We sit down with Aidan Forman, Associate Director of IT at Alzheimer’s Society, to talk about the biggest challenges facing the organisation and our partnership together.
Transcript:
Hi there, I’m Aidan Forman, and I’m the Associate Director of IT at the Alzheimer’s Society. In terms of the challenges that I’m facing working in an environment that’s a registered charity, the challenges mainly center around budgets and having the budget available to do the task at hand, as well as working with a lot of legacy technology. Over the years, charities have been really focused on delivering against their missions and haven’t always had the money to spend on their IT.
The challenges have evolved, particularly as data, AI, and technology around us continue to move forward. Keeping pace with this technological advancement is quite a challenge for charities. It means we’re having to invest more and try to keep up to deliver the same efficiencies seen in more corporate worlds. However, we’re noticing a trend where people are now investing as much money in the charity space, and the industry is moving forward in line with our corporate partners.
For us personally, Microsoft is a key platform that we’re investing in. Transparity plays across all of those Microsoft technologies and in all the different work streams aligned to Microsoft’s capabilities. It’s really important for us to have a partner that understands Microsoft as a pure-play partner. We feel that Transparity is the right fit for us, allowing us to work together to ensure that you’re delivering against our goals and objectives.
.NET MAUI stands for .NET Multi-platform App UI. It is Microsoft’s next-generation framework for building native applications across multiple platforms from a single codebase. Essentially, it’s the evolution of Xamarin, designed to simplify the development process by consolidating cross-platform projects (Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows) into one unified solution.
In a forward-thinking tech landscape, .NET MAUI offers a more innovative and streamlined approach than traditional methods. It doesn’t just make building cross-platform applications easier; it fundamentally rethinks how we build apps, enabling a more agile, efficient, and cohesive development process.
Using .NET MAUI, you can develop apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a single shared code-base therefore reducing development time and cost. It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products such as Azure, Microsoft 365, Sharepoint, SQL and more. It offers robust Microsoft-backed security and scalability for large businesses handling millions of users.
Microsoft and a Microsoft MVP have brought you an excellent free .NET MAUI eBook exploring Enterprise Application Patterns using .NET MAUI.
Following our deep dive into .NET MAUI and as more organisations start to make use of everything these advancements have to offer, this eBook is a great next step to explore a new area. This is not an introductory book and is designed for those already familiar with .NET MAUI who now need guidance on architecture and implementation for enterprise apps.
The eBook is available for download here.
Want to elevate your business but don’t have the resources in-house?
Get in touch for expert insights that boost your cross-platform skills.
Before Copilot, our Sales Specialists, like Jamie Cronk, had to balance customer calls, detailed note-taking, and proposal creation, which was time-consuming and prone to human error. By using Copilot in Teams and Word, our Sales team have reported a really satisfying increase in productivity and accuracy.
“I now record or transcribe every meeting by default. This allows me to be more present on the call, and also ensures that Copilot has all the necessary information to generate meeting notes and next steps, saving me from having to multitask during the call.
Meeting notes gives me an extra edge as I can now send this information to my customers less than an hour after the call ends, providing them with a better customer experience and a more consistent and convenient format they can rely on going forward.
Finally, after I’ve reviewed and made any necessary adjustments to the document, I’ll ask Copilot in Word to add an executive summary to the document before sending it off, in half the time it would have taken me pre-Copilot.”
Use the Meeting options in Teams to set certain meetings to record automatically, so you don’t have to remember to hit that button!
If you work on a Service Desk, you know how challenging and rewarding it can be. You have to deal with a variety of technical issues, user requests, and deadlines. You also have to keep learning new skills and updating your knowledge. That’s why Copilot is such a valuable tool for Alex Anderson, our Head of Support and his team of Service Desk Engineers. It helps streamline workflows, improve communication, and increase productivity. Here’s what Alex has to say about it.
“One of the things that Copilot in Teams does really well is answer specific questions about a call with a user. We can ask Copilot in Teams during or after the call, and it will provide us with the relevant information and suggestions. This saves us time and effort, as we don’t have to search for the answers ourselves or rely on our memory. We can also add the information that Copilot in Teams gives us to the ticket notes, so we can document the issue and the solution more accurately and clearly.”
