Index,ArticleLayoutID,ArticleTitle,ArticleNavText,ArticleBody,Headline,ChallengeText,SolutionText,ArticleQuote,QuoteAuthor,ArticlePhoto,ArticleLogo,ArticleVideo,QRCode,ReadMoreText,Sort1,Sort2,Sort3,Sort4,Sort5,Sort6,Sort7,Sort8,Sort9,Sort10,Sort11,Sort12
1,C1,Mandarin Oriental,Upgrade Operations,,Office 365 Upgrades Mandarin Oriental Operations,"The 28 hotels of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group span Asia, Europe and North America. Each site had multiple on-site servers with dozens of applications requiring round-the-clock maintenance. Poor reliability and high costs slowed business growth.",Mandarin Oriental built a mobile communications system on Office 365 that increased productivity in the complex IT environment. Now staff can collaborate in real-time and manage always-on IT systems while reducing cost and carbon footprint.,"“Office 365 allows us to bring everyone on the same platform, which makes it easier to access the features and functionality we’ve wanted. At the same time, [it] will save us more than 20% in costs over five years and significantly reduce our carbon footprint.”","Raju Daryanani
Vice President, IT Infrastructure and Information Security
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_08_Mandarin_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_08_Mandarin_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_08_Mandarin_Video.wmv,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_08_Mandarin_QR.png,"CHALLENGE

As the owner and operator of some of the world's most high-end luxury hotels, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group currently owns and operates 28 hotels spanning Asia, Europe and North America.

Each of these properties was running its own on-site servers, ranging from 25-40 servers running 2-3 dozen applications simultaneously, which required round-the-clock maintenance from the Group’s IT team. A patchwork approach to upgrades led to poor reliability, higher costs, training and development challenges, slowed business growth, and limited collaboration. 

The Group wanted to unify its communication and collaboration systems under a single cloud-based service in order to increase overall efficiency in such a complex IT environment and ensure timely service upgrades. 

After evaluating many options, the Group decided that Office 365 was the only solution it felt could provide the functionality it needed.

SOLUTION

The solution saves cost and time for the IT team, reducing the hours needed to manage email servers and the cost and complexity of the overall management of each property. The Group expects to save more than $500,000 over five years per hotel with Office 365. And the 99.9% SLA means much less frustrating downtime for customers who operate 24/7.

They’ve also strengthened internal collaboration and social networking with Lync Online for virtual staff meetings. Yammer helps staff resolve common problems and share best practices more freely. SharePoint allows staff to work on documents simultaneously from different locations. Exchange Online provided support for a variety of mobile devices and smartphones, letting staff answer email from anywhere and store email in one place, rather than on individual PCs.
",1,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2
2,C1,Infusion,Partner Spotlight,,Infusion and the 9/11 Memorial,"The 9/11 Memorial approached Infusion with a vision to use technology to honor the lives of 9/11 victims, and examine the day’s continued global significance. The challenge involved creating an interactive, web-based, and scalable registry.","Microsoft Azure’s dynamic cloud platform allowed the registry to scale so everybody’s names and stories could be captured, engaged with, and reflected on the scroll of honor.","“This solution has had a considerable impact already. As of September last year, over 500 witnesses and survivor’s memories have been captured. 900 memorials and over 7,000 rescue and recovery worker’s stories are now live in the registry.”","Kayla Spiess
VP of Partnerships, Infusion",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_Infusion_Nav.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_Infusion_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_Infusion_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_Infusion_QRcode.png,,2,1,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3
3,C1,Operation Smile,Raising Efficiency,,Microsoft Helps Operation Smile Excel,"Operation Smile provides surgery to children around the world with cleft lips and cleft palates. After 32 years, the cause of the facial deformity is still unknown, and a large base of volunteer surgeons still keeps track of many processes by hand.","A new system of online document sharing, electronic medical records, and data analytics helps Operation Smile increase efficiency, allows surgeons provide better care for their patients, and lets the organization reach more patients worldwide.","“Capturing data on patient demographics as well as difficulties encountered during surgery could shed some light, for instance, on medications, procedures or conditions involving a higher risk of complication for specific groups so we can better prepare for surgery.”","Dr. Ruben Ayala
Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs
Operation Smile",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_10_OperationSmile_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_10_OperationSmile_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_10_OperationSmile_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_10_OperationSmile_QR.png,"CHALLENGE

One father born with a cleft lip and palate still carries memories of a childhood marred by cruel taunting because of his facial deformity. It wasn’t until he was 22 that he received an operation that corrected the defect and enabled him for the first time to speak clearly and be understood by others.

