Listen to this articleAvanade was founded in 2000 and is the leading provider of innovative digital and cloud services, business solutions and design-led experiences on the Microsoft ecosystem. Below is our recent interview with Katrina Zamets, General Manager at Avanade:
Q: Katrina, can you tell us something more about Avanade?
A: Our professionals combine technology, business and industry expertise to help make a genuine human impact on our clients, their customers and their employees. We are the power behind the Accenture Microsoft Business Group, helping companies to engage customers, empower employees, optimize operations and transform products through Microsoft technologies and solutions. We have 38,000 professionals in 25 countries, bringing clients our best thinking through a collaborative culture that honors diversity and reflects the communities in which we operate.
What you may not know about Avanade is that we are a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture, majority owned by Accenture. We have been the recipient of the Microsoft Partner Of The Year Award in many categories for 14 of the last 20 years. Eleven of those years were consecutive. We regularly commission independent research on what challenges businesses are facing globally while staying at the forefront of what emerging technologies are becoming available to solve them.
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Q: Can you put simply and tell us more about what specifically you do to help businesses with technology?
A: Avanade takes businesses on their digital transformation journeys to help them innovate, digitize, mobilize and optimize their technology infrastructure to improve their customer experience, employee experience, operations and resilience. We assess a client’s issues or current problems they are trying and need to solve. We then work closely with them to install the latest technology, cloud services and custom solutions to improve their overall operations, security and profits while preparing them for the future and making them as competitive as possible.
Many organizations are stifled by legacy applications and technologies and are not taking advantage of new technologies that are essential to stay competitive, attract the best talent, retain current clients and attract new ones. Think of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain and more. There is a fear of the unknown. Our research shows that a lot of organizations know they need to implement these technologies and accelerate their digital transformation but are unsure of how to do it. Never has this been more clear than during the Covid-19 pandemic, when companies had to pivot to a remote workforce in a very short time span. Avanade is one of the largest deployers of and advisors for remote working technology. We take enterprises on their digital transformation journey to ensure they are doing it the right way in order to have the biggest impact possible on their workforce and their clients.
Q: What impact are you seeing from Covid-19 on industry and business in general?
A: Covid-19 has had an immense impact on the world in every way, more so than any past health pandemic. Companies of all sizes, around the globe have had to rethink how they operate. As Satya Nadella put it, we’ve seen two years of digital transformation compressed into just a few months. Organizations have scrambled to adapt to employees working from home and the shift in employee experience and workplace culture that brings. Business applications have been pushed to the limits and sometimes to a breaking point, exposing the frailties of older business applications and legacy systems. Never before has the necessity of digital transformation and migrating to the cloud been more evident for the survival of businesses. Nobody wants to be this unprepared again. Covid made it clear just how vulnerable so many enterprises are. Those enterprises are adjusting and adapting their budgets and priorities to increase their resilience and make sure they are as prepared as possible the next time around. On a positive note, if businesses do invest in these efforts to digitally transform now, they will be much better prepared in the future and minimize any disruptions a future pandemic or crisis may bring.
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Q: ell us about your clients?
A: Avanade serves Fortune 1000 companies and beyond, around the globe. Innovation is at the core of what we do. And creating a genuine human impact is one of our core values. Our clients look to us for that innovation to achieve human impact for their customers and employees. We focus on manufacturing, retail and financial services but also have clients in oil and gas, healthcare, hospitality and insurance. And as part of a global corporate citizenship initiative, in recent years we have established our Technology for Social Good program, partnering with many nonprofit organizations to help them better reach their constituents and communities.
Last Updated on August 20, 2020
