New investments to help partners enable resilient organizations

This morning, I’m honored to welcome thousands of Microsoft partners from around the world to Microsoft Inspire. On a virtual stage, broadcast live and then available to view on-demand, I’m sharing how partners are helping organizations navigate the current crisis, and detailing new investments across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform to help partners position organizations for future agility and resilience.

This year, many customers are activating workloads that help them adapt to current market conditionsdigital selling, always-on service, and optimizing supply chains and distribution. Our partner community is integral for the delivery of these strategic solutions to customers across the globe; bringing deep industry and technical expertise to Coca-Cola, Walgreens Boots Alliance, C3.ai, and so many more around the world.

In recent months, we’ve seen that digital-first leaders across industries are in a better position to outpace disruption and rapidly adapt to change. At Inspire, we are announcing new capabilities to help our partners enable customers to rapidly transform into digital-first organizations, equipping them to respond to crisis while reimagining and retooling for what’s next.

Helping organizations return to the workplace with confidence

At Inspire, we are introducing a pre-built Power Platform solution designed to help customers safely and securely prepare for and streamline the return to physical workplace locations. Designed for easy customization and deployment at scale, the “return to the workplace” solution includes four secure and compliant components that work together: location readiness and safety tools for facility managers, self-service health and safety tools for employees, and infection tracking and contact tracing tools for health and safety leaders. Read more about this essential solution, and invite your customers to the Return to the Workplace digital event.

Our partners are already leveraging this technology to deliver comprehensive solutions to help businesses get back to the workplace safely, and we will showcase partner and customer stories throughout the Inspire event.

Reimagining digital selling and commerce

We’re also helping organizations reimagine the future of digital selling and commerce.

For retailers, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Connected Store will soon offer store traffic and curbside queue as features, increasing shopper safety as stores reopen in accordance to regulations. These capabilities help retailers remain below capacity limits and design stores so customers can maintain a safe distance, as well as helps to improve the curbside order experience by signaling the arrival of vehicles as they approach the store. Visit the product page to learn more and sign up for our preview experience.

Digital transaction volumes have skyrocketed during the crisis and, along with it, a surge in fraud. At Inspire, we are announcing new capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection to help protect retailers, public sector entities, credit issuers, and their customers. Account Protection helps protect online revenue and reputation by counteracting fraudulent account access, fake account creation and account takeover, and safeguarding user accounts from abuse and fraud. Loss Prevention helps protect revenue by identifying potential fraud on returns and discounts arising from omnichannel purchases, enabling store managers and investigators to quickly take action to mitigate losses.

In today’s environment of remote and hybrid business engagement, it’s essential for organizations to listen to, understand, and respond to customers quickly. At Inspire, we are unveiling Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, an enterprise-grade feedback management solution to capture and incorporate real-time feedback into a unified view of customers and drive action in the moments that matter. Customer Voice brings out-of-the-box integration into everyday applications and workflows, andready-to-use templates to enable a fast response to customers’ needs at the right time, and in the right place.

The partner community is helping to drive high adoption of our customer data platform (CDP), empowering organizations to gain insight from all their data sources and deliver personalized customer engagement. Microsoft Dynamics 365Customer Insights is helping retailers like Walgreens Boots Alliance deliver personalized healthcare and shopping offerings from its global pharmacy and retail businesses.

In addition, we’ve partnered with Accenture to pair our robust and extensible CDP with Accenture’s Customer Experience Engine (CXE) and managed services expertise. Together, Customer Insights and CXE empower anyone in an organization to deliver personalized one-to-one customer experiences using unique insights derived from their data. Watch my recent conversation with Emma McGuigan, global lead for the Accenture Microsoft Business Group, to learn more about this offering.

Reinventing the new digital workspace with Teams and Power Platform

With the introduction of Microsoft Dataflex, Teams expands from the hub for teamwork to the hub for all work. Microsoft Dataflex Pro is the new name for the Common Data Service, and Microsoft Dataflex is the newest iteration of this technology in Teams. Microsoft Dataflex empowers everyone to easily build and deploy apps and intelligent chatbots in Teams using a Teams-native MicrosoftPower Apps and Microsoft Power Virtual Agents experience. Users have the power of a built-in flexible database with a range of data types at their fingertips including relational, image, and file, so users can create business apps and processes within Teams without having to deal with back-end tech logistics. Learn more about Microsoft Dataflex from Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President, Citizen Application Platform, in his recent blog post.

Expanding the Microsoft Business Applications ISV Connect Program

We launched ISV Connect last year at Inspire to empower partners to grow their business by building unique, customer-centric, line-of business apps with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Since then, more than 500 ISVs have joined ISV Connect with more than 1,200 certified applications on the platforma 30 percent year-over-year growth.

Based on partner feedback, we’re continuing to add more benefits to ISV Connect such as marketing support, sales resources, and co-sell benefits to help you connect with more customers. We’re also continuing to invest in the AppSource marketplace so customers can easily discover the partner apps and services they need.

Partnered for growth and customer success in 2020

Across everything we’re announcing and celebrating at Inspire, one common theme is clear: our partners are critical to helping customers transform.

Throughout this year’s Inspire, we will help partners understand this new opportunity to move forward with customers togetherhow to prioritize solutions that customers need now to build a resilient business for the future. If you missed any part of this year’s event, take some time to check out the content on-demand to learn how you can build success in the coming year.

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