportunity to be the digital heart of Europe. This is why today we are announcing a partnership with Chmura Krajowa, and one of the biggest investments in digital technology in Poland ever of $1 billion investment in skilling, digital transformation support, and building a Microsoft global-scale and trusted cloud region, giving our customers and strong local partner ecosystem access to our world-class digital technology and innovative cloud solutions all located here in Poland,” said Mark Loughran, general manager, Microsoft Poland.
Through this partnership, Microsoft and Chmura Krajowa are providing the latest developments in cloud technology for the good of their customers and society, increasing competitiveness and innovative solutions to serve customers across many industries in Poland and across the globe.
Skills for the future: Talent and technology An important pillar of today’s announcement is the robust and long-term skilling program to expand employment opportunities for local professionals and youth. Microsoft aims to boost the digital competencies of an estimated 150,000 business employees and IT professionals, educators, students and citizens to support the digital transformation of organizations. In doing so, the company seeks to increase competitiveness of Polish businesses and individuals in the market and empower Polish employees to successfully innovate and implement the cloud-based digital transformation strategies of their organizations.
The skills development program will include trainings, e-learning programs, workshops and hackathons covering cloud computing, developing with AI and machine learning technologies, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Within this effort, accessibility is important to Microsoft to ensure people with disabilities also have access to the technologies and the tools that allow them to be educated, informed and increase employment opportunities.
Trusted, global-scale cloud Today’s announcement will pave the way for local companies, startups and institutions to fully utilize the potential of cloud computing, while maintaining the highest cybersecurity, data residency and compliance standards, especially those with specific data storage and processing requirements.
The new cloud datacenter region joins Microsoft’s global footprint of cloud regions, now totaling 59 regions announced, with Microsoft Azure available in over 140 countries, and will provide companies local access to Microsoft’s full set of cloud services, all built on a foundation of trust:
Microsoft Azure, an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI and IoT services.
Microsoft 365, the world’s productivity cloud that delivers best-of-breed productivity apps integrated through cloud services and delivered as part of an open platform for business processes.
Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve and transform to meet the needs of customers and capture new opportunities.
Compliance, security and privacy: Microsoft offers more than 90 certifications and spends $1 billion every year on cybersecurity to address security at every layer of the cloud. Microsoft’s Poland datacenter region will help companies comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and will also help customers store data at rest in Poland.
The investment plan will provide cloud services from local datacenters to contribute to the development of the country, a robust education and skilling program to support employability for hundreds of thousands of youth, projects applying AI to benefit the society, and an Advisory Board with important CEOs as some of the first initiatives over the next five years
Mexico City, Mex. –February 20, 2020 – Microsoft announces continued progress on its plan “Innovate for Mexico», to contribute to the development of the country. The main pillar of the plan is focused on accelerating Mexico’s digital transformation through democratizing the access to technology. The company announced plans to establish a new cloud datacenter region in Mexico to deliver its intelligent and trusted cloud services to serve Mexico’s public entities, organizations and Mexican society, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. This datacenter region is an important part of Microsoft’s $1.1 billion investment plan in Mexico over the next five years. The plan also includes a robust education and skilling program with different initiatives the first one being the creation of three laboratories and a virtual classroom, in collaboration with public universities to create an education platform for digital skills, to expand employability in future generations. The first initiative of the commitment to apply artificial intelligence to create societal impact is an investment in the project “Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Pelagic Sharks in the Mexican Pacific Ocean” (Shark ID), focused on the conservation of Mako shark species, driven by Mexico Azul, as part of the initiative AI for Earth, creating societal impact. Furthermore, with the objective to connect the digital transformation experiences and needs, Microsoft is engaging CEOs of leading industry companies evolving in their digital transformation to be part of an Advisory Board to identify the demand for skilling initiatives, share best practices, track progress, and improve employability.
Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, talks about the announcement of a $1.1 billion investment plan to drive digital transformation in Mexico including its first cloud datacenter region.
