Microsoft Executive's Insights ...

I had a chance, courtesy of Skyline Technologies at Insight Magazine’s Thinc! conference, to hear Efram Stringfellow, Microsoft’s 18-state regional head, talk about the future of his business. Among his points:
•  Already, more than 2.4 billion people are internet-connected … just one click away from YOUR website.
•  Millennials are interviewing US for jobs.  We used to be interviewing them.
•  Companies aren’t built for change.  We’re built for consistency and order, delivering our current strategy flawlessly. Yet, now we want our people to grab the data they need, interpret it, and react on their own to the customer’s needs as they change!  How to make that transition in our expectations of what each employee should be doing?
•  Our coming workforce is expecting a “rapid response organization, and if you aren’t, they’ll find one that is."  Rapid response comes from “open communication, experimentation, and working as a network.”
•  "Break the paradigms.  Everyone is showing up with somebody’s mobile device, and if we're to have dominant market share, we have to support others' operating systems as well."
•  The Cloud is NOT necessarily cheaper … but what it is is secure and  up-to-date with upgrades.
•  Our aim is to get you out of a system that YOU have to maintain.  You don’t have all the necessary expertises, and we do.
•  We need to provide you a Roadmap of where we think we’re going, so that you can make intelligent decisions regarding risk and cost as to how you want to invest in these new integrative technologies.
•  Two of his four kids are named Xavier and Quentin.  He referred to them as “X” and “Q”.