Cloud Platforms

Modern Apps & Data/AI

Generative AI MVP

Leverage the power of generative Al in your business quickly, privately and at scale.

Generative Al is rapidly changing the way we do business and helping organizations do more with less. However, employing applications like ChatGPT for corporate use cases raises serious concerns around privacy and security, which can slow adoption and delay valuable innovation. With so many prospective cost savings and process efficiencies tied to generative Al adoption, organizations need to find a way to embrace generative Al quickly while ensuring private business data is secured.

The technology enables organizations to innovate in a private high-performance instance of cloud or on-premises infrastructure, all while maintaining security, compliance and governance.

Sales Finance IT HR
Marketing Operations Legal

How we help

With an MVP engagement, your business gets to use the power of GPT fast, in a secure, private way with built-in cost management and performance insights. Your organization could experience instant productivity gains with a web-based chat app that works on desktop and mobile. We'll also integrate your private data sources, so you can unlock the true power of generative Al technologies.

This MVP engagement will help you:

icon Secure private install of Azure OpenAI in your tenant, within days.
icon Manage users and access with Azure Active Directory® integration.
icon Provide secure access to the chat application from browsers and mobile devices.
icon Track usage and chat history with a performance insights dashboard.
icon Enable administrators to seamlessly track costs and set budgets.
icon Kick-start value with targeted chat prompt suggestions.

What to expect

icon We start by reviewing your identified use case and exploring the data sources and applications impacted by it. We'll help you evaluate the "chat-readiness" of your data and whether improvements need to be made to optimize responses.
icon Next, we'll configure a cloud landing zone and foundational services to support the Azure® OpenAI® Service.
icon Then, we'll deploy our Insight Lens for Gen Al Accelerator, which gives you a rapid testing ground to explore private chats and responses from your private data.
icon During the remaining weeks, we'll work together to configure, integrate and test your data.
icon Finally, we'll collaborate on a roadmap that addresses other use cases you have in mind and how to scale this solution.
Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Insight Lens for Gen AI Accelerator

Leverage the power of generative Al in your business quickly, privately and at scale with Azure OpenAI and Insight Lens.

Generative Al is rapidly changing the way we do business and helping organizations do more with less. Using applications like ChatGPT for corporate use cases raises serious concerns around privacy and security, which can slow adoption and delay valuable innovation. With so many prospective cost savings and process efficiencies tied to generative Al adoption, organizations need to find a way to adopt generative Al quickly while ensuring private business data is secured.

Azure® OpenAI® from Microsoft provides businesses with a private high-performance instance in your Azure tenant to help you realize the efficiencies and innovation potential of generative Al - while maintaining security, compliance and governance - across a multitude of operational functions.

Sales Finance IT HR
Marketing Operations Legal

How we help

With the Insight Lens for Gen Al Accelerator, your business gets to use the power of GPT fast, in a secure, private way with built-in cost management and performance insights. Experience instant productivity gains with a web-based chat app that works on desktop and mobile.

icon Secure private install of Azure OpenAI in your tenant, within days.
icon Manage users and access with Azure Active Directory® integration.
icon Provide secure access to the chat application from browsers and mobile devices.
icon Track usage and chat history with a performance insights dashboard.
icon Enable administrators to seamlessly track costs and set budgets.
icon Kick-start value with targeted chat prompt suggestions.

What to expect

After configuring your Azure subscription and gaining access to Azure OpenAI, Insight will deploy the Insight Lens for Gen Al Accelerator. After that, users will be able to privately start new chats and access previous threads, while admins can easily set budgets and manage users to learn how Azure OpenAI can improve your business in all directions.

Need to go furtherwith OpenAI and GPT?

For larger organizations seeking advanced solutions, this Accelerator engagement can be extended with additional services tailored for complex data integrations and custom use cases, enhancing your Azure OpenAI installation.

Contact us at alliances@insight.com to set an Azue OpenAI and GPT Strategy Workshop today.

Why Insight for Microsoft?

Insight is in the top 1% of all Microsoft partners globally. Our 30+ year partnership and investment in transformation demonstrates our commitment to Microsoft® technologies and maximizing their value for your business.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Microsoft Fabric Pilot

Business challenge

Fabric brings together existing offerings like Data Factory, Synapse, and Power BI into a single unified product for all your data and analytics workloads. It can be difficult to understand how this new product integrates to an existing data estate, and how to get started.

