Microsoft announces three new industry Clouds

Microsoft has recently announced three new industry-specific cloud offerings: Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Microsoft has also announced the first update to Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, and the public preview timing for Microsoft Cloud for Retail, introduced in January at NRF.

Microsoft has created industry clouds by bringing together common data models, cross-cloud connectors, workflows, APIs, and industry-specific components and standards, with the breadth of Microsoft’s cloud services, including Microsoft 365 and Teams, Azure, Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and security solutions. Through these industry clouds, Microsoft to empower everyone to deliver value faster, adapt quickly to changing conditions, build for the future and do all of this with security at the core.

Microsoft industry clouds also provide new opportunities to strengthen and extend for the last mile of industry execution. Partners bring new innovation and expertise to deliver tailored solutions for unique customer needs.

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services brings together Microsoft solutions, unique templates, API’s and additional industry-specific standards, along with multi-layered security and compliance coverage to deliver differentiated customer experiences, improve employee collaboration and productivity, manage risk and modernize core systems. Using these capabilities, retail banks can create a 360-degree view of the customer with greater insight and suggested next best action, embed digital collaboration into their process workflows to create real-time visibility to status and streamline hand-offs, enhance insights to help reduce fraud — all with the scalable and hybrid deployment options financial services organizations require to modernize their systems.

Available for public preview by the end of June, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing is designed to deliver capabilities that support the core processes and requirements of the industry. These end-to-end manufacturing solutions bring together new and existing capabilities across the Microsoft portfolio as well as partner solutions that together can seamlessly connect people, assets, workflows and business processes, helping organizations become more resilient.

Launching in public preview by the end of June, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit connects the trusted cloud capabilities of Microsoft to the most common nonprofit scenarios such as constituent engagement, program design and delivery, volunteer management and fundraising, all brought together by the nonprofit common data model.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail brings together different data sources across the retail value chain and uniquely connects experiences across the end-to-end shopper journey, using a set of capabilities that deliver more relevant personalized experiences and optimize operations for sustained profitability.

Using this industry cloud, retailers can build more targeted and relevant customer recommendations and notifications, expand their fulfillment options, simplify payment processing and benefit from comprehensive fraud protection. Currently in private preview, Microsoft Cloud for Retail will be available for public preview in March.