A Hannover Messe Behind-the-Scenes: Microsoft customers steal the show
The Hannover Messe industrial fair has come and gone, but our excitement from the event hasn’t diminished. In fact, it’s grown. We are overwhelmed by the positive response and continued interest in the solutions and innovations on display in our booth. So much so that I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes look and virtual tour.
Microsoft booth design: an interactive experience in business language
When we began planning for Hannover Messe we decided that we would do our best to create an experience that best reflected the modern enterprise, by creating five major zones that contained specific business scenarios, namely Connected Customer Experiences, Connected Product Innovation, Connected Marketing & Sales, Connected Operations and an interactive experience that would pull it all together into a cohesive story. The concept was to provide visitors to the booth the opportunity to focus on the areas that aligned best with their business goals so we could attentively demonstrate our solutions, those our partners and customers in an end-to-end fashion. Of course we hoped that many visitors would want to visit more than one area, so we built in a flow that would allow them to move from one area to another while maintaining a common thread: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a total business enabler.
The design of the booth was crucial in our opinion, because it had to reflect the changing nature of business today and highlight Microsoft’s solution offerings. Our goal was to ensure that we tell a complete story where Microsoft products are positioned in concert and their role is explained within a business solution context, so we could address new opportunities and business challenges in the language of our customers.
Another core tenant of our design was interactivity. We set out to make our booth an immersive, integrated experience in order to bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to life, and make it easy to see both its potential and Microsoft’s capabilities. Our challenge was to do it all, and in a short period of time, so that visitors could spend 10-15 minutes with us and leave with an understanding of the value. In practice, we were extremely fortunate that visitors often stayed with us for 1 hour or more, and often returned with colleagues later on!
We did this through three key design elements: interactive display, business solution areas and practical real-life demonstrations. We built an enormous, interactive experience that featured 16 seamlessly connected screens forming one display and a live running conveyor belt complete with sensors to form a factory simulation—all powered by Windows 10 for IoT and Microsoft Azure. We felt that it was impossible to talk about our role in modern manufacturing without having any hands-on experience. So we built this interactive display in such a way that it simulated a real assembly line, complete with a real conveyer, real sensors, an actual product (in an assembled state) and a contextual display to show status. Of course the purpose of this display was to help tell our story and not assemble products—but the fact that we made it real, also made the story real.
The interactive experience, or story of how to reimagine your enterprise, provided an overall picture of the manufacturing business and the four areas where IoT can unlock the most business value and revenue growth opportunities: customer experiences, product innovation, operations, and marketing, sales & services. And from there, manufacturers could immerse themselves into any or all of these areas within the booth, which was designed to follow the same flow.
Reimagining your enterprise for a connected world
From there, we wanted to take our story further. We wanted to help manufacturers reimagine their enterprise but with proof that what they saw could be replicated in their business. We wanted to demonstrate that the future is now, that IoT is real and there are practical, actionable things you can do today to build on existing systems and infrastructure for big impact.
To do that, we felt the best approach was to showcase actual implementations from our customers and partners. And to this end, we were truly honored to have more than 35 industry partners and customers come together to demonstrate how IoT and Microsoft technologies can help transform their business.
Examples of digital transformations from the likes of Fujitsu, KUKA Robotics, Miele and Qoros Automotive in the fields of robotics, smart factories, connected homes and vehicles took center stage in our booth and clearly stole the show.
Finally, we asked everyone joining us at the booth to bring their best and brightest demonstrations. It was vitally important that we anchor on proof versus vision. Here are some highlights from the four areas of our booth.
Connected consumer experiences
Here we showcased the power of real-time connectivity linked to smart analytics in consumer goods, vehicles and industrial equipment. These new capabilities—whether in the home, car or commercial operations—help build competitive differentiation into their products by creating new services that can lead to increased customer loyalty and new revenue sources. Innovations from appliance maker Miele, Qoros Automotive, and ThyssenKrup Elevator were all big draws for attendees.
Connected product innovation
IoT can also help deliver innovative products that customers want, faster. We showcased solutions that help product-driven organizations research, design, develop, simulate and innovate by utilizing insights from customers via social networks and their interaction with products via telemetry, combined with agile processes such as high performance computing and rights management. New mobile ways to work were a hot topic. We demonstrated a seamless, continuous work process from remote site, to office, and conference room, using a combination of tablet computing, desktop docking and large screen experience. Additionally, our 3D printing display was enormously popular and came with the added surprise of working from just a Surface Pro 3!
Connected marketing, sales and services
By tapping into IoT, manufacturers can dig deeper into customer needs and the experiences they are seeking. In this area of the booth we highlighted solutions that connect their business functions together to follow the customer journey from marketing to sales to service and renewal. You can read more about the connection between IoT and CRM here.
Connected operations
Our connected operations display was a crowd favorite. From the factory floor to the supply and demand chain, IoT can advance your business. We showcased how a technology-advanced array of platforms fuels digital business transformation by achieving seamless integration across manufacturing systems, devices and the people that drive your operations. Attendees witnessed human intelligence blended with robot intelligence to anticipate business disruptions. They also saw how collaboration and productivity is enhanced with natural user interfaces across multiple scenarios. Furthermore, we showcased how OPC, the industry standard for industrial automation, is facilitating IoT via an interactive display from Beckhoff Automation.
The future is now
Based on our conversations during the show, it became clear that organizations want to move quickly to take advantage of IoT’s opportunities. And they want to bring IoT transformation across multiple parts of the world.
Helping companies build on their existing technology assets, devices and data to derive business value from IoT is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s vision for businesses in today’s digital era. So, it was exciting to see so many manufacturers leave our booth confident—that they don’t have to wait—that there are things they can do right now and make a big impact. This is just the beginning of what’s possible in the office, in the factory and in the hands of customers!
For more observations from Microsoft at Hannover Messe, you can read our top 5 takeaways here.
