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Why could Microsoft play have so much impact?
Anyone with a basic understanding of #AI knows, having access to and use of relevant data to drive models is more critical than the models themselves.
The Microsoft edge
The Microsoft 365 suite is used by over 1 million companies worldwide, representing a huge data source of work performed by employees, and therefore a potentially extremely powerful data source to infer skills and proficiency levels on a companies workforce.
Microsoft also own LinkedIn, which is the largest professional network in the world, with professional data on nearly 1 billion of the worlds population.
Through their job advert platform they also hold market data on skills that are in demand and requested by employers through job adverts.
These advantages are large and this "platform advantage" has played out many times over in the past for Microsoft. It will be interesting to see the path of this offering develop over the coming months built on these data sets, and the enormous value that this could bring to support customers in this area.
Who could this disrupt?
A host of HR technology companies exist to support customers in identifying and managing the skills and capabilities within their workforce. Using Artificial intelligence to identify and organise large, complex data on their employees, as well as align it to global market standards from outside the organisation.
This includes a range of HCM software providers such as Workday, as well as a host of startups focused on best of breed approaches such as Fuel50 and Gloat, amongst others.
When is it available?
Microsoft are operating a private beta initially with a select group of customers, with the general release date for the solution currently having not been announced.
Privacy and adoption concerns
Once available, I would expect this to be an opt in solution for both companies, as well as at the employee level, with the success likely resting on Microsoft's ability to package this in such as way to as not raise privacy concerns for employees which is yet to play out, and provide value to both the company, and the employee in developing their career and skill set.
But what do companies do with the data?
With a rapidly evolving workplace and the emergence of new technologies, many companies are transitioning their workforce to a skills based organisation, to prepare them for the workforce needs of the future.
Microsoft and others solutions in this space can support in skill identification, however when it comes to transformation, this very much becomes a strategic workforce planning initiative.
Defining a strategy, identifying and correlating the required skills and amount of these skills with the size of workforce needed in order to achieve this strategy, and then performing gap analysis to plan for workforce training, redeployment, recruitment and other initiatives to close the future gaps anticipated.
Viridian - Specialist Pigment Partners are leveraging the leading strategic planning platform in Pigment to support customers in this journey. You can find out more through our upcoming webinar on our website on the topic of skills based and strategic workforce planning, or contact me directly if you interested in attending this, or would like a conversation on how this can support your organisations HR transformation.