Richard Shepherd of Guardian Holdings. Photo by Navindra Harbukhan, courtesy Microsoft.
“At its core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We are working around the globe to reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organisation,” said Frances Correia, country Manager, Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago, Eastern and Southern Caribbean.
Correia spoke at the Microsoft Transform, Lead, Grow 2015 forum was held on Thursday 23rd April to a diverse group of local business and information technology (IT) professionals.
The forum, held at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business in Mt. Hope, was a sequel to the much larger M4: An Event by Microsoft – Reimagining Your Business in a Digital World conference, which took place on Thursday 20th November at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad in Port of Spain.
For Transform, Lead, Grow 2015, Microsoft T&T again welcomed regional and local Microsoft thought leaders, as well as speakers from other organisations. Senior professionals from both the private and public sectors attended and heard from these presenters on how to harness technology to deliver fluid customer experiences, optimize networking, improve decision-making, increase responsiveness and reduce cost, all while ensuring companys’ sensitive data is safe and protected.
In his presentation, Richard Shepherd, assistant vice president, Group IT Shared Services, at Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL), described the evolving worker.
“The modern worker is the mobile worker. That person is evolving and becoming more ubiquitous in our work environment. It is not just the executives or the agents, it is also the back office workers who want to go home at nights.”
“At Guardian Life, we have been doing things to overcome the challenges of the demands of this new mobile worker. We have about 2,500 employees and 40 per cent of those are mobile so that is a fairly large number of mobile workers. We also have small satellite offices we have to manage from time to time,” Shepherd said.
“We piloted it [Microsoft Office 365] about two years ago with about 300 people. We had a big mobile force out there that had access to it. Now we are moving the rest of the organisation to this programme. The benefit is that we have been able to launch a workflow quickly.”
Microsoft along with business partners Davyn T&T Ltd., CTTL – Caribbean Tech Trendz Ltd., Massy Technologies, Net Effect Caribbean Ltd., Teleios Ltd., Digi-Data Systems Ltd., and Courts, also hosted booths where they led hands-on displays, featuring solutions for forward-looking organisations wishing to maximize their capabilities.
“In Trinidad and Tobago, there is an opportunity for organisations to further develop. Through our network of local partners, our Microsoft team based in the market, and consumer-facing events, we will help companies capitalize on today’s top trends —including mobility, social, data and the cloud — with a connected, enterprise-grade solutions portfolio,” Correia added.