How we help

Insight helps your business understand how to make the most of your current data estate, and leverage the latest cloud data platform capabilities through Microsoft Fabric by:

  • Evaluating how much you actually spend, through a single bill and the flexibility to adjust resources based on your specific business needs.
  • Easing deployment and management, to focus on governing the entire estate because of the SaaS-powered suite and use the time saved to uncover more insights.
  • Giving your teams the power to quickly spin up data-backed insights powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, without compromising security and compliance.

Prerequisites

For best results, this offering serves clients who:

  • Manage data either on-premises or in an Azure or AWS subscription.
  • Have available Subject Matter Experts who can provide details regarding business priorities and available data sources.
  • Eagerly explore new technologies and have a strong desire to uncover unrealized business value.

What to expect

The engagement includes rapid deployment and configuration of Microsoft Fabric, with connectivity to a sample set of existing data sources. Specific activities include:

  • Targeted workshops cover estate assessment, risk migration strategies, Azure data services, networking and security foundations, governance and cost control
  • Deployment and setup of Microsoft Fabric, based on best practice architecture, and aligned to sample use cases, with the right security and access controls
  • Amazing speed to value, with integrated services across the spectrum of data ingestion, processing, business intelligence, machine learning, and real time reactivity.
Initiate Implement Iterate
  • Project kickoff
  • Align stakeholders
  • Assess existing data sources
  • Design conceptual architecture
  • Resolve technical dependencies
    (connectivity, access, etc.)
  • License & provision MS Fabric
  • Configure lakehouse and analytics environments
  • Design and build data models
  • Develop data ingestion pipelines from data sources
  • Develop data processing notebooks
  • Review delivered value
  • Identify and execute next steps for continuing value

Microsoft Fabric Pilot

Industry experience

Insight’s deployment methodology and framework have delivered value for clients in a variety of industries including Manufacturing, Education, Oil & Gas, Natural Resources, Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Construction.

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Azure OpenAI Immersion Workshop

Innovate with Azure OpenAI Service.

Expand your generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) knowledge and expertise with the Insight Azure OpenAI Immersion Workshop. Dive deep into the Microsoft® Azure® OpenAI Service and learn to apply responsible AI practices to your organization and implement AI governance. Join us in a facilitated designthinking session to explore OpenAI use cases within your organization and come away with the expertise you need to develop them further.

Uncover AI-led growth opportunities with a one-day workshop.

Generative AI is one of the most talked about AI innovations in recent history. As the technology evolves, businesses seek ways to integrate it into core processes and platforms to drive efficiencies and provide immediate return on investment.

The Azure OpenAI Immersion Workshop provides your organization with a comprehensive understanding of Azure OpenAI’s cutting- edge capability, regarding ChatGPT, GPT-4, DALL-E, Whisper and Codex. You will learn how these models work and apply them to real-world problems.

Why you should attend

Given the breakneck speed at which generative AI is maturing and the vast opportunity this technology presents, it’s essential to learn how organizations use the available models to streamline processes and deliver business value. By attending this workshop, you can:

Learn to accelerate your AI journey with Azure OpenAI Service.

Gain a deeper understanding of responsible AI and AI governance.

Identify current, ongoing AI opportunities in your business environment.

Walk away with actionable next steps based on your specific needs and objectives.

What to expect

During this workshop, we’ll partner with you to strengthen your organization’s approach to generative AI. We’ll help you better understand how to adopt Azure OpenAI Service with:

Use-case exploration Expert guidance Actionable takeaways

The workshop consists of interactive, design-thinking activities designed to give you a practical understanding of OpenAI capabilities.

The workshop is led by experts in the field, who provide you with guidance and feedback.

By the end of the workshop, you will see how OpenAI technologies can be applied to your own projects.

You will explore firsthand how OpenAI can integrate into your own projects.

You will have the opportunity to ask questions and receive personalized advice on how to apply OpenAI technologies to your own projects.

You will leave with actionable next steps on how to integrate OpenAI technologies into your workflows and processes.

Who should attend

The workshop provides the opportunity to ideate AI use cases within your organization and is intended for data and analytics decisionmakers and their immediate teams like:

  • Chief Data Officer (CDO)
  • Chief Information Officer (CIO)
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

About Insight

When it comes to compliance, you need an experienced partner. At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage solutions that help your organization run smarter. We work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Accelerator

Business challenge

Presenting a faster way to modernize apps and leverage containers: the Insight Azure® Kubernetes® Service (AKS) accelerator.

