Meet the Tech Exec: George Suda, CIO, Smile Brand Inc.

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MEET THE TECH EXEC
George Suda
CIO
Smile Brand Inc.

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To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.
George Suda joined Smile Brands Inc. as Chief Information Officer in January 2008. George is responsible for all of the company's technological systems and projects, plus he oversees all Central Business Office functions.
In his career George spent 11 years with Apria Healthcare, the country’s leading provider of home healthcare products, ultimately as the Executive Vice President and CIO. In this role George was responsible for managing all aspects of the information services strategy in all 50 states. He was responsible for making significant changes in the billing and collections process that had substantial effect on insurance denials and company Days Sales Outstanding.
George attended Oklahoma State University and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix and an Executive MBA from Chapman University, where he also received the Beta Gamma Sigma & Dean’s Award as the top MBA student. George continues to be involved at Chapman serving on the Board of Counselors.

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Tell us a little about Smile Brand and the role of IT within the company.  
We have about 400 offices across the U.S., and the IT department supplies all technical support to those offices including phones, data, management systems, reporting, financials, the whole works. We also support a lot of the x-ray functionalities, since it’s all digital, so we move somewhere in the vicinity of 30,000-40,000 x-rays per day across our network, across all locations. We have all phases of dental from general dentistry to oral surgery, so we have a lot of lines of business across the organization. Our help desk is in Texas of 10 employees, so they'll call our help desk first.   
What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?   
I wanted to be a pro football player. I played college ball and got injured and that was that. IT wasn't on my mind but after taking a couple of classes, I thought it was pretty neat.   
What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT?  What are they expecting you to look at?   
How can we better support them and all processes. We just brought on someone who's business analytics and process improvement to see how we could use tech to eliminate manual steps and improve processes. We've been continually doing a lot of development projects that work directly with the business leaders. I think we shifted more from short term projects to long term projects with the scope of projects expanding fast. We were always aligned with the executives but now we've more aligned with the development team to release a lot that is helping the business.   
How do you see the role of the CIO changing as IT becomes more essential to business operations? 
I think one of the big changes that I see is that IT has definitely gotten more complicated. Some of the traditional solutions we've considered in the past aren't looked the same as they used to be. The decision that we're making on technology are a lot different and there are a lot more web based solutions for us. There are more hybrid development solutions that are more viable now than they've ever been. With pay as you go, it’s a lot easier to do ROI rather than spending millions of dollars so you could scale with multiple applications.    
As a CIO, what is your biggest technology challenge or concerns for the upcoming year?   
Security is what keeps me up at night. It's eating up more and more of the budget and we're seeing more and more threats. It's what you don't know; before, security was pretty easy, but now we've got cloud based servers all over the place and there are threats coming from every direction. Keeping that environment up and making it top of mind is one of those things that we always have to address. It's one of those things that we constantly revisit and it takes up a lot of our conversations. A lot of companies think going to the cloud increases security issues but let me tell you: if you think any company can do security better than AWS, you're wrong. They put more money into security than most companies put in their IT budget.   
 What’s your take on public cloud vs. on premise?  
We are about 60% in the cloud now. We are big proponent of moving stuff to the cloud. In today's day and age its really difficult to get the skill set with all of the skills you need. We have another push to move data to the cloud in October – November. We do have servers for handling x-rays in our offices we won't move because if we lose connectivity to the network, we cannot conduct business. That's why we do have some data that we prefer to keep on premise.   
Has the idea of using cloud changed your mindset of using outsourced/Managed Services? 
We actually worked with a company to help move us to the cloud and we ended up firing them in three months. You really need to be careful with what you outsource because we don't want to end up held hostage. We ended up doing things quicker when we did it internally. We do pay a maintenance agreement with Amazon so we get some of their support which has worked fine for us. We use a diverse base of technology and the skills of the managed service provider we tried using just weren't where we needed them to be.; they tended to push us toward their wheelhouse rather than aligning with our project plan and getting us to where we wanted to be.   
 Have you had experience hiring millennials? If so how is this different from traditional hiring?   
We're doing a lot of web based java so it fits right into what we they are doing. We've hired a couple of people right out of college that have grown with the company. You need to make sure you're bringing them up; that you are aligning the salary with the skillset of millennials who are adapting quickly and bringing value to the organization. I used to be on the board of counselors at Chapman University and I am close with their dean of the business school, so I'm around young adults frequently.  
Do you feel IT still carries the title of a cost center rather than revenue driver?   
The closer you get to the business the more of a revenue driver you are. I got the call centers initially because there were problems with them and a lot of what goes on in the call centers is driven by technology. We were able to really put some analytics around it that added technology which allowed us to take more calls with the same amount of reps, driving revenue. To be successful, you need to be either driving revenue or cutting costs, but either way you need to be helping.  
 If you could give guidance to any CIO, IT Manager Director about how they position their careers what would you tell them?   
One of the things is when I get in meetings with the business people, I don't talk tech (bytes, servers etc.). That may be IT's job but that's not the business' job. I think you need to understand business first so you don’t confuse people with the other stuff. You need to understand and learn the business before you talk to the business people. If all you know is IT they are not going to listen. The only way to solve business problems is to understand those problems.   

