Dave Sasson
Cloud has become central for businesses to transform, differentiate and gain competitive advantage. Many organizations are now focused on cloud-first strategies as they turn their attention to advancing the use of cloud services across the business.
At Hanu, when implementing Azure cloud-based solutions, we ensure that the technology our customers adopt is customized to their unique industry requirements. While solutions like AI and cloud security can be used to drive significant growth and innovation, they need to be tailored for specific industries if companies want to see these benefits.
For this reason, we focus on our client’s technical and business requirements from an industry-oriented perspective, not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Two perfect examples of this are machine learning-powered predictive modeling and security and compliance.
From Personalized Customer Experiences to Manufacturing Maintenance
Companies can use machine learning for predictive analytics as well as for personalization and optimization. Predictive analytics refers to the process of applying data mining and analysis algorithms to predict anything from supply chain shortages to customer buying behavior.
At Hanu, we’ve helped our customers adopt machine learning and predictive analytics in several key ways:
- For our retail clients, we use predictive analytics to help them determine what products a customer will buy. From here, we can personalize messaging based on how this knowledge and improve the customer experience.
- Our customers in the manufacturing sector leverage predictive capabilities to get real-time information on their machinery health, significantly decreasing downtime and eliminating unexpected failure.
- The way predictive models are implemented in the service industry like healthcare is vastly different. For example, we have predictive models for Patient Appointment Management. Not only is it possible to predict the number of patients who will make appointments, but we can also tell who is likely to cancel, reschedule or be a no-show. This allows our clients to adjust their care management in real-time, which ultimately leads to optimized resource management, increased staff productivity and a decrease in overall costs.
The nuances of security and meeting regulatory compliance
One of the most important aspects of any business’s cloud implementation, security takes many forms and is highly dependent on specific industry regulations. Data breaches or failure to meet compliance can cost an organization more than money and can affect a company’s reputation and trigger legal consequences.
At the core of any exemplary cloud-first security implementation is Identity and Access Management (IAM). Azure Active Directory (AD) is a robust, scalable cloud-based IAM platform that is flexible enough to meet the demands of any organization. At Hanu, we pair AD with Azure Information Protection, which enables rights management control over documents and emails across applications, services, and devices. It also provides end-user protection with self-service capabilities, reducing administrator effort while protecting from accidental data leaks.
As with predictive analytics and machine learning, we apply Azure’s security features differently depending on specific their industry:
- Healthcare organizations around the globe have strict compliance regulations they must adhere to. Because laws differ not only by country but by states and regions within them, we’ve worked closely with Microsoft to develop flexible solutions that can ensure compliance in nearly any scenario around the globe.
- In the financial sector, personal identifiable information (PII) privacy is critical for maintaining compliance. To accomplish this, we help financial institutions implement identity management solutions to keep track of who has access to information at all times. This provides an added layer of security by limiting data access to only those who require it – and only for the length of time they need it.
Microsoft has a very robust legal framework in place, which includes data processing terms and contracts for every Azure commercial cloud service. This ensures that customers’ data is processed in compliance with all local laws and regulations, allowing you to control where your data physically resides.
