| Connected Customer ExperiencesThe manufacturing industry is undergoing a radical business transformation driven by external market forces: the new connected customer or consumer, the increasing influence of emerging economics, the changing demographics, as well as new business challenges and opportunities driven by sustainability and complex regulations. The rapid evolution of technology in today’s connected world is transforming traditional manufacturing business processes. We are living in a world of “smart products” and new “intelligent business services.The emergence of consumer IoT and smart connected products—like smart TV, wearable devices, or smart appliances—fundamentally changes how manufacturers design, deliver, and service their products. Microsoft offers solutions focused on the ability to deliver context-specific rich consumer experiences and services taking advantage of advanced technology innovations around IoT, big data, social, cloud, mobility, and natural user interfaces.
Microsoft is taking a leading role in developing innovative solutions to support the next generation of connected consumer experiences. As a great example of this, in 2003 Vox was working with a company called Whips Carpentry in Burlington and their largest customer was Stack-a-Shelf. The vision was to add cameras or sensors to the racking system so that once the last box was pulled a trigger would automatically fire and send a pull signal to directly to the Whip’s Carpentry ERP system. Which would automatically create a sales order, automatically create a work order and print the work order traveller out on the shop floor. Think of how personal the experience might be if you walked into the car dealership and they greeted you at the front door by name, statistically predicted when your timing belt was going to fail and based on your past purchases determined that you would be 99% likely to order it, so they ordered it for you, booked the garage and it would be replaced while you drink coffee. Far-fetched? Wishful thinking? or just the beginning of manufacturing and customer service will be connected in the future.
Hero Products: Azure IOT Services |
Supporting Products: SQL Server/Hadoop, StreamInsight/HDInsight, Office 365, PowerBI, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Marketing Pilot, Netbreeze, A&O, Windows Phone