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Meet the Tech Exec: Charles Podesta, CIO, UCI Health

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MEET THE TECH EXEC
Charles Podesta
CIO
UCI Health

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To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.
Over thirty years experience in Information Technology for Healthcare, the last eighteen years as a Chief Information Officer, Podesta has worked for Academic Medical Centers, Health Systems and Community Hospitals. He is currently the CIO for University of California Irvine Health. Previous to this engagement Podesta was SVP & CIO of Fletcher Allen Healthcare, a large academic medical center and health system in Burlington, VT.
Other positions included SVP & CIO at Caritas Christi Health Care, now Steward Health in eastern MA, CIO at Berkshire Health Systems, Pittsfield, MA, Director of IS and Interim CIO for Baystate Health Systems in Springfield, MA. And prior to that, leadership positions at St Vincent Hospital, Worcester, MA; UMASS/Memorial, Worcester, MA and Magee-Women’s Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA.
Over the years, Podesta has made numerous presentations at national conferences and is quoted widely in healthcare publications on a variety of IT topics including Epic’s Community Connect Program.

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What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?
I was interested in being a major-league baseball player or being in a band, and I currently play spoons for bands so I kind of made it. Maybe not with a real instrument but it’s fun, you can check out my YouTube account to learn more -just type in Chuck Podesta Spoons.
What innovative projects are you the CIO focusing on this year to support the vison and mission of UC Irvine Health?
We're currently working on a huge strategic project with UC San Diego, we're changing our electronic health records from all scripts base to the Epic system. UC San Diego has already migrated to this system and will be hosting us, which is saving us a lot of money being we won't have to build a system from scratch. We're doing it as a collaboration with UCSD so from a strategy perspective we'll have two independent academic medical centers on a single instance of that electronic health record. Patients that we both serve will be in a single database so when physicians access that information they could see patient data from anywhere in the UCSD or UCI network. We're moving to population value based care and strategically working together on joint programs serving areas that may be underserviced from a standpoint of health. Having a single electronic record between the two organizations really supports that effort both in Orange County and in San Diego.
We go live in November with this big project but parallel to that we’re looking at a single support model from an IT perspective between San Diego and UCI because if we have a single instance of the electronic health record we don't really need two IT teams supporting it separately. We're going through a process looking at where we can share and centralize resources with the implementation. It's pretty exciting, we'll be the first two academic medical centers on the same instance of electronic health record in the United States when we go live. It's never been done before. We're making the single support model scalable so other UCs could potentially take advantage of that as well to reduce costs. It's more about IT following strategy, making sure you create the IT components to follow your business strategy and being a key partner throughout the process.
What's your take on Public Cloud and how have you as the CIO improved academic healthcare workflows due to cloud technology?
I just had a keynote speaking engagement on a panel at a recent cloud conference. If you look outside of healthcare, yes everyone is moving to the cloud. The issue with healthcare has always been with the Protected Health Information (PHI) and as CIOs we have been nervous about moving that information to a cloud based system with the risk of having a breach. That's always been in the back of our minds with the thought of how fast you really should move to the cloud. Some of the technologies we use aren't architected for the cloud, which is another reason we've been slow to adopt, but now it's starting to rapidly move in that direction.
When we first started working on a recent analytics project, we had a large new data warehouse on premise that we just recently moved to the cloud. With HIPAA protection in place the savings are tremendous because now you're able to scale up or down and easily add more storage when its needed, making it a lot less expensive. We're seeing huge benefits from that right now so what I think you'll see is more and more movement going forward. Every time we look at a new
application we always look to see if we can run it from the cloud, either private cloud or public cloud. Now with all the security protection public cloud vendors are all moving in that direction, getting into the healthcare side of the business.
With our Epic project, both UCSD and UCI are having Epic host us on their private cloud at their large datacenter headquarters in Wisconsin. Electronic health will technically be in the cloud. If you talk to 100 CIOs you'll get 50% that express wanting to move to the cloud and the other 50% that aren't ready to move, I think we are at a crossroads. It's about timing, a few of us should try it; as we get a year or two down the road and see the savings without breaches the fear will be eliminated and others will get more comfortable.
What innovative projects are you the CIO focusing on this year to support the vison and mission of UC Irvine Health?
We're working with a start-up company doing quite a bit on the analytics side. We're building what we like to call an ecosystem with a new data warehouse. We like to call it an ecosystem because it's a living, breathing entity instead of thinking of it as a being a black box that receives information from all various sources like electronic health records or lab systems, mapping it to some data warehouse that you must update once a day for reporting. That worked in the past with Microsoft SQL but we're moving into a more native format wherever it comes from whether it be social media, IoTs sensor information, and again the electronic health record, tracking the data in real time and being able to use it right away. This way you don't have a bunch of people mapping the information, you've created a self-service environment. We now have dashboard graphics to display as data is refreshing in real time on a second by second basics, so they could start to use the data for research or operations. That's why we call it an ecosystem because what is looks like right now is different from what it looks like 30 seconds from now based on the data that its ingesting.
