EY has announced the launch of the EY Microsoft Services Group, focused on helping companies realise long-term value through end-to-end Microsoft powered digital transformation.

Building on EY teams leading business consulting capabilities, the consultancy firm says its new group offers clients a new and simple approach to transformation - providing a combination of Microsoft cloud-based services with deep EY technology consulting and service experience across the globe.

As organisations accelerate digital transformation due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the new group expands EY capabilities to help clients reinvent the back office with Microsoft technologies and experience across various sectors, including financial services, energy, government and healthcare.

Expanding capabilities 

With more than 80% of EY client services and solutions hosted on Microsoft Azure, the EY Microsoft Services Group builds on the organizations’ existing strategic alliance ecosystem. It will facilitate Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Microsoft 365 cloud services based on EY strengths in technologies that include artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, data analytics and cybersecurity.

“Business transformation remains at the forefront of many organizations’ priorities this year," said Greg Jenko, EY Global and Americas Microsoft Services Group leader. "With the establishment of the EY Microsoft Services Group, we are focused on applying EY teams’ technology capabilities to help deliver long-term value by accelerating digital transformation for clients. With a robust combination of Microsoft cloud-based products and deep EY technology consulting and delivery service experience across the globe, we provide the leading capabilities clients need in a rapidly changing digital landscape.”

The group will leverage Microsoft’s online learning catalogue and classrooms - to accelerate the EY capacity beyond today’s several thousand certified EY Microsoft practitioners and more than 20,000 EY employees with Microsoft training.

“The new EY Microsoft Services Group will enhance EY teams’ ability to collaborate with customers across industries and geographies, shape cloud strategies, develop innovative solutions and help enable business transformation," added Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft. "We are pleased to expand our long-standing alliance and applaud how EY teams are accelerating customers’ journey to the cloud and delivering more value with Microsoft technology.”

Reframing the corporate future

EY teams and Microsoft have already supported more than 1,200 clients and executed more than 3,000 projects globally to support organisations through their digital transformations. Amid today’s uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, EY teams and Microsoft have collaborated to support several governments globally with public finance management - helping countries manage stimulus programs and work with their citizens to take advantage of additional financing.

In the US, maximising available funding while ensuring assistance was delivered to the right people at the right time exposed gaps in governments’ abilities to quickly distribute aid to those that needed it most. Within weeks, EY teams leveraged Microsoft’s PowerApps, Dynamics and Azure platforms to build and deploy a grants management capability and online portal, the FASTER (Funds Application Status Tracker for Emergency Relief) solution. With FASTER, EY teams and Microsoft have provided assistance to communities most in need and are working to bring the solution to governments around the world. 

EY and Microsoft teams have also implemented projects aimed at accelerating the innovation cycle, and leveraging data and artificial intelligence to operate more resilient, efficient businesses, including:

• EY teams helped Nationwide Insurance create its own digital insurance platform, Spire, using EY Nexus for Insurance built on Microsoft Azure, to respond to an increasingly digital generation of insurance customers and launch an agile, mobile-first product at speed.
• Leveraging the EY Global Tax Platform, EY teams supported Nokia Corporation to gather, validate and transform data across 127 countries, allowing for shared data reuse, collaboration, advanced analytics and intelligent automations in Microsoft Azure – helping to deliver increased efficiencies.

“Technological disruption is reshaping businesses and the way people work, especially in today’s unpredictable environment, and, as a result, EY clients are seeking more tech-driven consulting services and a strategy to reframe their future," concluded Dan Higgins, EY Global Technology Consulting leader. "The EY Microsoft Services Group brings together both organisations’ respective strengths and exemplifies the shared belief that ecosystems help contribute to long-term value creation. We look forward to broader and deeper co-innovation with Microsoft as we build solutions that help businesses to transform and drive differentiated outcomes.”