Maintaining legacy applications can be challenging for IT, but updating those applications to a modern platform can be equally daunting. Already faced with limited resources while trying to keep pace with the speed of innovation, IT can’t run the risk of failed modernization projects or cost overruns.

Migrating applications to a fully managed Kubernetes platform such as AKS enables your applications to adopt features not possible on conventional hosting platforms. Take advantage of scalability, resiliency, fast deployment rollback, advanced service mesh networking and application isolation.

How we help

At Insight, we help you with a rapid migration of legacy apps to containers — and many applications can be moved to a container-based platform with minimal changes. Leveraging our broad experience with container orchestration technologies, you’ll help you set up, deploy and secure your own AKS cluster in your Microsoft® Azure subscription.

During this accelerator, we conduct a light assessment of your application portfolio. From there, we determine which applications to prioritize, creating a roadmap for each one. We then work with your teams to get your AKS environment ready for deployment. Finally, we execute the modernization roadmap for one or more of the prioritized applications.

Preparing for transformation

To ensure you receive the greatest value from this accelerator, please be prepared with:

  • A general understanding of containers
  • Relevant documentation
  • Active and regular engagement from stakeholders and technical subject matter experts

Our approach

Plan Build Modernize Deploy
  • Prioritize applications for modernization.
  • Begin adapting applications for deployment in containers.
  • Help configure developer workstations to facilitate container-based development.
  • Migrate data into container or Azure platform-based database.
  • Create Continuous Integration/ Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for container builds and deployment.
  • Deploy Kubernetes cluster in Azure subscription using AKS with Bicep or HashiCorp Terraform® templates.
  • Configure cluster to support monitoring, security, logging and storage best practices.
  • Integrate cluster into Azure Active Directory (AD)
  • for authentication and authorization.
  • Configure additional Azure components as necessary (storage, network, VPN, etc.).
  • Begin adapting applications for deployment in containers.
  • Help configure developer workstations to facilitate container-based development.
  • Migrate data into container or Azure platform-based database.
  • Create Continuous Integration/ Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for container builds and deployment.
  • Create and configure Azure Container Registry for private image storage.
  • Work with IT teams to deploy applications to AKS using CI/ CD pipeline.
  • Validate functionality, security and performance.
  • Perform cutover migration to newly migrated apps.

Reference architecture

About Insight

When it comes to compliance, you need an experienced partner. At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage solutions that help your organization run smarter. We work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Sustainability Data Platform Pilot

Business challenge

Today’s businesses need to produce voluntary and regulatory reporting in a timely and reliable manner. A growing area for reporting requirements is Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG). Many organizations don’t have consistent data ingestion and processing capabilities related to emissions and water-quality data. This poses a challenge in meeting modern reporting needs.

How we help

Our Sustainability Data Platform pilot ensures data collection can be supported by process automation both for machine-generated data (Internet of Things; IoT) and for manually supplied data. Reporting needs subject to jurisdictional requirements can also be met by applying the appropriate methodology and rules by location/ region, asset type and reporting period. Microsoft® Cloud for Sustainability provides a configurable and extensible user interface for interacting with data and consuming reports.

Prerequisites

With just a few up-front requirements, Insight delivers this funded program to enable your analytical outcomes:

  • Active Microsoft Azure® subscription
  • Azure landing zone in place or included in engagement deliverables
  • Historical data to be used as a basis for data-processing development
  • Subject-matter expert availability

What to expect

The engagement includes rapid deployment of advanced tools and services according to a best-practice framework. This framework accommodates data from existing IoT systems, business applications and manually generated field data.

Activities include:

  • Targeted workshops covering data-estate assessment, risk-migration strategies, Azure data services, networking and security foundations, governance and cost control
  • Deployment and migration of Azure data services platform, based on best-practice architecture and aligned to your use cases with the right security and access controls in an efficient cloud ecosystem
  • Business value from your data made accessible using Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability for data consumption
  • Maximized knowledge transfer, achieved by working with you as a blended team throughout the process

Industry experience

Insight’s deployment methodology and framework have delivered value for clients in a variety of industries including manufacturing, education, oil & gas, natural resources, retail, financial services, healthcare and construction.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

AI Vision Accelerator

Our vision

Insight frequently encounters clients with costly operational concerns related to detection and identification of hazardous objects, anomalies or defects. Enhancements to existing manual-detection processes may be required in order to support the highest operational safety and efficiency.