Few places in the world today are as dynamic and diverse as Mexico. In this landscape, we see enormous opportunity for the cloud to accelerate innovation, support people across the country working to transform their businesses, explore new entrepreneurship opportunities and help solve some of the country’s most difficult challenges. Microsoft’s plan to establish a new cloud datacenter region in Mexico will deliver its intelligent, secure and trusted cloud services expanding the company’s global cloud infrastructure to 57 cloud regions in 22 countries. Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform services will help companies innovate in their industries and move their businesses to the cloud while meeting security and compliance needs:
From left: Video of Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft, announcing an investment plan in Mexico; Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, President of Mexico
Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) services. Office 365 enables cloud-based productivity with email, collaboration, conferencing, enterprise social networking and business intelligence. Dynamics 365 and Power Platform is the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve and transform to meet the needs of customers and capture new opportunities.
Carlos Emiliano Calderon Mercado, Head of National Digital Strategy for Mexico’s Government
Microsoft’s new cloud datacenter region in Mexico will provide highly available, scalable and secure cloud services across Mexico with the option of data residency in country. This local datacenter infrastructure benefits small, medium and large business and the startups ecosystem and stimulates economic development for both customers and partners alike, enabling companies, governments, and regulated industries to realize the benefits of the cloud for innovation and new projects, as well as bolstering the technology ecosystem that supports these projects.
“At SAT, we are collaborating with Microsoft to make the digital transformation initiatives that support fiscal processes a reality. This is how, through the use of cloud computing on Microsoft Azure, we are able to process huge volumes of information and evolve our electronic invoicing service, which receives an average of 21.1 million invoices per day. To accomplish this, SAT worked with Microsoft to build the first low-cost platform for mass processing of electronic invoices, decreasing from hours to few minutes the processing time, but also reducing the monthly cost of the solution by 90%, which translates to approximately $4M USD. This latest generation architecture is based on the Spark Open Source platform on Azure called Databricks and Data Lake storage.” Juan Pablo de Botton, Planning General Manager, SAT.
«Telmex and Telcel in collaboration with Microsoft work on the digital transformation of their processes and systems, including the use of Artificial Intelligence, with benefits and efficiencies for their end customers. Together they also offer services to support the digital transformation of Mexican companies,» Oscar Von Hauske, Chief Fixed-line Operations Officer, Director of America Movil.
“As part of Liverpool’s digital transformation strategy, in 2019 we changed the way to interact digitally with our customers through personalized electronic communication based mostly on Microsoft technology. This personalization initiative enables Liverpool to be closer to our customers, understand their needs and their life cycle so we can offer them what’s best for each one. With this, Liverpool transforms itself to really become customer centric and customer first.» Graciano Guichard, CEO El Puerto de Liverpool.
Enrique Perezyera, General Manager Microsoft Mexico
“In a decade where the digital transformation will undoubtedly open new opportunities and horizons, we are convinced that the announcement of this $1.1 billion investment plan represents how we remain true to our commitment to Mexico’s social and economic development. The new datacenter region in our country will provide intelligent services to help companies innovate in their industries. The skilling program not only benefits government institutions, businesses and society at large, it also shows the importance of Mexico as a leader in the adoption of artificial intelligence, cloud and other technologies in Latin America. Over the next 5 years we will invest on these and other initiatives including events to foster innovation and skilling for developers, startups, organizations in general. There is only one future, and it will be digital. Mexico is well positioned to harness the power of new technologies, and by jointly working with Microsoft, the country will make this future a reality” Enrique Perezyera, general manager Microsoft Mexico.
Microsoft is committed to sustainability. We’re using the power of our technology to minimize the environmental impact of our products and operations and working with our partners around the world to discover and implement innovative ways to transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future. This new datacenter cloud region in Mexico will be part of Microsoft’s effort to reduce its carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, both for its direct emissions and for its entire supply chain and value; by 2050, Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon it has emitted directly or by electricity consumption since its founding in 1975.