“Another way that Copilot helps us is by making it easier to create training guides. We use Copilot in PowerPoint to generate slides that explain how to perform certain tasks or troubleshoot common problems. Copilot in PowerPoint also helps us to make our slides more engaging and appealing, by adding custom images directly into the slides based on the content, without having to search for them. We use these guides to share our expertise and best practices with our colleagues, especially new or junior members of our team.”
“We also use Copilot in Word to create and update technical documentation. This includes user guides, knowledge base articles, and policy documents. Copilot in Word helps us to write faster, better, and more consistently, by suggesting improvements and corrections. Copilot in Word also speeds up the review process, by highlighting any errors or inconsistencies and offering solutions.”
“Last but not least, Copilot in Edge is a powerful ally for our technical teams, especially when we need to learn new skills or troubleshoot technical issues. Copilot in Edge can replace Google search almost entirely, as it can provide us with the most relevant and reliable information from trusted sources. Copilot in Edge can also help us to find the best online courses, tutorials, and forums, where we can learn from other experts and peers.”
Enable the option to use Copilot in meetings without recording by setting up the relevant Teams Meeting policy . This enables you to be able to query Copilot during the meeting even if recording/transcription is not turned on at the start of the meeting.
Learn more here: Use Copilot without recording a Teams meeting – Microsoft Support
For finance professionals, working with complex formulas and large datasets can be challenging and time-consuming. Harriett Gray, our Finance Director, has discovered how Copilot in Excel can simplify and optimise finance activities, making her more productive and confident in her data analysis.
Before Copilot, it could be a struggle to quickly verifying the formulas and calculations in Excel spreadsheets that had been created or populated by someone else. The team also spent a lot of time formatting and highlighting data manually, which was tedious and prone to errors.
With Copilot, Harriett and her team have found a smart and reliable assistant that can explain formulas, format data, and perform tasks with natural language commands. She can ask Copilot to show her the percentage of total revenue from each region, highlight the lowest five budgets in a column, or add a column that combines the customer’s first and last name. She can also use Copilot to reconcile financial data with partial matching, which saves hours of manual work.
The result? A significant improvement in efficiency and accuracy, allowing Harriett to focus on more strategic and value-added tasks. Copilot doesn’t just simplify data analysis; it enhances the collaboration and communication between finance team members, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and understands the data sources and calculations.
Harriett’s workflow is a testament to the benefits Copilot brings to her role. She is excited about the upcoming features that Copilot will offer, such as variance analysis, which will help her identify and explain the differences between actual and expected results. She is also looking forward to learning more about how Copilot can leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide insights and recommendations based on data.
Harriett’s story is a powerful example of how Microsoft 365 Copilot can be a game-changer in the finance industry. By handling the data complexity, Copilot empowers finance professionals like Harriett to excel in their roles, providing them with the tools to be more efficient, accurate, and insightful.
Learn more here: Overview of Microsoft Copilot for Finance 2024 release wave 2 | Microsoft Learn
As a Managing Director for our Data & AI Practice, Alister Jones works with multiple customers and projects every week, requiring him to stay on top of numerous communication channels and platforms. He knows how challenging it can be to keep track of all the emails and Teams messages he receives, especially when working across different time zones and deadlines. That’s why he leverages Copilot for Microsoft 365, to help him stay organised, productive, and responsive.
Copilot is an intelligent assistant that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 applications, providing Alister with personalised insights and suggestions based on his needs and preferences.
Here’s how Alister uses Copilot to streamline his daily workflows.
“Every Monday morning, I ask Copilot in Outlook to show me what I need to prioritise from emails and Teams messages received in the last week. Copilot scans my inbox and chat history, and summarises the most important and urgent messages for me, highlighting any action items or deadlines.”
“Throughout the week, I use Copilot in Teams to remind me of any messages I haven’t replied to yet in the past two days, or to give me a recap of the conversations around project X this week. Copilot helps me stay on top of my communication, ensuring that I doesn’t miss any important updates or requests from customers or colleagues.”