We're starting to do a lot of subscriptions with social media, it's amazing what's out there. Just from turning your location services on it's unbelievable with the amount of information being sent to the cloud. We could look at patients and see how they are using applications and how they prefer to collaborate, email vs. text messaging. If you’re going after a specific demographic with a message you could now see how you should target them based on the analytics.
With these analytics, we’re trying to create a personal experience designed to target a personal persona based on the data as a corporation group. Design an experience for patients without having to ask, we just know from the data insights. Part of how you get reimbursed is based on the patient experience. You're going to see a lot of Chief Experience Officers coming in to drive that experience into the healthcare space. We want patients to have a satisfying experience when they’re spending time to visit our facilitates.
What are your specific hiring challenges if any?
It's a very competitive area, Epic is one of the leading electronic healthcare systems along with Cerner, they probably take up 80% of market share between the two of them. Once you get on that specific platform it's hard to find talented professionals with those specialized skills and once they get the certifications in the product they become highly marketed, so consulting companies are recruiting your best employees. You need to get creative with some strategies, our UCI
undergraduate and graduate school is filled with smart engineers, as well as excellent students with math, science and even English majors. When you hire millennials right out of college and get them certified on Epic they get up to speed quickly because you’re trying to hire the best and brightest. I've had success managing and measuring success during my tenure at the University of Vermont where we would hire two or three millennials per year. Managing them is different. They produce very productive work but have a work hard, play hard attitude so actually work better and faster without a deadline. They enjoy completing projects so they could move on to the next thing, rather than waiting until the last minute when a deadline is provided. New graduates are also compensated at a lower pay scale so you may lose them after a few years as their pay scale goes up, if you manage them well they work very well. Don't get me wrong you also need to recruit employees with more experience, you should just leverage millennials as a strategic way to recruit.
What kind of messaging is coming down from key executives about their partnership with IT?
With the Epic implementation, our joint collaboration has been huge, we have 700 people across the organization working on this project. I just did a big presentation to our executive team addressing where we are on progress and the benefits in each of the areas whether it be revenue cycle or clinical, they are all looking for efficiencies within their area based on the new electronic health record. This is making nurses and physicians more productive while the revenue cycle is calculating charges we may be currenting losing so getting up in revenue by utilizing technology to empower the business going forward is key. Right now, we have a bunch of different systems but Epic will provide us with a single system that integrates efficiencies so everyone can really see where the information is flowing. That’s what they’re looking for right now. Our collaboration with UCSD is huge for us as they've been live on the system for a while now so they're educating us on how they are using it best.
If you won the lottery, what would you do?
I would start a foundation, build a school somewhere either in the United States in a poverty-stricken area or outside of the United States. That's something I've been thinking about anyway. I’m passionate about running marathons that support charities, so I'm at a stage in my life where I want to give back. I've been blessed with a wonderful family and life so I would definitely want to start a foundation that would give back in some way.
Has the idea of using cloud changed your mindset of outsourcing IT?
We still mainly handle IT inhouse but outsourcing, which we now refer to more as managed services has its place for certain things if you can get creative around that. I think outsourcing to other countries will slow down more, especially in healthcare. You really need to look at your core competencies and consider what you need to accomplish for them. We are outsourcing our datacenter to the cloud and letting those experts manage it as it’s not our core competency so I look at that as smart outsourcing.
If you could give guidance to any CIO about how they position their careers what would you tell them?
It’s interesting because it depends what they actually want to accomplish. Do they want to be a CIO or VP from an Operational standpoint? There is a place for both and depending on your work style you need to sit down and consider how you prefer managing and leading. Ask yourself the question, am I tactical and results driven when leading people day to day or do I like to sit back and look at what should be happening a year from now and take more of a strategic standpoint. Then you need to consider what both entail. I’ve seen employees get promoted to a VP or Director role and do extremely well there because they are hands on and could still patriciate in strategy but really excel in the day to day operations. I would say that role is 30% strategic and 70% technical from an operational standpoint. I’ve seen employees excel in these roles and get promoted to CIO and get lost, finding it hard to make that leap and start thinking in a unique way. You need to be introspective about yourself and really consider if you want that change because both roles are very important so if you excel as a Director or VP you could be very successful staying in that role rather than taking the leap. When I was in that role and interested in becoming a CIO I got a mentor who I asked to coach me in understanding the differences of the roles, so if you are ready for that leap there are defendable ways to achieve that but my initial advice would be to consider what role you would be more successful in as they are both very important.
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Risk Analysis for EOL Hardware & Security

