Microsoft focuses on radical innovation and digital transformation

Futurist Greg Verdino says that change is now moving from incremental to exponential at Microsoft's Innovation Nation event in Toronto

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Toronto - Microsoft Canada held an Innovation Nation event at the Art Gallery of Ontario in downtwon Toronto today to give an overview about the massive change and disruption that's taking place in business today.

Focusing on how big data and analytics is helping to rewrite the rules in various businesses, Microsoft invited futurist Greg Verdino to discuss digital revolutionaries. Microsoft's Charlotte Burke said that "It is a matter of survival to harness change in the business world." The ability to harness big data and make it useful through applications and analytics, can help businesses of all types become more efficient and profitable as well as see unprecedented growth.

Burke explained how farmers are now using various sensors and IoT (Internet of Things) solutions to better track various aspects of farming and waste fewer resources as well as grow yields.

One of the biggeest take aways from the conference was the importance of customer experience. Today'd consumer's are used to seamless and delightful experiences like requesting a car from Uber or finding a movie to watch on Netflix. These are technology-focused processes but what makes them sticky with customers is the fact that the experiences are seamless and enjoyable.

"Digital transformations do not fail because of technology," Greg Verdino explained, "they fail because of poor culture, leadership, vision and strategy."

No amount of data can be helfup if it steers companies into making the wrong decisions. "Bad data, or data not analyzed properly can steer you in the wrong direction, you need to apply intuition and creativity to make it work," Verdino explained.