Skilling for the Future
The plan “Innovate for Mexico” has a second important pillar called “Skilling for the Future”, with the objective of developing skills in new technologies for young students that give them a higher level of education and better future employability opportunities. As one of the first initiatives of a comprehensive plan on this area, Microsoft is announcing the implementation of three physical laboratories of state-of-the-art technologies in three universities selected by the Education Ministry (in the North, Central and South of the country). The main objective of the Microsoft Laboratories is to make available to teachers, researchers and higher-level students updated training proposals in technological solutions, especially focused on a deep understanding of knowledge and the skills that society and the labor market require at all times. Teachers, students, researchers and administration of the university in which the laboratory is located, will have the opportunity to configure a personalized and articulated learning path with their needs and interests. The basic training proposal includes the development of new technical skills and content relevant to professional profiles. In addition to the physical sites, Microsoft will work with public universities to implement a concept called virtual Classroom accompaniment that will be basis of the educational proposal that will allow to amplify the innovation generated in the laboratories seeking to benefit thousands of young Mexicans and improve their employability in the future.
Creating societal impact in the country
Cesar Cernuda, President Microsoft Latin America
The objective of the third pillar of the Microsoft “Digital Innovation for Mexico” plan is to positively impact society in Mexico. As one of the first initiatives, Microsoft is announcing the investment to support the project “Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Pelagic Sharks in the Mexican Pacific Ocean (Shark ID)”, led by the Mexican NGO Mexico Azul together with students from La Salle University. Mako Shark initiative in Cabo San Lucas will receive a grant to create open source software that will photo-identify individual sharks of four highly vulnerable pelagic species in the Mexican Pacific by using AI and machine learning technologies, thus shaping a more efficient process to help to estimate population parameters, resulting in better marine conservation policies. The main objective of this project is to generate fundamental data to improve the monitoring and conservation of these species, first in Mexico and in the long run, worldwide. This initial investment is part of the AI for Earth initiative; designed to support projects that use AI to change the way people and organizations monitor, model, and manage Earth’s natural systems.
With these initiatives and our investments on the Plan Innovate for Mexico in the next five years, Microsoft reaffirms its commitment to Mexico’s development. Over the past 34 years Microsoft has had a significant employability impact by contributing to the creation of more than 156,000 jobs in the IT sector, this in conjunction with the network of 4,000 business partners, which are Mexican small, medium-sized and enterprises. We have maintained the alliance with foundations and NGOs by creating a network of training centers where people can have access to computers, Internet and trainings, to learn digital skills; to date 15 million online trainings have been completed. People with disabilities are also a priority for Microsoft, making accessible technologies available for them, in order to bring them the tools that allow them to be educated, informed and with employability opportunities.
From left: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, President Mexico; Carlos Emiliano Calderon Mercado, Head of National Digital Strategy for Mexico’s Government; Cesar Cernuda, President Microsoft Latin America; and Enrique Perezyera, General Manager Microsoft Mexico.
Today’s announcement of the new cloud datacenter region in Mexico is another example of Microsoft commitment with the digital transformation of small and large companies through offering secure and fast access to advanced technology providing a competitive advantage to access the global market and increase satisfaction for consumers. By the creation of a robust education program starting with three laboratories and virtual classroom for technical skills development on new technologies, Mexican citizens are given the opportunity to have access to better job opportunities and inclusion in the digital world. With the shark conservation project, AI can contribute to a positive society in Mexico and with the Advisory Board insights more young people will be benefited with more and better employability options.
Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics 365 are now available for organizations and enterprises from our new cloud datacenters in Germany, building on the late 2019 availability of Azure from our German new cloud regions. This is the first new datacenter launch by Microsoft in 2020, continuing a series of datacenter openings with United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and Switzerland also coming online in the last 9 months. This year, we will continue to extend our global offerings by delivering Office 365 and Dynamics 365 and Power Platform from new datacenter regions in Norway.
