This year at Microsoft Inspire, our team got to witness first hand, the changes that are taking place in the Industry through Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent edge with Digital Transformation.
Digital Transformation often sounds intimidating, many persons who may not know about DT are afraid to have conversations about it because they think of it as ‘just the cloud.’ CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella in his core note speech on Wednesday stated that “we’ve got to measure ourselves not by technology for technology’s sake, but [by] how are we empowering people? How are we helping organizations with their digital transformational outcomes? That’s what this is all about.” The “paradigm shift” that’s ALREADY HERE. When you think about business processes, in particular, the one thing that is going to be true is more things are going to be digitized”
What stood out to us the most, is that persons experience life, through technology. Through their devices. We live in an era where we are more connected to our devices than the people we talk to through them. Technology is existent in our everyday lives, in our homes, our offices at our schools and the places we go to, even our appliances. Technology has become a fabric of our lives. We should be able to use those same devices to make life easier at our workplaces too through the use of collaboration platforms and data and AI apps.
Inspire for us was also an opportunity to enhance the way we do business here at CTTL. We take a lot of things for granted, specifically Digital Transformation. Did you know that just this past year Microsoft has prepared over 400 000 persons in cloud technologies alone? Do you know the number that comes from the Caribbean, much less Trinidad and Tobago? It baffles us that the entire world is transforming their skills to meet their demands yet less than 1% of that number comes from our region. It really makes us think, are we that unadaptable to technological advances? Are we so afraid and intimidated by conversations about Digital Transformation? The world is moving on, why have we not yet adapted and done the same? Inspire made us take a personal oath and obligation to empower each professional in the industry to be their best, to become their best selves to “empower each person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”
But what does achieving more mean? It means that we at CTTL are going to do whatever it takes over the next year to start the DT revolution in the Caribbean, to finally get on board with changing how we do business, to empower each organization to survive in the era of the Intelligent cloud and Intelligent edge, because its no longer coming, it’s here. We have tremendous opportunity available that we haven’t yet grasped.
As the Industry continues to grow, we have asked ourselves, how are we helping organizations with their Digital Transformational outcomes? Truth be told, not many companies have digitally transformed and while this transition is now behind us and the focus is now on Artificial Intelligence, we in the Caribbean have a lot to do if we want to survive and continue to serve our customers. In fact, just this past year, Microsoft generated over 135 Million O365 seats to customers who are now looking for collaboration platforms, Data and analytics suites and modern productivity solutions.
Interestingly enough, with the paradigm shift called intelligent edge/ intelligent cloud, new jobs have been created, of course we’ve all been warned that this was coming, but who really understood the magnitude of what it will become? We at CTTL have been urging customers over the past year to transition their skills to be able to adapt, now, more than ever, there is a need for skilled persons in the industry. With only 400 000 persons with the necessary cloud skills, there is a MAJOR SKILLS GAP globally which causes need for concern. What are we doing wrong? Well, we know the answers, we just have to get YOU onboard.
Microsoft’s vision has always been about empowering persons and organizations and we truly believe that once the customer is empowered, the rest is easy, but the first step of empowering is educating and becoming aware, we must transition. We must do more. We must act NOW!!!