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Risk Analysis for EOL Hardware & Security

One of the biggest benefits of modernizing business with the latest technology is that it is always changing - and updating. However, this means that companies constantly need to analyze their software, hardware, and security to see when certain products need to be updated, and how they should go about doing so. Many of the technologies businesses are using today go to end-of-life after six and twelve months, meaning risk analysis is vital to keep business disasters at bay.

The risks

End of life is a key moment to transition to a cloud-first, mobile-first environment. Managed Solution can help you with this transition. Key dates for Office products approaching end of life support:

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After 15 years in the outsourced IT industry, Managed Solution has learned the best, fastest, and smartest way to help our customers justify infrastructure investment and scale with the right technology roadmap based on their unique needs. From professional services to cloud infrastructure to managed services and more, let us partner with you on an IT strategy that delivers results fast.

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M&A Technology Integration

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M&A Technology Integration

Merger and Acquisition Technology Integration is becoming an integral part of accomplishing modern business goals. However, M&A Technology Integration is a notably risky business move, with a lot of failures often resulting from lack of successful execution strategies. In order to successfully integrate, companies must set up clear deliverables for the merge and acquisition process that includes strategic processes for IT professionals to managers to stakeholders. Follow these key tips for creating successful merger and acquisition technology integration that will provide exponential business growth.

Know your own infrastructure

Details about your own infrastructure will help not only the merging company, but also your own as you learn what you currently have, what you need, and how you can get it. Create an intricate map of your company's IT infrastructure that you can communicate to the merger company and other company executives to see if the M&A will be a feasible option. A good CIO should have a full understanding of what the company's IT architecture is, as well as what their strongest and most important systems are. This will help identify what the merger and acquisition technology should be, and how the company can use parts of their technology to achieve it.

Do Due Diligence

A significant factor in the success of M&A integration is performing due diligence. Companies and CIO's must clearly identify obstacles and liabilities. In order to prevent problems throughout the merging process, preventative measures can be taken to avoid certain liabilities and obstacles. Before the project even begins, CIO's should be able to fully assess the potential resources needed for the project, what they company can provide internally, and what might need to be outsourced for the successful M&A.

The Benefits

By successfully completing a strategic M&A technology integration, businesses are rewarded with a simplified, efficient, and effective business growth strategy. Using their advanced, premiere resources in the merger and acquisition, the company also benefits from the other resources, essentially getting the best of both worlds. Collaboration, efficiency, scalability, and security are all benefits of using M&A technology integration. By following precise steps and standards throughout the execution process, companies can find a successful integration that lasts beyond the first foundational steps of the M&A technology integration process.

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Finance to Fashion - Industry Leaders Look to Microsoft

In every industry, companies are looking to create more engaging customer experiences, empower employees, reinvent operations and transform products and services. To accomplish this, they look to technology. More and more, when companies work with us to envision their digital strategy across cloud, apps and devices, they do not just become part of a new wave of innovation — they help create it.