Microsoft is continuously making new investments in local infrastructure in response to growing customer demand as more industry leaders choose Microsoft’s cloud services to further their digital transformations. The new regions are designed to address the evolving needs of German customers with a range of innovative regional Microsoft cloud services to enable their businesses to move faster and achieve more. The new datacenter regions offer Microsoft’s full featured global cloud offering, full connectivity to our global cloud network, and customer data residency in Germany. This provides our customers with trusted cloud services that help them meet local compliance and policy requirements. In addition, replication of customer data in multiple datacenters across Germany gives customers reliable in-country services for business continuity in both pure cloud and hybrid scenarios.
Office 365, the world’s leading cloud-based productivity solution, helps customers enable the modern workplace and empower their employees with real-time collaboration and cloud-powered intelligence while maintaining security, compliance, and in-country customer data residency. Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity solutions provide email, collaboration, conferencing, enterprise social networking, and business intelligence. Microsoft Teams, in addition to Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, and OneDrive for Business, are all delivered from the new German datacenter regions with local customer data storage.
We see German organizations of all sizes and across all industries currently investing in new ways of empowering their employees with modern tools to enable secure, flexible, and mobile working that fosters collaboration. Office 365 from the Microsoft cloud in Germany is already seeing strong demand, especially with the new opportunity to store customer data at rest locally.
In-country data residency for core customer data helps Office 365 customers meet regulatory requirements, which is particularly important and relevant in industries such as financial services and public sector. This latest step will enable organizations and enterprises adopting Office 365 to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Some of the initial customers embracing this opportunity in the German regions include SAP, Deutsche Bank, ADAC, and Rohde & Schwarz.
“The general availability of Office 365 and Dynamics 365 via the new datacenter regions marks a significant step in the development of cloud computing in Germany. For many partners and customers, the local storage of their data remains a very high priority—whether for geopolitical or emotional reasons. This barrier has now been overcome and we expect further significant boost for the already fast-growing cloud market.”
—Florian Gerken, Senior Manager, Ingram Micro Distribution GmbH
“The Staff Department IT and Digitization is very much looking forward to the strategic and operative cooperation with Microsoft. By outsourcing large parts of our cloud management, we will be able to offer the countless volunteers in our diocese, but also the employees in the administration as well as in our approximately 1,000 parishes and numerous kindergartens, completely new opportunities for collaboration, including the development of own applications. This partnership will take the digitalization of the diocese a big step further. With Microsoft as a strategic partner, we have developed a very sustainable concept, which is also based on very high security standards.”
—Dr. Rudolf Scheid, Head of Staff Department IT and Digitization, Diocese of Augsburg
The new cloud regions in Germany are connected to Microsoft’s other regions via our global network, one of the largest and most innovative on the planet—spanning more than 100,000 miles (161,000 kilometers) of terrestrial fiber and subsea cable systems to deliver services to customers.
With this latest development bringing Office 365 and Dynamics 365 to the German datacenter regions, Microsoft enables companies of all sizes to drive their digital transformation while meeting local security and compliance requirements—to drive innovation and realize the benefits of the cloud.
Learn more about empowering your organization with Office 365.
Microsoft today announced plans to establish the company’s first cloud region in Israel to deliver its intelligent, trusted cloud services through a local datacenter region. This investment expands the Microsoft global cloud infrastructure to 56 cloud regions in 21 countries, with the new Israel region anticipated to be available starting with Microsoft Azure in 2021, with Office 365 to follow. The new Israel region will adhere to Microsoft’s trusted cloud principles and become part of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world, already serving more than a billion customers and 20 million businesses.
Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) services. The investment in a new Israel datacenter region will enable customers to use the most advanced technologies and adhere to data residency requirements to store data within Israel. Microsoft’s cloud services are also compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and are certified for an industry-leading portfolio of international security and privacy standards. Azure will enable the local Israeli ecosystem to build on the latest advancements in the cloud, helping organizations drive their digital transformation. Office 365, the world’s leading cloud-based productivity solution, will be available from the new datacenter region, helping customers enable the modern workplace and empower their employees with real-time collaboration and cloud-powered intelligence while maintaining security, compliance, and in-country customer data residency.