Our objective

Our objective is to launch an artificial-intelligence (AI) and custom computer-vision pilot, looking into existing manual processes that clients have identified as opportunities for automated enhancement. In service of this objective Insight proposes a two-phase engagement to first establish a foundational understanding of requirements and outcomes. We then build out a pilot implementation to deliver a suitable infrastructure foundation and demonstrate key features and capabilities.

Our process

A repeatable, enterprise-wide deployment model

icon Align: Define
  • Understand stakeholder issues and personas.
  • Define and prioritize use cases and KPIs for your solution roadmap.
icon Production Deployment: Deploy and support
  • Deploy Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to a wider audience with support.
  • Add key improvements discovered from pilot and start realizing return on investment (ROI).
  • Gather feedback for continuous product improvement.
icon Deploy Pilot: Learn
  • Focus on deploying pilot to demonstrate business value for your highest-priority use case.
  • Collect information from selected camera devices and integrate with Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform.
icon Scale Deployment: Scale and improve
  • Roll out to enterprise with production support.
  • Ensure increased visibility and insights are translating into new opportunities and results.
  • Identify areas of improvement and add new use cases to drive further value and ROI.

Phase 1: Align

Summary

  • Preparation

    In order to facilitate an effective workshop series, the client and Insight conduct a varying amount of preparation exercises, which depend on the size of the workshop.

  • Stakeholder interviews

    Insight conducts stakeholder interviews, capturing outcome requirements, business objectives and existing technical assets to help set the tone of the workshops.

  • Solutions workshop

    By facilitating workshops with your team, we’re able to help identify (or in this case validate) goals, pain points and opportunities through an outcome-oriented approach.

  • Align and prioritize next steps

    In addition to our outcomes, the workshop validates highest-priority use cases and KPIs for the pilot, with a focus on pinpointing specific technologies to accomplish outcome objectives. The key outcome is the procurement of camera devices.

  • Outcomes

    The engagement yields a specific plan of execution to deploy and configure devices, develop an AI model and configure infrastructure required for Phase 2: Deploy Pilot.

Phase 1: Align

Activities and outcomes

Preparation
  • Stakeholder interviews
  • Review client materials and research solutions
  • Agenda and workshop collateral
Workshop(s)
  • Deep-dive session with key business and IT stakeholders
Activities and outcomes
  • Review of desired business outcomes
  • Outline of ecosystem and existing assets
  • Definition (validation) of technical objectives and services to be implemented
  • Prioritized list of thematic opportunities
  • Roadmap for long-term deployment vision
  • Plan and scope for pilot implementation
Close Phase 1
  • Debrief summary of findings and development of plan for Phase 2: Deploy Pilot

Phase 2: Deploy Pilot

Summary

  • IoT and AI service deployment

    Microsoft® Azure® services are deployed, based on plans laid out in Phase 1. These services are configured to conform to the required features and capabilities identified in requirements workshops. Camera and gateway devices are installed in identified assets.

  • Solution development

    Object-identification requirements get interpreted into discrete models for recognition and event generation. Camera and gateway devices get mounted and connected to IoT platform.

  • Testing and remediation

    Device data gets captured and interpreted in as much variety as possible within operational constraints of the environment. Event and notification conditions get evaluated, and models get updated if required. Camera placement gets adjusted for optimal coverage.

  • Prioritize next steps

    Pilot solution gets evaluated against success criteria. Options for next phase (Production Deployment) get reviewed with infrastructure and cost plans. Requirements get prioritized into an actionable backlog.

  • Outcomes

    Key value from Phase 2 is the tactile understanding of the effort required to integrate Azure services to physical-device deployment, device requirements and operational costs.

