Month That Was (MTW) Unplugged - Oct-Nov 2023

The Story of MTW and now the next avatar - "MTW Unplugged"        

Some background for folks who may not be aware of this. "Month Than Was (MTW)" is an informal knowledge sharing session ?? which I started 5 years back, to be precise in June 2018 at Infosys.

It is set ??on calendars ?? for every last Friday of the month at 9:30am IST.

This started small and in July 2023 ... after 60 sessions, I felt that it has been not only helped the team (hopefully ????) but myself as I eagerly look forward to learning, reading, absorbing and preparing for this session every month. ?This needs typically 20-24 hours per month of compiling, reading, listening, watching to have a one-hour compilation.?It is a virtual event which is also recorded for folks in other time-zones as well.????

There is nothing official about it! This is an informal & voluntary session for an hour whereby entire Microsoft Practice at Infosys (this cover Microsoft BizApps and Modern Work portfolios) is invited to join in and absorb what has transpired in the Month that just went by (hence the name "Month That Was) and pick and choose what is relevant to their area of work

The session covers updates from Enterprise Ecosystem, Microsoft ecosystem, Overall Cloud space, Infosys Microsoft Practice, Infosys at large and of course the vibrant ecosystem that started talking about Blockchain 5 years back, metaverse last 2 years to Gen AI and co-pilots now; and who knows what else is?coming our way.??

You can check out more details in my post around 3 months back which i had shared when we completed 5-year run and 60 episodes of MTW - Gracias! And looking forward to the next 60...and more!

Why MTW Unplugged?        

There are thousands of Infosys & Microsoft Practice family members who joined me in this journey and made it what it is today. We started Microsoft business Applications practice at Infosys in 2005 and over last 18 years I can safely say that many of the folks in this ecosystem would have one time or another been associated with this practice directly or indirectly and can see that as a learning foundation in their professional journeys.

The current Infosys team members are plugged into these conversations every month. Many of the colleagues and connections are no longer with Infosys, but they did express in some personal connects that it would be good to get these insights monthly. The idea of adding an "UNPLUGGED" version was to take it beyond Infosys and to community at large - a community of friends, colleagues and family in this Microsoft Applications space across the companies, independent consultants, startups, client-side roles and other pursuits they are working towards.

In our day to day work we tend to miss being closely connected, but I would want this newsletter to act as medium to continue on path of this knowledge sharing, remain connected beyond boundaries and also to trigger conversation. Hoping to hear from some of you soon. ??

My number and email ID has remained the same for last 2 decades...only two things that have been a constant ??

CAUTION: Keeping the organizational priorities in mind and some NDAs with partners, I would be pruning down some of the narratives that I share internally within Infosys (like inner circle updates, internal events and campaigns, analyst updates, etc.) as this newsletter is put in internet space. Hope you will understand that this is super important to respect our commitments. Enjoy reading this and let me know if you have any questions or feedback. Happy to connect as always.

Edition 1 - MTW Unplugged        

This newsletter covers happening from Oct 2023. With Diwali, certain time off for me with family and other official commitments, I was not able to complete this in time. Will try and release this in first week of subsequent month with earlier month coverage.

Here we go...

Any discussion today can't happen without AI being mentioned. Here is one line I wrote sometime back and leverage in my conversations. I strongly believe in this.

AI is augmenting Human Ingenuity and Co-pilots are improving Human experience. “Humans are back at the center of everything”

1. Microsoft announced their Q1 FY'24 results. They reported 56.5 BUSD revenue and 18.6 BUSD for "Productivity and Business Processes" unit. All round revenue growth YoY across portfolio - Office Commercial products and cloud services (15%) with Office 365 Commercial (18%), Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue (3%) and Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers grew to 76.7 million, LinkedIn (8%), Dynamics products and cloud services (22%) and Dynamics 365 (28%)
2. Check out the annual report and the letter to shareholders form Satya here
3. Change of Guard at Microsoft as Chris Capossela paves way for Takeshi Numoto as the next Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft. Also, Yusuf Mehdi has been elevated to being Executive Vice President, Consumer Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft. You can check out the Announcement here.
4. This reminded me of one "from teh heart" podcast from Chris from 2021. This was on an episode of "Finding Mastery". You can listen to it here. To me, Chris is a model for the modern leader – he empowers his team and leads with empathy. Pasting one line from his conversation - “The way I lead today is not with me in the forefront, it’s typically giving the stage to other people. The restaurant only works if everybody works together.”
5. Phil Spencer - CEO, Microsoft Gaming shared an update welcoming the legendary teams at Activision Blizzard King to Team Xbox. For the gaming enthusiast, do not miss the details here.
6. Microsoft is recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises. The ERP stories continue to become stronger and is growing at fastest pace for MS as well - check the blog
7. Microsoft conducted the Low Code Sales Bootcamp from October 17-19, 2023. This was a multi-day partner event focused on the Power Platform. if you missed it, you can still see it on demand. You can learn about the Low Code Solution Play, how to pitch and demo, the opportunity with Copilot in Power Platform, how low code aligns with other practice areas across the Microsoft Cloud, and what programs and resources are available to partners - https://aka.ms/SalesEnablementHub
8. Ginny Hoban, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Business Applications published a blog on Harnessing the momentum of low code after the 2nd annual Microsoft Power Platform Conference - read the blog here
9. The 2nd Annual Microsoft Power Platform Conference was held in Las Vegas. My team members joined this in person too. Charles Lamanna’s in his keynote, emphasized the seismic shift that has landed us in the era of AI-assisted low-code development. Already more than 126,000 organizations have experienced Power Platform Copilot! He shared a blog as well - The AI revolution: Supercharging low-code with the Power Platform community
10. The next "Business Applications Launch Event" was conducted on Oct 25 covering the new releases happening in next release. Do see the replay here if you missed it - ?? https://msbizappslaunchevent.eventcore.com/home
11. Sidney Siegertsz, Senior Analyst, PAC published a blog on Infosys and value it brings to the clients in Power Platform Space titled - "How Low Code Application Platforms can drive innovation in the age of constant change". You can check on details here
12. Infosys GTM team at Microsoft Practice collaborated with Field Service Product Group of Microsoft to publish a joint blog bringing in real stories from our projects narrated by SMEs and practitioners titled "Unlocking customer value with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service through connected services". You can read the blog here.
13. ?? And it’s live!?Microsoft 365?Copilot is now Generally Available! ?? - https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/
14. Before I go, sharing an article from McKinsey which I found very interesting in context of today's business environment titled - " The rewired enterprise: How five companies built to outcompete". Loved the 5 elements for companies on their transformation journeys,?promising developments that remains locked away in pockets of the organization. Yes, the successes provide important capabilities and sources of value, but they fall well short of the ultimate goal - a digital-first enterprise that continuously improves and innovates to delight customers and lower costs faster than the competition. A great read!

Hope you are all enjoying Microsoft Ignite. Rember to register and see it on demand as well –https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/home

Until next time, have a great week and month ahead.