“When I speak to customers across EMEA, it is clear that the power of the cloud is essential for their competitiveness,” said Michel van der Bel, President, Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa. “We have made significant infrastructure investments in the region and with this announcement, our planned region in Israel will join a growing number of EMEA markets recently made available including Germany, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland. Offering Microsoft Azure and Office 365 from a datacenter region in Israel forms a key part of our investment and involvement in the startup nation, as infrastructure is an essential building block for the tech intensity that public sector entities and businesses need to embrace.”
Establishing new datacenter regions entails significant investment of resources and this announcement reinforces the continuous commitment of Microsoft to the Israeli market. The company started its journey in 1989 in Israel by opening a local branch. In 1991 Microsoft established its Israeli R&D center – its first R&D center outside of the US – one of the first major tech companies to do so in Israel. In addition, 2020 will include another key investment in the local market with the launch of a new Microsoft Israel campus. Microsoft has deep engagement with the Israeli tech ecosystem – it operates a business branch, an R&D Center, a Venture Capital Fund and Microsoft for Startups programs.
Microsoft continues to work alongside researchers and industry partners to bring cloud-based genomics analytics tools and solutions to the market. These solutions are critical in deciphering the code embedded in our individual and collective genetic blueprint. A better understanding of the genetic code will be important for improving diagnosis, developing new precision therapeutics, tailoring treatments, and optimizing therapies in ways so we deliver better healthcare and positively impact human lives.
A turnkey solution to genomics analysis
Microsoft Genomics is a highly scalable cloud-based service to perform secondary analysis of the human genome and generates durable genetic variant datasets in hours, versus days. More importantly, the service is ISO-certified and compliant with HIPAA regulations, a critical requirement for the integration of genomics in clinical pipelines. Organizations such as the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Seattle Children’s Hospital have been using the Microsoft Genomics service to build high-quality clinical genomic data sets for pediatric diseases.
Microsoft alongside its partner DNAnexus continues to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in enabling pediatric cancer research with the continued global adoption of the St. Jude Cloud, a platform to aggregate high-quality clinical genomic data for pediatric diseases. St. Jude Cloud now hosts 10,000 whole genomes from pediatric cancer and other childhood catastrophic diseases. Since the launch of St. Jude Cloud in the spring of 2018, more than 50,000 users from across the world have accessed the site, including more than 1,000 registered users from 49 institutions in 15 countries. This research effort is already having an impact on helping children with the rarest of rare diseases.
The Integrative Brain Research Institute of Seattle Children’s Hospital is working with Microsoft and Veritas Genetics in building the first cloud-based genetic and phenotypic database focused on infant mortality and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). This database will allow researchers to harness the power of Microsoft Genomics and AI services on Azure to analyze how genetic variation contributes to infant mortality. You can learn more about this collaborative effort here.
Cromwell and WDLs flowing on Azure
Today I’m excited to announce the release of an open-source project on GitHub from Microsoft Genomics: Cromwell on Azure. Cromwell is a workflow management system geared toward scientific workflows, originally developed by the Broad Institute. Cromwell on Azure uses the GA4GH Task Execution Service (TES) backend and orchestrates the dynamic provisioning of computing resources via Azure Batch. With Cromwell on Azure, researchers can now take advantage of the hyperscale compute capabilities of Azure to execute their genomics pipelines. This open-source project is fully backed by the Microsoft Genomics engineering team, and we are actively driving the development of this code base and enabling new analytic pipelines. We also know that this project will only get better with the feedback and contributions from the community and customers such as Answer ALS. Answer ALS is a multi-institution organization focused on advancing research and stopping Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) using a multi-disciplinary approach. The Answer ALS research teams will be using Cromwell on Azure for their multi-omics analysis platform to analyze the genome, epigenome, RNA, proteins and cellular metabolism of healthy people and ALS patients.