With Copilot, Alister can work more efficiently and effectively, without worrying about forgetting or overlooking anything. Copilot also helps him build better relationships with his customers, as he can respond faster and more accurately to their needs and feedback.
If you’re coming back from a holiday or a long break, you might feel overwhelmed by the amount of emails and messages waiting for you. Why not ask Copilot in Outlook to “catch me up on emails from the past two weeks. Organise and summarise by topic”? Copilot will group your emails by subject and provide you with a brief overview of each topic, so you can quickly get up to speed and decide what to do next.
Transparity – the UK’s most accredited Microsoft partner delivering managed services in Cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) – today announced an agreed investment from private equity firm Bowmark Capital. Transparity will use the investment to supplement its strong organic growth and to fuel growth via M&A in the UK and Europe and by creating new jobs to serve its growing customer base and to address increasing customer complexity.
Transparity will also create a Cloud and AI skills academy, building on its existing apprenticeships offering, to help UK graduates and workers who want to learn new skills. This will qualify academy graduates for over 50 future roles at Transparity, in addition to roles at other Microsoft partners and tech firms across the UK.
According to UK government research, approximately 1 in 8 (13%) businesses report that they are currently using some form of AI as of June 2024. Transparity is already playing a key role in helping businesses across the UK to better leverage cloud services and to embrace AI to improve business outcomes.
Transparity helped the Dorset and Intelligence Insight Service (Diis) to link up their data and offer the organisation deep insights into their patients, hospitals, GPs and more. This allows DiiS to improve the care they deliver and think more strategically about which areas need investment – a critical factor in utilising NHS funding in the best possible way.
Transparity is working with UK-based technical consulting firm BMT to leverage generative AI in their daily work with customers. The firm is seeing increased productivity and delivery across their entire team and see their use of AI as a competitive advantage in winning new business.
In their work with Total Security Services, Transparity helped them to create a risk model to assess the placement of guarding services in UK retail. This in turn allowed TSS to offer a more cost-effective service to its customers, but doing so without impacting staff wellbeing and shrinkage metrics. Theft remains the leading contributor to retail shrink at circa 66% according to industry reports, and shrinkage rates have been climbing, making any tool that combats this trend a vital addition.
In a joint statement David Jobbins, Chairman and Paul Bolt, CEO of Transparity said, “Today is a huge milestone for Transparity and we are excited to partnering with Bowmark who share our vision for creating new jobs, upskilling in cloud and AI and a considered M&A strategy that looks at capability, scale and geography. We’re also excited to expand our Transparity Academy to invest in upskilling graduates and wider team members in the UK in cloud and AI – essential skills for the future ahead of us. We cannot wait to get started.”
Bowmark Investment Director, Fiona McCormick, added: “We are delighted to be supporting such an impressive team who have built a genuinely differentiated, high growth business. Transparity’s combination of technical depth, employee-centric culture and Microsoft alignment mean that it is strongly positioned to deliver transformative outcomes for its customers. We look forward to helping Transparity capitalise on the significant opportunity ahead.”
At Transparity, our mission is to empower our employees and customers through innovative AI solutions, enabling them to achieve more in less time and with less effort. The introduction of Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been a game-changer in this pursuit.
By integrating Copilot into our operations, we’ve significantly enhanced employee productivity. Our team now works smarter and more seamlessly, giving us first-hand experience of how to help our customers reap these benefits.
“I’m thrilled with the productivity and well-being impact we’ve seen. Our approach has empowered employees to fully utilise Copilot and now we’re excited to support our customers on their own adoption journey.”
Jodie Rodgers, Transparity Chief AI Officer
Empowering Our People
We identified key user groups that would benefit most from Copilot and tailored training to maximise their productivity. This training was delivered through ongoing sessions and reinforced through communications, storytelling and reporting, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Three-Phase Rollout
“Copilot has enhanced my daily work efficiency and quality. I’m more present in meetings, trust Copilot’s notes and actions, and use its content creation to speed up and improve proposals and sales materials.”
Tom Lloyd, Azure Pre-Sales Consultant at Transparity
We fostered a Copilot for Microsoft 365 Teams community with a Resource Hub and weekly tips to encourage self-learning. We also ran ‘office hours’ clinics twice a week for users to ask experts about Copilot.