Now, Nguyen Van Dinh, 42, has a 7-month-old daughter who is being prepped for an operation that would change her life forever, setting his little girl on a path that he had as a child hoped for himself.

Each year, Operation Smile performs an average of 180 international missions, including the one held on the grounds of the Vietnam-Cuba Friendship Hospital in Hanoi, where Dinh’s daughter was treated. 

In 32 years of bringing help to those in need, Operation Smile has treated hundreds of thousands of patients and seen many others, collecting data about the children they treat and the environments in which they live. Despite this wealth of information, however, the organization and others like it have yet to determine the root cause of the facial deformity.

During its recent Hanoi mission, the organization rolled out a digital patient assessment process for the first time. All data was collected using a new electronic medical records system from Microsoft partner Slainte Healthcare. Images of cleft lips and cleft palates were captured and uploaded, along with weight, hemoglobin level and other health-related information needed to assess the patient’s suitability to undergo surgery.

SOLUTION

For Operation Smile, electronic health records are the vital link between past, present and future patients. With medical records digitized, Operation Smile is ready to scale up deployment so it can run more missions and reach more patients worldwide.

As Operation Smile expands its understanding of the causes of cleft lip and palate deformities and its scope to be able to provide more frequent missions, the organization aims to treat more patients as early as possible so they never have to experience hurtful teasing.

Asked how he felt now that his daughter would have a chance to grow up without the difficulty he endured, Dinh was too overcome to respond. Regaining his composure, but with tears in his eyes, he says, “I want to thank Operation Smile … I don’t know why they would do this and help so many of us, but I’m very thankful, touched and happy.”",3,2,1,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4
4,C1,Paul Smith,Service Delivery,,Fashion Retailer Moves to the Cloud,"British retail brand Paul Smith has a global IT infrastructure with data centers, branch offices, and over 35 retail stores. The IT is managed by just 15 people tasked with managing the fashion industry’s fluctuating demand on a limited budget.","Paul Smith took advantage of the latest virtualization, cloud computing, and data center management solutions, building an IT infrastructure with Microsoft partner risual that delivers global services from a central location at a lower cost.",“Paul Smith’s business rests on Microsoft technologies because they deliver great value. There’s no other vendor that could work with us in the same way and deliver the same benefits.”,"Lee Bingham
Head of IT, Paul Smith
",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_11_PaulSmith_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_11_PaulSmith_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_11_PaulSmith_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_11_PaulSmith_QR.png,"CHALLENGE

Paul Smith wanted to provide global services from a central location, simplify data center administration, and automate manual tasks, in particular the provision of test and development environments. The company also needed to find less expensive and more efficient ways to accommodate fluctuating demands in compute and storage requirements. 

Paul Smith has built an agile, reliable, and cost-effective global IT infrastructure that uses the latest virtualization and cloud computing technologies from Microsoft including Windows Server, System Center, and Windows Azure. They consolidated data centers and began to deliver more centralized IT services, reduced their server count, decreased their carbon footprint, and lowered their data center costs. 

Approximately 500 employees in office and retail environments are using Office 365, which provides a single, managed, and highly secure platform to access line-of-business systems and services direct from the retail shop floor, as opposed to employees using PCs in locked back offices. Along the way, the IT department at Paul Smith has evolved, providing expedient IT services and proactive support to help the company grow. 

Paul Smith virtualized more than 80 percent of its servers, improved data center density by 200 percent, and saved more than £840,000 (US$1.4 million) in IT costs in one year. It also reduced recovery time from 48 hours to 5 minutes for its mission-critical applications.

SOLUTION

By embracing virtualization, building private clouds, introducing global disaster recovery capabilities, and introducing hybrid cloud computing, Paul Smith has architected an IT infrastructure that better aligns with the business, improving agility and predictability of their services. They’ve also reduced hardware acquisition and maintenance costs. By embracing the hybrid cloud computing model, the company expects ongoing infrastructure savings because IT staff can now easily monitor the compute, storage, and network resources that it consumes.

According to Lee Bingham Paul Smith’s Head of IT, “There are so many examples of how we have used Microsoft technologies to our advantage [over the past six years]. In fact, I don’t think there’s been any request from the business that we haven’t been able to accomplish.”",4,3,2,1,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5
5,C1,ITworx Education,Social Learning,,It’s time for education 2.0,"Imagine you’re ten years old. Sitting in a hot classroom overflowing with students in the Arabian desert. Your teacher stands before a blackboard, trying in vain to deliver a science lesson. Your mind flutters about. You think about the touchscreen you have at home. So bright. So interactive.","Students faced this situation all around the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But in 2010, its rulers decided to make developing education a top national priority. Their first priority was equipping each school with smart systems and devices - a move that would transform the educational experience.",“94% of students thought e-learning improved their interaction with teachers. 50% of students said it helped in completing homework. 88% felt it enhanced communication between their teachers and peers.”,,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_05_ITworx_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_05_ITworx_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_05_ITworx_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_05_ITworx_QR.png,"CHALLENGE

And good news for students who-like others around the world-already turned to technology for almost everything in their day-to-day lives. The result was the Connected Learning Gateway (CLG), developed by ITWORX Education. This social learning management system uses several Microsoft products to make learning more engaging and exciting for students. The tool presented resources and information the way the students were used to engaging with the world, rather than trying to force them to conform to old ways of learning. The results were a positive change for students and teachers alike. Much of its success is due to the introduction of content management, wikis, blogs, and discussion boards. Now it’s hard to miss the buzzing sense of excitement in UAE classrooms, just like this one, where the teacher asks “Do you like technology?” and students scream in reply, “Yes!”

SOLUTION

Beyond Arabia. But ITWORX Education has been successful in more than just the UAE. It partnered with Oppad to roll out CLG across Norway. Now the Eide and Nordfjord districts both enjoy engaging multilingual web-based social e-learning environments. In all, 482 pupils, 57 teachers, and 750 parents in Eide now use CLG.

So, by replacing old-fashioned techniques with a more social and collaborative digital system, the UAE is well on its way to achieving its lofty educational transformation. Students now enjoy education that fits the ways they learn best. Which means more shiny screens, and fewer dusty chalkboards.",5,4,3,2,1,12,11,10,9,8,7,6
6,C1,Xpreshon Action App,Game-Changing,,Fans get their fix with Xpreshon action app,"Action sports junkies are insatiable addicts. For them, there’s nothing like dancing on the lip of a beastly wave on a fiberglass board with only stingrays for company. And when they’re not defying death, they’re watching videos of other people defying death.","So the company decided to create an app. One that would aggregate all news, sporting profiles, and videos straight to televisions and devices. They hooked up with Object Consulting, and soon their business case was rolling. They built their media streaming and customer management on Azure. ","“Object had all the capabilities we needed, and some we didn’t know we needed. They know what they are talking about, and they get things done.”","Jason Webb
Co-founder, Xpreshon",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_06_Xpreshon_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_06_Xpreshon_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_06_Xpreshon_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_06_Xpreshon_QR.png,"The Xpreshon apps have been downloaded over 5,000 times since their launch. The app gives users the power to upload videos of them shredding waves and powder, and a way to handle all the Digital Rights Management that comes with it. It even allows streaming of live events, so fans will never miss the next epic take-down of a monster wave at Lennox Head.

Still, everyone knows there are more than enough places to watch videos online – making yet another video-watching app would be a waste of space. So multiple news feeds let fans keep tabs of the industry, and the whole experience is sweetened with usage tracking, a global ratings system, and cross-device identity management.

Now users can switch devices, and the system follows. 

Being able to change devices, level up your account in the ratings, and read the news are just some of the sweeteners Xpreshon has baked in. Most importantly, their new app lets action sports nuts upload their own wicked content while devouring others’. So even when they’re not conquering a gargantuan wave, they can still be fully immersed in their sport.",6,5,4,3,2,1,12,11,10,9,8,7
7,C1,NV Interactive,Let there be art,,Crowdfunding - New Zealand art community,"New Zealand artist, Gabby ‘Connor had a big dream – to recreate the Ross Ice Shelf. Unfortunately, like most artists, she was high on concept and low on funds. With so many artists clamoring for funding, the Arts Foundation approached NV Interactive for a solution.","Soon enough, efforts were under way to create Boosted—a universal crowdfunding platform to help artists and artisans showcase their work and seek monetary assistance to pursue greater venues. It serves as a platform for artists and donors to connect, and move projects forward together.",“This unexpected level of support removes many of the usual stresses that occur when trying to make art happen—namely the financial ones.”,"Gabby O’Connor
Artist, New Zealand",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_07_NVinteractive_Img.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_07_NVinteractive_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_07_NVinteractive_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_07_NVinteractive_QR.png,"Ever heard of the Ross Ice Shelf?

It's the roughly half-million square kilometers of ice that covers the southern part of Antarctica. And Wellington artist Gabby O'Connor's dream was to recreate it.

Unfortunately, like most artists, she was high on concept and low on funds. With so many artists clamoring for funding, the Arts Foundation, New Zealand's leading arts philanthropy organization, approached NV Interactive for a solution. 

Crowdfunding eases the money crunch and nurtures art for art’s sake.

Soon enough, efforts were under way to create Boosted—a universal crowdfunding platform to help artists and artisans showcase their work and seek monetary assistance to pursue greater venues.

Though philanthropy is enough reason to donate, all donations given via Boosted are eligible for a 33% tax rebate.

Soon, Gabby had the money she needed to create her vision of the Ross Ice Shelf; titled “Some Time”. 

Gabby's installation piece received 153% of the funding requested.

Crowdfunding isn’t a new concept. What sets Boosted apart is its process. All projects are curated by a dedicated, knowledgeable team. Artists looking to realize their dreams through Boosted are supported and nurtured under the aegis of The Arts Foundation.

The love of art, with Boosted, is as pure as it gets. There are no rewards or incentives for the donors. Such levels of altruism may seem utopian for some. But the numbers beg to differ.

Boosted generated over $400,000 in donations across 100+ projects.

Here are a few more impressive numbers, made possible with Microsoft Technologies:

With a forecast of donations in excess of $1 million over the next 12 months, Boosted continues to nurture and help art flourish in New Zealand by bridging the monetary gap between art and the artist. ",7,6,5,4,3,2,1,12,11,10,9,8
8,C1,Langdon,Dreams come true,,Giving youths the tools to make it happen,"Giving youth with learning disabilities the tools to make it happen. Abbe’s lifelong dream - to be a pastry chef. When she was a tiny tot, she pretended to frost imaginary cakes. But as Abbe grew up, her mum knew something was different about her. ","It became clear she had a learning disability, putting her dream of becoming a baker at risk. Determined to see Abbe’s dream come true, her mother sought help. And that’s when she found Langdon.","“Over 85% of Langdon students go on to find employment, which greatly boosts their independence and self-esteem.” ","Daniel Bacall
Langdon, Head of Marketing",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_Langdon_Nav.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_Langdon_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_Langdon_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_Langdon_QRcode.png,"Founded by four parents who also had children with learning disabilities, Langdon is an assisted living centre for communities in Manchester and North London. It has drastically altered the life trajectories of hundreds of youth. A key to Langdon’s success in placing youth like Abbe is online learning. With digital services come digital challenges, and Langdon needed help. Fortunately, they found just the right partner in Cloudamour. To ensure Langdon always had the tools needed, cloud system experts Cloudamour implemented Microsoft Office 365. The system made the shift to cloud storage simple for users who weren’t computer experts. This new cloud system has given Langdon freedom to grow. Now more youth can enjoy the benefits of Langdon. “Since moving to the cloud, not only are our systems more reliable, but we can scale at a pace that we never thought possible,” say Bacall. Langdon has ambitious plans for growth over the next years – meaning that more and more young adults like Abbe will benefit.

Young adults like Abbe get skill development and interview preparation to help them transition from Social Security benefits to paid employment. Some do gardening, and others take fresh eggs and herbs to local restaurants. Learning disabilities no longer prevent them from contributing to the community. 
Meanwhile, Abbe is happy mixing and baking.
She works at a local bakery and bakes cakes like she always dreamed, and her co-workers couldn’t be happier. Her boss calls her “absolutely brilliant,” and says if it wasn’t for Abbe, they couldn’t take as many orders. 

And Abbe? “If it wasn’t for this job,” she says, “I’d be stuck at home doing nothing. Langdon gives me the independence I need to do what I want without worrying what people will say.”
Thanks to a life-changing assist form Langdon and Cloudamour, Abbe’s mom can now beam with pride about the direction of her daughter’s life. Cake is sweet, but it’s nothing compared to seeing your little girl live her dreams.",8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,12,11,10,9
9,C1,Ascribe,Preventing epidemics,,Tools to aid in epidemic prevention,"Fever, muscle aches, fatigue. That’s what the doctor scribbled on his tablet. His patient was showing the classic signs of the common flu. It was a simple diagnosis, something doctors have dealt with for decades. But today, it was different.","Using Windows 8 apps for tablets and working with Microsoft partner Two10Degrees to have data pushed to Microsoft Azure, this program analyzed millions of rows of accident and emergency data in just a few hours - processing six years’ worth of data!","“You have lots of small pieces of data coming in from multiple places, and it can be very difficult to aggregate and interpret.”","Paul Henderson
Ascribe, Business Intelligence Division Head",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_Ascribe_Nav.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_Ascribe_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_Ascribe_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_Ascribe_QRcode.png,"Because the good doctor’s scribbles were more than personal notes or a presecription for a pharmacist. They were part of something that could change healthcare itself. 

Healthcare innovation origins: celebrity gossip? In 2013, Paul Henderson, Business Intelligence Division Head at healthcare consultancy Ascribe, was attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. He saw an interesting demonstration that monitored all the content on Twitter to see which celebrities were on the rise to their 15 minutes of fame and where were on their way to a tragic Hollywood downfall. 

It was a classic hot-or-not deal. Great for gossip columnists. But healthcare providers? Henderson saw it another way. What if instead of analyzing Twitter gossip, the system analyzed doctor’s notes instead. If they were all entered on tablets, the technology would be practically identical to the Hollywood version. 

Hospitals already measure everything, creating a vast volume of data just waiting to be harvested. But historically, they are backward-facing analysts: how many beds were filled, how long was recovery time. That’s how they maximized return on investment.

Acribe’s idea is different. It reacts fast, just like healthcare data needs to. It can detect outbreaks of flu and other pandemics around the world. As soon as a doctor or nurse writes it, it becomes part of a global monitoring system for good.

Ascribe asked Leeds Hospitals, one of the largest providers of emergency care services in Europe, to participate in a pilot for the project. With roughly one million unstructured case files each month and almost half a million records a year in its Accident and Emergency Department system, the hospital was an ideal candidate. 

The company constructed a system on Windows 8 apps for tablets and then worked with Microsoft partner Two10Degrees to have data pushed to Microsoft Azure. That program then analyzed millions of rows of accident and emergency data. In just a few hours, they were able to process six years’ worth of data! “The results amazed me,” Henderson said. “We were able to map the {point-of-care} notes to drug dictionaries and other clinical taxonomies so that we could look for outbreaks of infectious diseases…”

What the future holds.

What started with data scribbled down in a humble cubicle in Leeds Teaching Hospital has been scaled to millions of data points, all pointing the way to early detection. 

“This is a new paradigm,” says Henderson. “We can capture data written in plain English and use it to improved services, instead of waiting for a resource-hungry process to collect and code the information. This will reinvent the way we work with medical records in the future.”