Genomics sample-2-answer showcase at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting
Microsoft Genomics team will be at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2019 Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas from Oct. 15-19 alongside the world’s leading genomics researchers sharing advances in genomic analysis technologies. We will be featuring EPAM and Tag.Bio, two of the partners who are leveraging the power, performance, scalability, and security of Azure to innovate and scale their solutions and services. The EPAM Cloud Pipeline is an open-source, web-based cloud environment for building and running the scripts and workflows used for genomics analysis and modeling, and can be easily customized with your tools and pipelines. The Tag.Bio platform empowers doctors and scientists to perform complex, robust, reproducible data analyses in seconds – with proven, best-practices techniques in data science, machine learning, and AI delivered via user-friendly apps. Both EPAM and Tag.bio can be easily customized with your tools and integrated with the Microsoft Genomics service.
Stop by our booth (#1421) at American Society of Human Genetics 2019 annual meeting (ASHG 2019) to learn more about how Microsoft and its partners are making genomic analysis easier and more accessible on Azure.
The path to a future of mining cloud-based data started in a decidedly low-tech way for Boston company ButcherBox after its founder, Mike Salguero, found himself in a Massachusetts parking lot buying garbage bags of beef from a local farmer.
Salguero’s wife, Karlene, has a thyroid condition, and the couple wanted to switch to an anti-inflammatory diet including lean, grass-fed meat. But they found little beyond ground beef and the occasional grass-fed steak at their local grocery stores — hence the parking-lot purchase. That was too much meat for the couple to eat, so Salguero gave some to a friend, who remarked how convenient it would be to have high-quality meat delivered at home.
“That was the initial spark of the idea for ButcherBox,” Salguero says.
The company launched in 2015, delivering boxes of frozen grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken and heritage breed pork to subscribers, or “members,” around the United States. ButcherBox sells only meats raised without antibiotics or added hormones, ships them in 100 percent curbside-recyclable boxes made of 95 percent recycled materials, and prides itself on partnering with vendors that use sustainable, humane approaches and fair labor practices.
ButcherBox CEO and founder Mike Salguero with wife Karlene and their three daughters.
The company offers 21 cuts of meat and subscription boxes ranging from $129 to $270 monthly, depending how many pounds of meat are included.
ButcherBox tapped into a trio of hot retail trends: a demand for sustainable products, consumers’ interest in knowing more about what they’re buying, and an explosion in subscription box companies selling everything from dog toys to fitness gear, even house plants and hygge kits.
ButcherBox doesn’t release sales figures, but Salguero says the company has grown exponentially since its launch, even without seeking venture capital. Collecting and analyzing data became increasingly important as ButcherBox expanded, but the limited data the company had was mainly in Excel spreadsheets and didn’t provide the depth of information employees needed.
Customer service agents, for example, didn’t have access to warehouse data and couldn’t check to see if a member’s box had been filled or where it was. Teams in various departments were pulling data together in ad hoc ways, leading to inconsistent and imprecise insights.
“Depending on which department it was and where they got the data, everyone had their own truths about what was going on in the business,” says Kevin Hall, ButcherBox’s head of technology. “People began to realize there was a need for a single source of truth.”
Salguero puts it another way: “People became entrepreneurial and enterprising in finding ways to answer questions, but as an organization that’s pretty risky, because we don’t even know if it’s right.”
The ButcherBox team at the company’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
So the company turned to Microsoft, adopting Azure as its cloud platform about a year ago. It developed a “demand plan” that uses members’ purchasing data to determine how much meat must be ordered and replenished in fulfillment centers. It enabled its approximately 70 employees to create and read dashboards using Microsoft’s Power BI data visualization tool. It interviewed more than 100 ButcherBox subscribers, then used Azure’s Databricks service to analyze their feedback and organize it into easily understandable reports in Power BI.
The interviews revealed a key insight — that the number one reason people were canceling their subscriptions wasn’t lack of freezer space, as previously thought, but value. Based on that finding, the company implemented an “add-on” program offering members perks (free bacon!) and specials on certain products, often undercutting grocery store prices on those promotional items.
