Indian CEOs using Microsoft Teams to rebuild businesses: Anant Maheshwari

The nationwide lockdown has made CEOs and CXOs, who were earlier against video calling, comfortable with Microsoft Teams in not just conferencing with customers but also doing actual collaborations and integrating business processes within the solution, a top Microsoft India executive has stressed.

According to Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, this one solution has taught people to actually work together and create together in this more than 50-day work from home environment.

"People who said listen, I don't want to do video or calling because I like to meet people in person, I see many of those executives and CEOs and CXOs being so comfortable with this now and actually saying, hey, this is giving me more opportunities to do many new things. So ideation is changing as it's happening," Maheshwari said at the recently held virtual Microsoft Envision Forum.

As new work norms evolve and we continue to work from home, organizations are realizing they need a comprehensive solution that brings communications, collaboration, and business continuity together on one platform.

In a session with Aarthi Subramanian, Group Chief Digital Officer for Tata Sons, Maheshwari said: "I've seen people move from just the need for video conference to collaborate, to actually get work done, to integrate business processes inside the solution".

For him, Teams is a huge canvas, a huge enabler because it goes way beyond video conferencing.

Going forward, "data and analytics will become really critical".

"There will be a lot of understanding of what data and analytics says. Companies and people will also say, I want to be more productive, so I need more data and more analytics coming to me as tool kits," he mentioned.

Next, enterprises will need to scale up this digital experience.

"Therefore, the power of the Public Cloud in terms of enabling that digital experience will be the key. More innovation will happen in the combination of public cloud, the data analytics and the collaboration process," said Maheshwari.

The governments will use technology a lot more as they are already doing in these pandemic times.

"A lot of government policy frameworks will change in the new normal. A lot of innovation is going to happen in the next few weeks and months as we live through this and emerge into a post Covid-19 world, hopefully soon," Maheshwari noted.

( With inputs from IANS )