Microsoft Puts Focus on Banking, Hospitality Verticals

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft rolled out two new industry vertical programs this week to help it gain customers and partners in the banking and hospitality industries. Like the "Smarter Retailing" program, which Microsoft unveiled earlier this year, the new Smarter Hospitality and Experience Banking programs demonstrate the increasingly vertical approach that the Windows Server giant is taking in order to gaining a foothold in industries where customers have invested heavily in mainframes and other platforms with long and proven legacies.

Microsoft launched its Smarter Retailing initiative in January with business consultant Accenture. Microsoft says it is targeting Smarter Retailing toward the "edges" of retail operations, where retailers interact with consumers, manage their supply chains, and weave in new technology. In terms of actual deliverables, examples of the initiative could include tablet PCs that consumers could use to check themselves out with, tablet PCs that help store managers make decisions on the floor, and support for radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in Microsoft's ERP systems, among others. Software vendors participating in this initiative include JDA Software, Oracle, Proclarity, Retek, SAP, and Terra Data.

EXPERIENCE BANKING

At the BAI Retail Delivery Conference and Expo in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft unveiled Experience Banking. Like Smarter Retailing, Experience Banking promises to help banks "think in new ways" in order to improve the experiences of customers and employees, while bolstering operations to make them more efficient. However, while Microsoft and Accenture aimed for the "edges" with Smarter Retailing, Microsoft's Experience Banking is aiming right for the "mission critical" servers that process transactions.

Microsoft's general manager of financial service strategy and solutions, William Hartnett, says the company's vision is to transform the banking experience, rather than simply improving customer service. "The flexibility of Microsoft technology means you can adapt your applications as quickly as the business changes and pave the way for future innovation," he says.

Putting a warm, human face on transactions that are otherwise cold and "meaningless" is another goal of Experience Banking, according Jerry Silva, a senior analyst in the Delivery Channels practice at TowerGroup. "Better technology allows bank staff to be what the customer desires--human--which also improves employee satisfaction and productivity," he says.

Microsoft products involved in Experience Banking include the Windows Server System, the .NET Framework, and Microsoft Office. Third-party vendors currently signed up with Experience Banking include ACI Worldwide, Alogent, ARGO Data Resource, Corillian, Fincentric, Hewlett-Packard, Jack Henry & Associates, NCR, NetEconomy, Siebel Systems, Symitar, and Unisys.

SMARTER HOSPITALITY

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country at the Hotel/Motel and Restaurant Show in New York City, Microsoft launched another industry initiative aimed at helping the vendor continue its penetration into the hospitality industry. Like the software giant's other industry-specific programs, Smarter Hospitality aims to improve the experience of both the consumers and the service providers, while helping to make the company run more efficiently as well.

The hospitality industry is still recovering from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but it needs new ways to think about its business in order to really make things grow, especially as brand loyalty drops and competition heats up, Microsoft says. To help hotel and motel operators think along these lines, the company has introduced two additional metrics with its Smarter Hospitality initiative, including the Revenue Per Available Guest figure and the Lifetime Value of Guest figure, to go along with the staid old Revenue Per Available Room figure.

Technologies involved in the Smarter Hospitality program include the Windows Server System, the .NET Framework, and Windows Mobile software for Pocket PCs. Microsoft has some innovative ideas on how to use its technology in this industry vertical, such as text-to-speech and speech recognition, to automate some of the common transactions hotel guests are involved in.

Microsoft currently has 25 business partners involved in its Smarter Hospitality program, including Epicor Software, Intel, Intervoice, QSR Automations, and Wincor-Nixdorf.