More robust data also enabled the company to better determine how much dry ice is needed for each shipped box based on geographic location — a crucial calculation, since too much ice can cause leaks and too little can mean a thawed shipment.
“If someone doesn’t get his or her box or it shows up late, it’s ruined,” Salguero says. “So really understanding our data — what’s shipping, where the boxes are — became the rallying cry of the company in a big way to understand our members and build out our data infrastructure.”
The company uses fully recyclable boxes made of 95 percent recycled cardboard to ship its products.
But even the most sophisticated data can’t necessarily provide the type of information gleaned from talking with people face-to-face. Last year, Salguero embarked on what employees jokingly refer to as his “freezer road show,” visiting members’ homes, asking them about their cooking and eating habits and yes, peering into their freezers.
The exercise provided useful insights about the degree to which members rely on ButcherBox meats to feed their families, Salguero says, and showed that subscribers who most often use the food in their freezers tend to plan out their meals. That finding could help with tackling one of the biggest challenges facing a company that sells frozen meat — which is, ironically, to get members to stop using their freezers so much.
“A lot of people think of a freezer as a savings account,” Salguero says. “It’s there for a rainy day, not necessarily the place you go if you want to eat dinner tonight.”
The company is exploring how technology might be used to get more information about what customers are eating, whether through a meal-planning app or other tool, with the goal of prompting them to move food out of the deep freeze and onto the dinner table.
“All of that is a data problem at its core,” Salguero says. “We should know what members are eating and in what order. If we do our job well, we’ll know that member A is eating through X and they have a pork shoulder left over, so if we’re going to send a recipe, we should be sending one for pork shoulder.”
ButcherBox is now focusing on using data science and analytics to provide more personalized service, starting with identifying “clusters” of members who have similar likes and buying habits to determine which products and services to market to them.
“It doesn’t make sense to show someone beef if they’re really a chicken or salmon member,” Hall says. “We’re really looking to understand the data so we can serve members in a much more personalized way.”
ButcherBox offers 21 different cuts of meat and a range of custom and curated boxes.
Since data showed that members who buy certain types of boxes are more likely to leave, the company began proactively suggesting different options to those members and introduced new subscription plans with varying delivery schedules.
“We’re giving people more flexibility to switch to a plan that comes less often,” says Reba Hatcher, ButcherBox’s chief of staff. “Giving people those options has been really helpful.”
The company’s approach suits Ismael Santos, who lives in Youngsville, a small city in south-central Louisiana. Santos tried various approaches to get high-quality, sustainably raised meat free of antibiotics and added hormones — driving to a grocery store more than 50 miles away, buying at local farmers markets, splitting a quarter- or half-cow with friends. None of the options was ideal, so Santos signed up for ButcherBox almost a year ago.
“It’s hard to get that quality at a good price, and conveniently and reliably here,” he says. “You can go out and buy beef, but you’re either going to pay a ton or you’re not going to get what you’re looking for sometimes. The cost (of ButcherBox) is good compared with going to a store and buying the same quality and quantity.”
Santos also tried several meal-kit subscription services but didn’t consider them a good value and didn’t like being restricted to cooking a particular meal. With ButcherBox, he gets the main part of his meal and builds around it, picking up other ingredients at his local market as needed and sometimes adding items to his box, like ribs or breakfast sausage.
“I like that you can change it up,” he says.
The company partners with vendors that use sustainable, humane approaches and fair labor practices.
ButcherBox is still in the early stages of using Azure, but Salguero says the move has already radically changed how employees think and operate.
“It’s pretty amazing to see the cultural change because of what we’re doing with Microsoft,” he says. “It’s a totally different conversation. People used to sit around a table and say, ‘I don’t really know what’s happening.’ Now it’s like, ‘Did you pull the data for that?’ or, ‘Let’s look at this dashboard and make a decision based on what we see.’
“The culture has really moved to a reliance on the data that we have,” Salguero says. “People trust the data, and it’s only getting better and better.”
Top photo: ButcherBox CEO and founder Mike Salguero. (All photos courtesy of ButcherBox)
