As a globally recognised brand and market leader, Microsoft have achieved tremendous success through innovation, creativity, running a highly ethical business and always being ahead of their competitors.

Microsoft remain motivated and inspired every day by how their customers use their software to find creative solutions to business problems, develop breakthrough ideas, and stay connected to what's most important to them.

Microsoft run their business in much the same way and believe their three core business divisions offer the greatest potential to serve our customers. They are:

• Platform Products and Services Division: Includes the Client Group, the Server & Tools Group, and the Online Services Group
• Business Division: Includes the Information Worker Group, the Microsoft Business Solutions Group, and the Unified Communications Group
• Entertainment and Devices Division: Includes the Home & Entertainment Group and the Mobile & Embedded Devices Group

Microsoft is committed long term to the mission of helping their customers realise their full potential. Just as they constantly update and improve their products, they want to continually evolve the company to be in the best position to accelerate new technologies as they emerge and to better serve their customers.

Microsoft UK Corporate Citizenship

Microsoft believes that every successful corporation has a responsibility to use its resources and influence to make a positive impact on the world and its people. In the UK this means connecting people and communities to build social and economical prosperity. Microsoft and its partners believe that by embracing technology and connecting societies, people in the UK will be able to achieve the most from their studies, their businesses and their life ambitions. By doing this Microsoft aims to contribute to the continued success and competitiveness of the UK and enhance the quality of life for British citizens.

How Microsoft is Helping to Build Prosperity

Microsoft is committed to working with the UK to focus on six areas which are designed to improve social and economic well being, building prosperity for all.

• Inclusion: Microsoft continues to take a leadership role in the area of inclusion to help reduce the digital divide. Microsoft Unlimited Potential (UP) is a global initiative that focuses on improving lifelong learning for disadvantaged young people and adults by providing technology skills through community technology and learning centres. In the UK, Microsoft has partnered with charities including: Leonard Cheshire, Age Concern, Fairbridge and Citizen’s Online to bring IT and its benefits to all.
• Innovation: Microsoft UK is developing technology to further science and bring a positive change to society and people’s lives. An example of this is CancerGrid, where Microsoft is developing software tools to better understand and treat Cancer.
• Local Software Economy: Microsoft UK aims to catalyse the development of a vibrant, innovative UK software industry to promote economic prosperity and growth. By working closely with our partner community, we are able to provide support for businesses of all sizes and help them realise their potential.
• Skills: Microsoft is committed to a long-term partnership with the education sector; We work closely with the government, schools, colleges and universities to develop the tools and resources people need to work and learn effectively.
• Regional Development: Microsoft is working with regional development agencies to provide training programmes and resources that will make regional businesses and organisations better able to manage their business more effectively.
• Improving Online Safety: Microsoft UK recognises its responsibility to help make the Internet safer and computing more secure. Our ultimate goal is to help create an environment in which adults, children, businesses and other organisations can enjoy the full benefits of the Internet without concerns about safety, privacy or security. We continue to work towards that goal with the help of government, industry, and law enforcement partners worldwide, and to help consumers and our customers understand what they can do to protect themselves and their systems. Some of the programmes and campaigns that Microsoft is involved within the UK include Get Safe Online and WebSafeCrackerz.

Microsoft – Health Solutions; Healthcare and Life Sciences

Microsoft is having a profound impact throughout the Healthcare and Life Sciences industries. Their innovative technology and partner solutions range from streamlining the way patient orders are recorded in hospitals, to enabling health plans to compete in a consumer-focused market, to helping pharmaceutical companies get greater returns on their research and development (R&D) investments. These solutions provide business value by helping to make critical information immediately available to the key decision-makers who need it while making it easier and less time consuming for people and teams to effortlessly connect with the people, information, and the business processes they need to improve the quality of patient care and personal health.

The Challenges

• Rising costs and increases in competition and regulation have created unprecedented challenges across the entire spectrum of Healthcare and Life Sciences organisations.
• The challenges that people in these industries face include:
• Medical clinicians and administrators strive to deliver high-quality, cost-efficient care. At the same time, they juggle demands on their time and attention from government regulators, health insurers, colleagues, and patients.

Health plans are under unprecedented market pressures to improve the health of their members, improve quality of care and customer experience, and control rising medical costs.

Life Sciences companies—such as manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices—are being pinched by higher research and development costs and more stringent regulations.

In such hypercompetitive marketplaces, quick and effortless access to relevant information, people and insights are critical components of success. But if knowledge is the life blood of the Healthcare and Life Sciences industries, it is a commodity that can often be extremely difficult to access, let alone share.

Frequently, data is stored in dozens if not hundreds of separate systems within the same organisation that often span multiple software platforms. Add the typical requirement that information be shared between different enterprises and amongst various teams, and the retrieval and synthesis of data along with the ability to collaborate become daunting tasks.

The Microsoft Vision

Microsoft understands that people, not processes, are the key to success, whether success is measured by healthy patients or a healthy bottom line. It is crucial that workers in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industries have access to the information they need to guide their actions, that information be available when those workers need it, from wherever they happen to be, and that collaboration for decision making is seamless and intuitive.

To this end, Microsoft has developed the Knowledge Driven Health Vision which encompasses the needs of Healthcare providers, health plans, and the Life Sciences community, the major verticals of the Healthcare and Life Sciences ecosystem. Fulfilling the vision relies on innovative technology—including both out-of-box Microsoft products and custom solutions developed with Microsoft partners—that enables workers to connect with the information they need; use that data to collaborate with other people, departments, and enterprises; and then develop business intelligence that informs their business decisions.

Once implemented, the Knowledge Driven Health Vision can have a significant impact in each of these verticals:

• Healthcare providers: Create a standards-based technology framework capable of integrating the hundreds of separate and disconnected systems for creating and storing information that can exist in a single hospital. When given the information they need, Healthcare workers are able to deliver the best patient care in the most cost-effective way.
• Health plans: Transform health plans from transaction-based enterprises into highly collaborative, knowledge-driven organisations that enable consumers, providers, and employers to make informed choices that improve personal health, the quality and affordability of care, the customer experience, and their bottom lines. A faster time to market for new innovative products and services and an expanded capacity to handle more complex customer interactions with fewer staff are other positive outcomes from improved technology in this area.
• Life Sciences community: Facilitate seamless collaboration between industry professionals, customers, and business partners. That can lead to breakthrough results in business performance, research and product innovation, and supply chain optimization.

The Technology

By combining the price and maintenance-cost advantages of the Microsoft Windows platform, applications and online services with commodity hardware and rapid application-development tools, Microsoft delivers some of the best cost economies in the industry.

Microsoft's ability to deliver value starts with the initial technology investment and extends to implementation, training and ongoing support. In addition, Microsoft's support for open standards and interoperability with non-Microsoft applications allows enterprises to continue to get full value from their existing information technology (IT) investments.

Key Facts

• The Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences group has served the industry for more than 10 years.
• The group includes more than 500 Microsoft employees worldwide.
• The products and solutions created by the group reflect Microsoft's unmatched focus on technological innovation—and the company's $6.8 billion USD annual investment in R&D.
• Team members include doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other clinical staff with experience working for Healthcare and Life Sciences organisations.
• The Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences group is made up of five subcategories to better address the specific needs of each key industry: providers, health plans, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices.