This article was originally written by Avanade alum Luke Pritchard.

Before the global pandemic, many companies had already begun to test the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) in pockets of innovation within their organization. Now as we see the economic disruption, businesses that boldly take data and AI to new levels and hold it accountable to inform business priorities will emerge successful.

Align tech with key business priorities
Our clients will need to effectively align analytics and AI investments with key business priorities to effectively tackle some of the core business challenges – revenue growth, market differentiation, operational efficiencies and risk mitigation. I believe the time to innovate without solving for at least one of these challenges is over.

Similarly, business and technical leaders need to align data strategies with business priorities and remove any constraints or barriers to ensure data teams can efficiently and rapidly execute on their priorities.

Moreover, the data should be open and accessible across different tools and systems within an organization – not locked into closed formats or proprietary systems inaccessible by other technologies or teams. Achieving all this at scale is beyond the reach of most organizations because of the complexity and cost involved in meeting these requirements.

Databricks partnership drives value at scale
Cloud and modern analytic tools offer businesses the ability to scale the use of data science and AI throughout their organization. As a top Microsoft Azure innovator,  we recently formed a strategic partnership with Databricks to help enterprise clients scale their Azure Data and AI investments to generate faster decision-making and better results.

Proven reliable enabler
Azure Databricks is a key solution we use to answer some of the market challenges businesses are unable to fully address without an experienced partner.

With Azure Databricks, Avanade helped thyssenkrupp Materials Services, a global German diversified industrial group, efficiently identify the impact of changes on its supply chain network. As a result, the company improved performance, scalability and decreased costs. As a result of this work, the company is now better prepared to adjust to even unforeseen market changes.

Get the most from Azure
As the most experienced Microsoft Azure cloud services partner, with more Microsoft Certified Professionals on Azure than any other Microsoft partner, we help you fully exploit the power of Azure and Azure Databricks. What this means is we are a partner with demonstrated business excellence and customer satisfaction.

With Avanade, you leverage the best of Azure cloud and Azure Databricks to accelerate the data science lifecycle, develop high value AI-driven solutions and enable your organization to drive business results at scale.

The who behind the how
One critical question we help businesses answer is how are people working to get projects done? We call it the “who behind the how.” Without Azure Databricks, data scientists, data engineers and business analysts often work in siloed work streams. As a result, processes are disjointed, duplicate calculations are worked on and speed to market is slow.

“We see organizations moving to modernize into cloud services and expand their use of data science and machine learning with Databricks,” said Michael Hoff, senior vice president of Business Development and Partners, Databricks. “We are excited for Avanade’s expertise, global scale, and solution accelerators on Azure and Azure Databricks to help customers move faster on that journey to implement their data and AI initiatives.”

With Azure Databricks, data and science teams efficiently collaborate, build reliable AI models and quickly scale solutions to deliver quick wins for sustainable success. Part of the Microsoft platform, Azure Databricks adds to the full breadth of Azure solutions and services enabling people to work more efficiently to drive top-level business outcomes.

Thrive in a new world
Given what we’ve faced in the last several months, our design and technical experts are working with leading organizations worldwide to create a seamless business transformation that will help organizations stay focused on their customers and challenge disruption. We’re well prepared to tackle today’s business challenges with a strong partner ecosystem to help you thrive and emerge even stronger.

Find out more about how to power your data science teams and scale data and AI with Avanade and Azure Databricks.

Be sure to also visit us on June 25th at 11 a.m. (PDT) at the Spark and AI Summit for Scaling Value with Azure Databricks to learn more use cases and participate in a live question and answer.