With this technology, the catastrophic pandemics we read about in the news could become a thing of the past. Whether it’s the doctor diagnosing a flu patient, or another doctor halfway around the world, the key to catching epidemics before they start could be just a few notes away.",9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,12,11,10
10,C1,Lido Stone Works,Stone-cold savings,,New processes in an old-world trade,"Lido Stone Works makes stone architectural accents that give buildings personality. Breton S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer, builds their machines. Repairs require Italian mechanics, which means an international flight and a week to sort out.","The solution cut the inventory process from 4 workers and 1 week to something one worker can get done in a day. Breton partnered with ASEM S.p.A, to bring cloud technology to the table and drastically cut down on international maintenance flights.","“In the past, I could only dream of doing what we’re able to do with machines today. With the manufacturing solution from Breton, ASEM, and Microsoft, we can create new roadways and be creative and different. It empowers us to celebrate new visions in stone – there’s nothing we can’t do.”","Eliot Mazzocca
Lido Stone Works, President and CEO",https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/Partnership_Lido_Nav.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Logos/Partnership_Lido_Logo.png,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Videos/Articles/Partnership_Lido_Video.mp4,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_Lido_QRcode.png,"When Eliot Mazzocca began working with stone, he did it the old-fashioned way. He cut and ground stone by hand. He used a metal-and-wooden chisel to shape it into just the right form. And he personally lifted every stone in place. It was something straight out of 17th Century Scotland. Unfortunately this was 21st Century America. Mazzocca, President and CEO of Lido Stone Works, was open to change. “By the time I turned 25, I had a bad back, bad knees and wrists, and multiple surgeries. My only option was to use my head.” First steps first, Mazzocca brought in machinery to do the heavy lifting. With every change he made, he ensured that the integrity of the work was intact.

“A connected device can mean the difference between getting the right product and the wrong product,” says Mazzocca. 

This solution creates a real-time feedback loop of data; utilizing that data has allowed Lido to increase productivity and profits and reduce machine downtime.

The company’s technology upgrade has made finding materials easier too. Now that Lido’s jobsite devices are constantly talking to the store’s headquarters – everyone know already knows what’s on hand and what’s needed. “We communicate with quarries around the world, places where procuring materials can be so difficult.” 

Bringing Lido’s machines online and connecting processes with new technology has brought huge improvements to the company. The travel costs to get their machines fixed have plummeted. The company has even been able to take on more exciting projects and has brought on more employees to keep up.",10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,12,11
11,C2,Why Partner,Why partner with Microsoft?,"“Microsoft partners are the most robust, dynamic and impactful ecosystem in the IT industry. In more than 150 countries, our partners are pioneering innovative solutions for commercial customers on the Microsoft platform. It’s exciting to see customers experience the value of this powerful combination in a mobile first, cloud first world.”

Phil Sorgen
Corporate Vice President
Microsoft, US SMS&P",Why partner with Microsoft?,"Do you want to connect with Microsoft? Are you wondering how? For more than 25 years, The Microsoft Partner Network has continued to build a program around the needs of partners and customers worldwide. We all know that the business world does not stand still. And as the market changes, the Microsoft Partner network evolves our solutions offerings to move fluidly as well- still while maintaining predictability and stability for our partners and customers. A program designed and structured to meet market demands today and most importantly, tomorrow.",,,,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/08_WhyPartner_MainHero_1008x567.jpg,,,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_01_QR.png,,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,12
12,C2,Partner Benefits,Benefits to Partners,"Microsoft Partner Networks core partner benefits align to help partners & customers market, sell, and implement important customer solutions. Partners who have more than 10 employees who are active in MPN sell 3-6x more solutions than partners with fewer MPN-engaged individuals. It’s simple, as you deepen your engagement with the Microsoft Partner Network, the deeper you’re level of resources and opportunity. Who doesn’t want more? ",Microsoft is the best business decision for partners & customers ,"We’re here  to enable you to succeed in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, working to build and maintain profitable business ventures as we create new capabilities that expand the market to serve and delight our customers, together.

We’re here to work with you to learn how to become a successful cloud partner. Demand for cloud services shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, industry experts expect the public IT cloud services industry to reach over US$107 billion by 2017.

When you partner with Microsoft, we will ensure that you have the support, incentives, and guidance you need to claim your piece of this rapidly expanding market.",,,,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/Articles/09_BenefitsToPartners_MainHero_1008x567.jpg,,,https://ctexp-public.sharepoint.com/Documents/Partnership_v2/Images/QR%20Codes/Partnership_02_QR.png,,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1