Roles

Required participants

Client staff Insight Microsoft
  • Sponsor: Engagement sponsor is the key stakeholder from client team, driver of business outcomes and overall success criteria.
  • Technical SMEs: Subject matter experts (SMEs) are resources with specific domain knowledge related to processes and environment targeted for monitoring or other areas pertaining to technical or business requirements.
  • Project manager: Single point of contact for client leadership; They coordinate interactions between client, Insight and Microsoft resources. Provides status reports and administrative support.
  • Solution architect: Key technical and design resource for the engagement; They work closely with client SMEs and leaders to ensure Insight team’s understanding of all facets of scoped work as well as the higher-level strategic fit of this effort for client success.
  • AI consultant: Design and deploy AI Azure Custom Vision models for interpretation of camera data.
  • Azure specialist: Support and oversee to ensure compliance with Microsoft best practices and industry standards.

Schedule and estimation

Timeline

Estimated costs

Phase 1: Align
  • Total cost: $10,000 CAD
  • Duration: approximately 2-3 weeks
  • Insight participants:
    • Project manager
    • Solution architect
  • Deliverable: Design and plan for Phase 2: Deploy Pilot
Phase 2: Deploy Pilot
  • Estimated total cost: $30,000–$40,000 CAD
  • Duration: approximately 2-4 weeks
  • Insight participants:
    • Project manager
    • Solution architect
    • AI consultant
  • Deliverables:
    • PoC deployed
    • Prioritized backlog of features and capabilities
    • Estimated scope and cost for Phase 3
Estimated total
  • Estimated total cost is $40,000--$50,000 CAD
  • Any hardware, licensing and consumption costs will be additional, to be determined as part of design and plan for Phase 2: Deploy Pilot.

Why Insight?

At Insight, we are proud of our strong consulting team of Azure cloud and application specialists, with a proven track record of successfully architecting and implementing Azure cloud-first applications, application deployments and business-modernization solutions. We have helped organizations across a number of industries develop intelligent, UX-led applications to support their business outcomes for greater customer engagement, employee productivity and operation optimization.

We have a broad mix of expertise in digital transformation, ranging from technology advisory and design to implementation services. With true end-to-end service, we have won numerous industry awards for helping organizations achieve agility, productivity and competitive performance through technology.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Analytics & AI Accelerator

Business challenge

Businesses run on data, but you may be leaving value on the table if your existing data estate fails to take advantage of modern data-platform capabilities. You need specialized skills, best-practice deployment of advanced tools and services, and expert support during the modernization journey.

How we help

The Insight Analytics & AI Accelerator helps clients rapidly deploy and configure a modern cloud-native data estate leveraging the best of Microsoft® Azure® services and delivering robust capabilities for analytical outcomes.

Our team of experts offers specialized consulting workshops to refine the selection and configuration of eligible Azure services. We develop and deploy the full solution, then work with you to ensure the environment is supported appropriately for long-term value.

Prerequisites

With just a few up-front requirements, Insight delivers this funded program to enable your analytical outcomes.

  • Active Azure subscription
  • Azure landing zone in place or included in engagement deliverables
  • Analytical use cases, which Insight can help assess
  • Availability of subject matter expert(s)

What to expect

The Analytics & AI Accelerator includes rapid deployment of advanced tools and services based on a best-practice framework. It accommodates data from existing systems, including Microsoft SQL Server®, Oracle® or open-source products and provides early value for your existing data assets.

  • Targeted workshops cover estate assessment, risk migration strategies, Azure data services, networking and security foundations, governance and cost control.
  • Deployment and migration of Azure Data Services Platform aligns with your use cases, with the right security and access controls in an efficient cloud ecosystem.
  • Azure Synapse for analytics and Microsoft Power BI® for visualization add extra business value from your data.
  • Throughout the process, we maximize knowledge transfer by working with you as a blended team.

Industry experience

Insight’s deployment methodology delivers value for clients in a variety of industries including manufacturing, education, oil & gas, natural resources, retail, financial services, healthcare and construction.

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

DevOps Fast Start Engagement

Business challenge

Digital disruption is rapidly changing the business landscape. To remain competitive, organizations must become nimble and innovative to deliver value faster and more frequently to customers. This means empowering IT to elevate business agility — and DevOps is critical to that goal.

DevOps enables IT teams to accelerate time to market with higher quality and increased reliability. However, DevOps transformations can fail if organizations follow the wrong approach, miss organizational/cultural changes or revert to legacy practices over time.

How we help

Insight DevOps Transformation Services unify our transformational and end-to-end technical capabilities, including Organizational Change Management (OCM), digital strategy and Agile development. After decades of transformational engagements with customers, our experience shows DevOps transformation has the highest chance of success — at the fastest pace, leveraging these capabilities right from the get-go.