This strategic programme has led to Copilot licences being assigned to 60% of our employees, of which there are over 90% active users’ month-on-month (vs. an original target of 40%). This has been achieved in fewer than 100 days, a considerable feat and even more impressive when compared with Microsoft’s benchmark. Two-thirds of our employees report improved work quality and productivity, while almost three-quarters spend less time on repetitive tasks.
“Copilot is your ultimate meeting sidekick! It highlights key info and details post-meeting actions for each participant, ensuring clarity and accountability. It’s like having a personal assistant who never misses a beat!”
Alison Evershed, Senior Leadership Team Business Partner at Transparity
Encouraged by this success, we are planning more activities to boost engagement with Copilot. If you’re looking to embrace the power of Copilot for Microsoft 365, here are a few steps to help you get started!
Copilot for Microsoft 365 leverages large language models that interact with your organisation’s data using Microsoft Graph to generate personalised experiences with related context, reducing the steps to find the information you need and generate content.
In today’s business world, the importance of applications only continues to grow. Whether cloud-based or on-premises, custom-built or vendor-provided, they govern organisations’ critical front- and back-end functions.
Even slight fluctuations in their performance can spiral into problems, ranging from short-term downtime and customer dissatisfaction to severe operational failures. Maintaining close control and oversight of app performance is thus extremely important, but not every organisation is equally capable of establishing or maintaining that level of control without assistance.
Application management services from expert providers represent a dependable solution for businesses lacking sufficient resources or experience to keep a firm hand on app operations at all times.
In this blog, we’ll closely examine the purview of application management services and what to look for in a provider of them, as well as the clear bottom-line benefits they can offer. We’ll also look at how the managed application service offering from Transparity can be a critical IT advantage for Microsoft-based organisations.
THE INVISIBLE (AND VERSATILE) HAND: FUNDAMENTALS OF APPLICATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES
Though it originated in an American advert, the phrase “set it and forget it” is now a ubiquitous English-language idiom. It comes to mind as a characteristic of any effective application management service for the client. While the team managing your application will take the opposite approach – ensuring nothing is ever forgotten.
It must offer peace of mind through unwavering reliability: Organisations that are outsourcing the management of their critical apps should rest assured that day-to-day application operations ranging from virtual machines (VMs) to containers are being looked after by experts. Users of these services can thus pivot internal IT personnel and resources away from daily management and toward critical business priorities.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND CODE OVERSIGHT
Principally, managing business applications for third-party clients involves keeping a close eye on both the infrastructure of apps and the underlying code and functionality of the app.
Support for the former can and should be provided on a 24/7 basis: This is typically accomplished through a combination of automation (e.g., cloud tools like Azure Pipelines and Azure Automation) and availability (having support desks covering multiple time zones).
It may not be possible to address every infrastructure issue automatically or immediately. But geographically wide-ranging support means nothing occurs undetected overnight. Also, an effective infrastructure team typically establishes a triaging process to ensure that the most detrimental and downtime-producing circumstances (Severity 1 or 2 outages, for example) are treated with the most urgency.
Code management requires the involvement of developers. In fact, it’s important to be methodical when delving into code and/or configuration, as even a small mistake — one that might easily result from rushing — could have a severe negative impact on an app’s functionality and efficacy. But regardless of speed, code oversight is just as important as infrastructure support when managing apps. Indeed, offering one and not the other would be all but pointless.
Additionally, developers providing the most effective code support will follow agile best practices, to ensure any configuration or code changes allow for flexibility and continuous improvement — ideally helping to mitigate the need for frequent troubleshooting and strengthen app functionality in the long term.
MANAGING APPS OF DIFFERENT ORIGINS
Most organisations that provide application support, monitoring, and other oversight services aren’t solely specialising in those duties; typically, they also develop custom apps and have other complementary offerings.
The specifics of the latter vary and can range from integration management to cybersecurity. The former should be a much closer focus of any business looking to outsource the responsibilities of application management: Does the vendor you’re considering only take over this duty for apps that it originally wrote, or can it provide ongoing management for apps developed in-house or by previous partners of yours?