Building on recent announcements with organizations like NASCARBMWT-MobileKPMGBaidu and Dun & Bradstreet, Satya yesterday noted customers who are choosing Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365 and other solutions to propel their businesses. Here are a few examples from finance, fashion, logistics, retail and media companies.

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations, has selected Dynamics 365 as its cloud platform to digitally transform its customer engagement model. With 37 million customers and operations in 70 countries, HSBC needed a secure cloud solution and scalable infrastructure to support its client engagement and power a 360-degree relationship management program. This capability will help HSBC deliver high data integrity, reduce manual and time-consuming processes and innovate for future growth — all while ensuring data security and satisfying the unique regulations it faces as a global bank.

Moving from finance to fashion, Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana chose Dynamics 365 for its scalability, flexibility and reliability. Dolce & Gabbana is involved in every step of the fashion industry, from the purchase of raw materials to the sale on the market, and the company needed a solution to offer both a comprehensive view of its customers and the availability of finished products in each geographical area and for every sales channel. Dynamics allows the company to streamline processes and better plan production and distribution to ensure excellent service to customers globally.

When it comes to employee collaboration and the secure, modern workplace, industry leaders are choosing Microsoft 365, which combines Office 365, Windows 10 and security management in a complete solution to help simplify IT management. For example, FedEx, the global logistics and delivery services company serving 220 countries, pioneered industry standards for tracking and real-time monitoring for packages. Committed to a collaborative, modern workplace that supports its culture of innovation, FedEx is using Microsoft 365 to empower its workforce. FedEx also leverages the Azure cloud platform to build and power new services, such as its SameDay delivery service, securely and at scale.

 In addition, Staples, the North American business solutions provider, brings technology and people together in innovative ways to consistently deliver products, services and expertise that delights customers. Staples is in business with businesses. The company is passionate about empowering people to become true professionals at work. As part of its public cloud strategy, Staples has chosen Microsoft 365 to simplify its IT infrastructure and create a secure, seamless productive experience for its 24,000 corporate workers and 38,000 retail workers.

Finally, Hearst — one of the U.S.’s largest diversified media, information and services companies, with more than 360 businesses — has partnered with Microsoft to implement a public cloud strategy. Recently, the company chose Azure to power its storage and compute needs as well as improve disaster recovery. With Azure, Hearst is also exploring new opportunities in AI with cognitive services and machine learning to power more advanced digital customer experiences. Hearst also uses Office 365 for collaboration and productivity for its global workforce, and Enterprise Mobility + Security and Intune to secure employee devices.

My best days at work are when I talk to leaders of companies like these. It energizes me to see how Microsoft can help them bring to life their digital vision by addressing their needs today and laying the foundation for business success tomorrow.

Why do healthcare professionals choose Windows 10 devices?

3 Crucial Things to Consider for Building a Remote Workforce

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3 Crucial Things to Consider for Building a Remote Workforce

Source: Microsoft
The modern workforce is including more remote workers and flexible work policies. Companies that utilize remote employees see an increase in productivity, collaboration, and overall profitability. In order to successfully build a remote or flexible workplace, there are a few things you have to consider first.

Download the Infographic to Learn 3 Crucial Things to Consider when Building a Remote Workforce (and how to solve them)

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Managed Solution is in the top 1% of Microsoft Cloud Service Providers worldwide, and a premier partner aligned with Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Download our Cloud Comparison Calculator to receive access to the latest in cloud pricing aggregation, your all up cost of on premises vs. a cloud hosted solution

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Skype for Business drives digital transformation

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skype4b enables - managed solution

Skype for Business drives digital transformation

By Ron Markezich as written on blogs.office.com
Office 365 is a universal toolkit for collaboration with more than 85 million monthly active users, designed to address the unique workstyle of every group. Through integration with Outlook for email, SharePoint for intelligent content management, Yammer for networking across the organization, and Microsoft Teams for high-velocity, chat-based teamwork—Skype for Business is the backbone for enterprise voice and video meetings in Office 365.
As communication and collaboration become increasingly vital to the way work gets done, customers are turning to Skype for Business in Office 365 for all of their conferencing and calling needs. People around the globe conduct over one billion meetings per year on the Skype network, and usage of Skype for Business Online has doubled in the last year.
Today, as the annual unified communications industry conference Enterprise Connect kicks off in Orlando, we’re pleased to announce several new enhancements and partner solutions for Skype for Business in Office 365, which advance our goal of putting communication at the heart of productivity with Skype:
“Skype for Business Online is becoming part of our DNA.”
—Menakshi Sehwani, regional IT business partner for J. Walter Thompson Europe

