The last six months have seen a flurry of announcements about Microsoft’s ‘industry clouds’ offerings. Cloud for Healthcare was introduced in October 2020, with early 2021 seeing a more expanded offering covering Financial Services, Manufacturing, Nonprofit and Retail. These new product suites represent a significant switch towards more verticalised offerings, tailored to particular vertical sectors.
Earlier in 2020 we also saw another significant switch aimed at better addressing the enterprise market. In July, Microsoft launched its Consulting Services business unit as part of its Cross-Industry Solutions group. The new unit is focused on strategic advisory, project guidance and implementation of Microsoft technologies.
These two moves mark a shift away from being a horizontally oriented products-only company towards providing a much more holistic set of vertical-specific services supported by consulting services for customization and implementation.
This report examines the capabilities and remit of the industry clouds and Microsoft Consulting Services and offers our perspectives on how valuable its offering will be to enterprise adopters.