Caveats do apply in this area. For example, you wouldn’t expect a managed services provider (MSP) that specialises in support for apps built in Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure to suddenly manage a custom app developed within Google Cloud, or vice versa.
Also, application management generally offers the greatest value after the service provider has had an app within its care for enough time to have reasonable knowledge of the source code. But things like that aside, a dependable MSP in this field should be able to manage apps written by others just as well as those written by its developers. Having that kind of versatility means greater reliability and more peace of mind for you.
KEY APPLICATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES BENEFITS
At close of play, what matters most for any business tool is its contribution to meeting pertinent goals in the short term and its medium- and long-term value to the bottom line.
Applications are no exception. If you lack the budget, resources, or expertise to directly handle app management, that doesn’t mean you can’t maximise their business value — you just need the right partner on your side.
Some of the most important benefits of receiving application support and oversight as a managed service include:
DRIVE APP EXCELLENCE WITH TRANSPARITY’ MANAGED APPLICATION SERVICE
All of the capabilities and benefits detailed above are part and parcel of what we call the “superpowers” of the Managed Application Service from Transparity, covering both Azure cloud resources and applications built for the Microsoft platform.
We offer comprehensive and holistic coverage for your business apps, whether we built them, collaborated with your team to develop them, or had them transitioned to our care from a previous provider. Cloud monitoring and support is 24/7 through our incident response and support teams in the U.K. and abroad. Meanwhile, our application support team takes the utmost care with the configuration and code of your apps. If one or both must be changed to address a problem, they take an agile approach to doing so and thoroughly test after any alteration.
Partnering with Transparity for your application management means you can rest assured that apps function as they should and will be efficiently remedied if things go wrong. Also, a dedicated Service Delivery Manager is assigned to you, reviewing our management of your apps via quarterly reporting, trend monitoring, and strategic advice.
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner in Digital and App Innovation for Azure, we have the experience and resources to closely manage your apps so they serve your business needs most effectively.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about the Managed Application Service.
We are delighted to announce that we have once again been awarded the prestigious Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP) status. This recognition is granted to the most capable and knowledgeable Azure experts who demonstrate exceptional expertise in managing and optimising Microsoft Azure environments. Together with our 14 Microsoft Specialisations, this means Transparity continues to be the UK’s most accredited Microsoft Partner.
“Recognition against the demanding requirements of Azure Expert MSP for the third time is a testament to the dedication and excellence of our teams in their delivery of our Managed Services.
Expert MSP is the benchmark in validating Partners’ technical capability across Azure, but just as importantly it recognises the effort invested into process, strategy, and consistent engagement with customers. We’re delighted to be an ongoing part of this elite community.”
Kelvin Papp, Chief Technology Officer at Transparity
As an Azure Expert MSP, Transparity offers end-to-end support through our Azure cloud expert consultants and architects. Aiding you in moving to the cloud, unlocking the potential of your cloud environment and ensuring Azure continues to be the cost-effective and efficient platform you need it to be.
Transparity’s direct relationship with Microsoft as an Azure CSP gives clients access to enterprise-grade customer benefits
Whether you are looking for short or long-term consultancy, a fully managed service or a licencing option through a cloud provider (Microsoft CSP) we’ve got you covered. In fact, as an Azure Expert MSP, leading direct Azure CSP Provider and a pureplay partner with multiple specialisations, you can have the confidence that our Azure cloud specialists can deliver on your cloud goals.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you with your next Azure project, please get in touch with us today.
“Renewing our Azure Expert MSP partner status demonstrates our capabilities as one of the top Azure partners globally, and it rubber stamps the high quality of the services we provide to customers. We help organisations solve complex business challenges with Microsoft cloud technologies, and they look to us as experts in providing the best experience when migrating and modernising workloads onto the Azure platform.”
Tim Hannibal, Chief Partner Officer at Transparity
Having once again been named among 2023’s Best Companies to Work For – climbing to an impressive #32 overall – UK Microsoft powerhouse Transparity has now been rewarded with Best Companies’ prestigious and much sought after 3-star employee engagement accreditation for 2024.
