Microsoft guru comes to Belfast
Microsoft’s Kieran McDonell will be speaking in the keynote theatre at the , to be held at the Odyssey Arena on 29th and 30th May. Taking ‘The World of Work’ as his topic, Kieran will be describing how companies can and should take advantage of technology to scale their reach and customer capture.
“Business today doesn’t happen face to face as often as it used to. Conference calls and email chains are the most usual forms of communication, which makes it challenging to get to know your business partners,” said Kieran. “With so many people worldwide and in Northern Ireland now working in virtual teams, many business relationships are dependent on technology. Communicating via technology is not ‘second best’, and to get the most from it you need to know which technologies are the right ones for your business and how to use them.”
One major development in professional work has been in the use of mobile. Industry analyst group Gartner has predicted that by 2015 mobile application development projects targeting smart phones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of four to one. For example, several high street retailers have followed in Apple’s footsteps and signed up to give customers their receipts electronically for the first time. Accessorize, French Connection and Monsoon are among the names to send their receipts digitally to the customer’s email. Local company AirPOS have supplied Pure Running who operate in the Belfast retail industry with a cutting edge ePOS and online ordering facility. Owner of Pure Running Michael Jenkins stated, “With over 25 years of retail experience we knew how much retail was changing and how quickly it would change in the future. The AirPOS system future proofs our business and will help us to reach new customers as well as staying in touch with our current customers better. We brought the power of the cloud into our shop and are bringing our shop to the world.”
Business agility is more than ever dependent on its IT. As businesses can only change to address new opportunities and fight off competition as quickly as their IT systems and projects allow, this agility is critical to the overall success of the enterprise. IT and business managers should be rethinking their whole approach to planning, developing, deploying and maintaining their critical business applications – or risk losing out to their competitors.
Microsoft are powering the new world of work at a faster pace than ever before, starting with Office 365, a system that allows you to run your business more efficiently. One feature, ‘Office Mobile Apps’ helps you stay productive and never miss a meeting, even when you’re travelling.
Get up – or stay up – to speed on this fast developing topic and follow Kieran’s advice at the , 29 & 30 May 2014.