A complete, enterprise-grade communications solution

This week, we’re releasing Auto Attendant and Call Queues, two new advanced calling features in Skype for Business Cloud PBX. Auto Attendant provides an automated system to answer and route inbound calls using dial pad inputs and speech recognition. Call Queues enable incoming calls to be routed to the next available live attendant in the order they are received.
This continues the rapid innovation over the past six months we have released into the service including:
With Skype for Business, companies can replace their legacy meeting and phone systems, and enable their employees to join meetings, as well as to make, receive and manage calls right within Office 365—all on any device. Skype for Business Cloud PBX also provides central management within the Office 365 admin console, making it seamless for IT admins to manage communications alongside email, content and collaboration.

Simplified manageability and control for IT

Today, we are also announcing a preview of Skype for Business Online Call Analytics—a new dashboard in the Office 365 admin console that gives IT admins greater visibility to identify and address user call issues, such as network issues or headset problems. Customers tell us some of the greatest benefits of moving their communications to the cloud are the ability to consolidate all their meeting and calling systems into a single solution and streamline provisioning and administration. Customers have also asked for more visibility into calling data to help address user support inquiries. Call Analytics provides rich telemetry data in real-time to help IT admins troubleshoot issues and improve the user experience.
In addition to investing in IT management capabilities like the Call Analytics dashboard, we also released new authentication capabilities to enhance security in Skype for Business Online, including multi-factor authentication for PowerShell, certificate-based authentication, and custom policies for client conferencing and mobility.
“We want IT at Henkel to be an enabler for the digital world of the future,
and with features like Cloud PBX in Skype for Business, we live up to that role.”
—Markus Petrak, corporate director of Integrated Business Solutions for Henkel

Making meeting rooms more effective

For meetings to be as effective and engaging as possible for all participants—no matter their location—groups need web and video conferencing with features like screen sharing, IM and whiteboarding. At the same time, organizations want to take advantage of the full Skype for Business experience while leveraging their existing conferencing assets. Today, Polycom announced their RealConnect for Office 365 video interoperability cloud service will be generally available in North America in April. The RealConnect service enables customers to connect existing videoconferencing (VTC) devices to Skype for Business Online, at a low cost of ownership, and with ease of provisioning for IT and simplicity for users.
“Polycom RealConnect for Office 365 simplifies the video world by connecting Skype for Business online users with those using other video systems,” said Mary McDowell, Polycom CEO. “This cloud service protects customers’ investments in existing video systems as it allows these users to join a Skype for Business meeting with a single click.”
In addition, this week Crestron is introducing its SR for Skype Rooms Systems solution. As a next-generation Skype Room System, the Crestron SR will deliver a full native Skype for Business experience and has been designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate with the Crestron control and AV systems. These Skype Rooms System solutions transform conference rooms of all sizes by providing rich audio and HD video and content sharing in the room. Remote participants have quick and easy join-meeting functionality and the ability to make phone calls. Customers are already seeing benefits from the Logitech SmartDock that was shipped in October of 2016.
“User adoption is critical for our IT success, and Logitech SmartDock with
Skype Room Systems makes it easy to collaborate over video.
The fact that it is highly affordable enables us to light up multiple rooms
for the price of a single traditional video conference room.”
—Franzuha Byrd, director of IT for Morgan Franklin Consulting

Business solutions on Skype for Business

Just as Skype for Business powers communication across Office 365, our partners and customers are taking advantage of Skype for Business APIs and SDKs to develop custom apps that bring real-time communications capabilities into line of business applications and enterprise solutions.
At HIMSS, we announced the availability of the Skype for Business App SDK and Office 365 Virtual Health Templates.Today, we’re pleased to announce that Enghouse has released its TouchPoint Attendant, one of the first attendant consoles tailored for Skype for Business Online.
From Enghouse, which is using Skype for Business to more efficiently route inbound customer calls with its new attendant console, to Smartsheet, which has incorporated Skype for Business into their collaborative work management platform, companies are making Skype for Business the backbone of custom communications scenarios.

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