Recognised as the UK’s de facto workplace engagement benchmark, Best Companies describes 3-star status as its highest level of acknowledgement ‘representing organisations that truly excel’ and deliver ‘world class levels of workplace engagement’ – and having achieved the award, Transparity Chief People & Culture Officer, Neil Tune, is especially proud and delighted.
‘Receiving official recognition and industry awards is always nice of course’, he comments. ‘But based, as it is, directly on the confidential, anonymous, personal feedback of our employees, this accolade is particularly special and so really does mean a tremendous amount more than most.
‘That was one of our prime motivations for working with Best Companies and its renowned employee engagement model. It also marks out this employee-backed endorsement as a huge feather in Transparity’s cap. It is a massive affirmation of both what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it. There’s also no greater testament to the amazing people working across every facet of our organisation.’
Transparity CEO, Paul Bolt, wholeheartedly agrees, describing Best Companies’ latest rubber stamp as a major endorsement for the company’s people driven, Winning from Anywhere® philosophy.
‘We are collectively focused as a leadership team to ensure that all our people are heard, valued, recognised, and most of all trusted. Trusted every day to do their best work, learn, and develop. So it’s great, in turn, for the organisation to be recognised by those people in this way.’
The company isn’t done yet though, he insists.
‘While this is a big moment and an important milestone on our journey, it only heightens our determination to keep improving, keep redefining boundaries, and keep striving to be the kind of business people don’t just like working for, but love working for.’
Tune concurs, concluding: ‘It’s a compelling dynamic. An award recognising employee engagement that comes straight from our employees themselves.
‘Our people – the incredible individuals who make us who we are – enabled this recognition, and it’s our unending mission to build on that acknowledgement by continuing to provide outstanding workplace experiences. We’re already looking forward to seeing where we’ll place in the 2024 Best Companies listings.’
The announcement of Transparity’s increase from two- to three-star status follows November’s Best Companies 2023 awards ceremony in which Transparity were recognised as being among ‘those organisations most dedicated to ‘Making the World a Better Workplace’’, climbing to 32nd overall in the mid-sized category and 16th in UK tech.
I start this blog post with a simple and yet important note, I have written (almost) every word of this article. Now, this may seem like a strange way to start but with the recent exponential rise in the use of generative AI then it seemed pertinent to me to state that these words are mine.
But you might be thinking “Of course you would say that, but how do we know?”
Well, dear reader, that is an excellent question.
How can a person tell what has been written by a person and what has been written by a machine? Well, I am going to tell you a secret, machines don’t truly write anything, this is because to write requires inspiration and, at the moment at least, machines are not capable of that level of inspiration. This is what differentiates us from a large language model such as ChatGPT or LLAMA.
Now, that is not to say that machines will never be able to achieve this but at the moment we are the ones having semi-original thoughts and ideas. I say “semi-original” because we too draw ideas from other sources. But, unlike machines, we can take ideas several steps away from the original source – and that’s what I want you to take away from this article, that we are the ones feeding LLM’s with new ideas.
I think this notion gets lost sometimes, but in my opinion it’s one we should hold on to. As a bit of background, I currently lead a group of data scientists and AI professionals who work with a variety of technologies to help our customers get involved with AI. So, for me, it’s incredibly important that we continue to innovate for ML/AI to continue growing. I like to think about AI more as the writers of the movie “Chappie” did rather than the classic 80’s Skynet creators did. By this I mean that AI is more like a child we should be nurturing and teaching, rather than manipulating or misusing.
It’s only then that we can truly work together to achieve our goals. The explosion of generative AI-powered technology however appears to be following a similar trend to other world-changing technologies.
When we got televisions, we ended up with couch potatoes. When we got search engines, we ended up with “Digital Dementia”. Now that we have document writing super engines, we could end up with the death of human innovation. But like its predecessors who gave us the ability to share news or ideas or stories across the world, there is huge potential for generative AI to give us access to wonderous new things, as long as we continue to work together rather than having it do all of the work.
I leave you with this thought, similar to the bootstrap paradox, if AI creates art and stories based on what humans have produced, and humans start creating art and stories based on what AI has produced, then who will be the creator of the worlds next future masterpiece?
