Tag: Microsoft cloud for financial services

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Microsoft Product Terms: November 2021


Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

The November 2021 Microsoft Product Terms contains quite a few updates!

Microsoft Managed Desktop

As an offering, it’s been available for a while as a bit of a hidden secret almost but now it’s in the Product Terms.

Microsoft Viva

A few additions here:

  • Microsoft Viva
  • Viva Learning
  • Viva with Glint* add-on added

which rounds out the Viva line-up in the Product Terms (I think!):

*Glint is a 3rd-party product that sits in a similar, complementary area – see more here.

Defender products

Another addition to the Defender line up as:

“Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS)” is renamed to “Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps”

I’m not 100% sure I agree with this name change as I feel it downplays the capabilities of MCAS as a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) for a start.

Additionally, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 1 has been added (see more here) and the existing version renamed to Plan 2.

Following on from the above, a new product has appeared…

App Governance add-on for “Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps”

This is a “security & policy management” product for OAuth-enabled apps that access Microsoft 365 data via the Microsoft Graph and aims to help organisations govern, detect, and remediate 3rd-party access to corporate data in Microsoft 365.

The integration of app governance with Azure AD and Microsoft Cloud App Security.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/app-governance-manage-app-governance

See more from Microsoft on this here.

Power Apps

A new “Power Apps per User” 2000 seat minimum SKU has been added – clearly Microsoft are seeing/expecting large scale rollouts of PowerApps…especially after its 202% year-on-year growth in Q1!

Productivity Servers

It was revealed a while back that the next releases of the Productivity Servers (Exchange/SharePoint/Lync), as well as Project, would be subscription only and now some of them have arrived in the Product Terms.

Just Project and SharePoint have been added currently but I’d imagine the same rules will apply to the other products. They are now officially known as:

  • Project Server Subscription Edition
  • SharePoint Server Subscription Edition

and active Software Assurance (SA) is required to run the latest “Subscription edition”. However, should SA lapse, you receive perpetual rights to run the 2019 version.

Microsoft Clouds

Two previously announced Microsoft Cloud products:

“Financial Services”

“Nonprofit”

have been added, as add-ons, to the Product Terms. They can be added on top of the following licenses:

Financial Services

  • Microsoft 365 E3/E5
  • Microsoft Project
  • Power Apps/Power Automate/PowerBI
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise
  • Dynamics 365 Digital Messaging
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
  • Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Voice

Non-Profit

  • Office 365 E3/E5
  • Microsoft 365 E3/E5
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  • Power Apps/Power Automate/Power BI
  • Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise
  • Dynamics 365 Marketing
  • Azure App Service

Non-Profit comes in 3 flavours:

  • Basic
  • Plan 1
    • Available to orgs with up to, and including, 250 total employees
  • Plan 2
    • Available to orgs with 251+ total employees

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New Microsoft Industry Cloud offerings


Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Back in May 2020, Microsoft announced Cloud for Healthcare – their first vertical specific cloud offering and it launched in October that year. Microsoft Cloud for Retail was announced in January 2021 and now, following Ignite 2021, they have announced three more:

  • Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services
  • Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing
  • Microsoft Cloud for Non-profit

Why ?

One of the great benefits of public cloud – the ability to pick and choose from an almost endless array of options and combine them in a seemingly infinite number of combinations – can also be a huge weakness. For some industries, it’s more important to have an “Out of the Box” offering that does what they need and, most importantly these days, be super secure while it’s doing it.

Plugging various different cloud services together is often where security gaps start to appear – a slight misconfiguration here, a forgotten port there – and that can means certain industries are less enamoured with the cloud. Equally, from a portfolio perspective, knowing which different products do exactly what you need and which ones can be combined to help you achieve your goals can be perplexing and overwhelming.

These pre-built cloud packages for different verticals aim to address both of those issues as well as introducing brand new features aimed at vertical specific issues.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

A combination of Microsoft products including Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Teams, Bing, Advertising among others, this is largely driven by changes brought about by COVID-19 and the (even greater) shift to online shopping. It focuses on areas of importance to Retail such as:

  • Personalising e-commerce for customers
  • Digital advertising
  • Worker collaboration
  • Anywhere purchasing
  • Customer service
  • Analytics
  • Inventory management

For more info, and to join the preview, check out the Microsoft Cloud for Retail website here.

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services

This combines products including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and Power Platform in a solution designed to comply with regulatory and compliance frameworks in what is a highly regulated industry. It offers functionality in key areas including:

  • Customer acquisition
  • Customer support
  • Loan management
  • Risk management

For more info, and to join the preview, check out the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services website here.

Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing

This vertical offering combines Azure, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, AI, HoloLens and more to address manufacturing specific needs such as:

  • Frontline worker enablement
  • Health & Safety
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • Supply chains
  • Selling in a digital world

The preview isn’t available yet (it’s expected by June) but for more info, check out the Microsoft Cloud for Retail website here.

Microsoft Cloud for Non-profit

This combines Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, Power Platform, and LinkedIn to help charities better connect with their supporters and volunteers, make better decisions, and reach their goals faster.

There’s not as much info available for this offering yet but you can see more here and register for a webinar to learn more about this offering on March 30th here.

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