From employee engagement to customer insights: four ways the cloud can unleash the power of business data

Data stored in the cloud can be made accessible to customer support agents, with summaries of the customer’s previous contact and pertinent specialist information. Photograph: Charday Penn/Getty Images

As organisations move their computing infrastructure into the cloud, they are harnessing the power of data as never before. Cloud-based services are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make data more accessible, easier to search and simpler to understand. Rather than data being the preserve of a team of data scientists and analysts, the new cloud-based tools and technologies are opening up this specialised area to a wider cohort of employees across organisations.

Leighton Searle, director of Azure Solutions UK at Microsoft, sees strong benefits for businesses that run their IT infrastructure through Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. “The huge potential of new generative AI technology has triggered renewed urgency and focus on the quality and availability of an organisation’s data,” he says. Once businesses migrate their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform they can instantly access tools and services to unlock its value for both employees and customers. This is leading to a transformation of company culture and the embedding of data more deeply across businesses.