We offer a range of fast start engagements to meet your specific needs. Our team of certified OCM strategists and Agile experts help guide you through a successful transformation.

Our fast starts include:

  • The DevOps Readiness Check includes the Assess phase, ideal for organizations either considering a transformation, who want to know what is involved, or looking for an independent assessment of their progress, having initiated a transformation on their own.
  • The DevOps Quick Start adds the Plan phase, which provides a roadmap for organizations committed to a transformation but want a well-thought-out plan before moving forward. They may also be unsure about engaging a partner for their transformation.
  • The DevOps Transformation Pilot adds the Execute and Reinforce phases. This is for organizations committed to a DevOps transformation but who want to start small and test the waters before investing in a longer-term engagement.

What to expect

Our transformation experts partner with your leadership, stakeholders and business partners to assess your needs and pinpoint the right value streams. We work with delivery teams to achieve targeted goals and even assist in scaling your transformation when the time is right — measuring and tracking progress every step of the way.

Here are some of the things we bring to the table:

  • End-to-end technical expertise ranging from architecture to operations
  • Deep experience helping clients transform their culture, tools, processes and practices
  • Proven transformation framework
  • Hundreds of certified technologists, with certifications spanning Azure®, AWS®, Google, HashiCorp®, Kubernetes®, Red Hat®, etc.
  • 100+ certified Agile practitioners
  • 80+ certified OCM practitioners

Preparing for transformation

To ensure you receive the greatest value from this engagement, you need:

  • Senior IT leaders to facilitate interactions with relevant teams
  • Participation from key stakeholders across your value streams
  Assess Plan Execute Reinforce Iterations Durations
DevOps Readiness Check ×       ¼ 2-4 weeks
DevOps Quick Start × ×     ½ 3 weeks - 3 months
DevOps Pilot × × × × 1-2 (timeboxed) 9 weeks - 6 months

Our proven process

Insight DevOps Fast Start engagements encompass a variety of valuable assessments, planning, coaching and training activities. At a high level we follow an iterative approach with four key phases:

Assess

We define your current state and envisioned future state, identifying pain points, goals, risks, organizational structure, value streams, etc. We then develop a strategy and begin laying the foundation for your DevOps transformation plan.

Activities

  • Meet with key stakeholders to kick off transformation process.
  • Seed your initial transformation team.
  • Map value streams.
  • Begin selecting value streams and teams to transform.
  • Gather info and metrics via assessments.
  • Develop strategy.

Deliverables

  • Findings and recommendations
  • Transformation charter
  • Roles and responsibilities matrix
  • List of product families, value streams and teams
  • Strategy

Duration

  • Initial assessment approximately 2–4 weeks
  • Subsequent assessments between hours and days

Requirements

  • Access to personnel (including senior leadership) and facilities (if needed)

Plan

The planning phase leverages the findings from the assessment phase to prioritize areas of focus during execution, including which teams to coach and what goals to target. This includes items like team realignment, work-management and production-monitoring improvements, the implementation of low-risk, zero-downtime deployments, etc.

Activities

  • Design any organizational structure changes.
  • Create plan suite.
  • Design governance model, transition plan, end-to-end delivery process.
    • Finalize selection of value stream(s) and teams to transform.
  • Finalize the transformation team.
  • Communicate and promote the transformation kickoff.

Deliverables

  • All planning documentation
  • Backlog of organizational impediments
  • List of key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Coaching agreements
  • Plans for communications, training, coaching, sponsorship and resistance management

Duration

  • Initial plan approximately 2–4 weeks
  • Subsequent planning phases between hours and day

Execute

We execute plans and coach the selected teams through the various changes and improvements required to reach targeted goals. Depending on the needs of the selected teams, coaching expertise may include OCM, digital strategy, Agile, development, testing, automation, security, infrastructure, operations and more.

Activities

  • Execute the plan suite.
  • Implement the governance model.
  • Train internal client DevOps coaches.
  • Identify organizational, process and technical waste.
  • Coach teams on DevOps practices.
  • Deliver training and workshops as needed.
  • Iteratively refactor architecture and tools.
  • Measure progress via metrics, surveys and interviews.

Deliverables

  • Working software through delivery teams
  • DevOps performance metrics

Duration

  • 6+ weeks (i.e., 3+ sprints)

Reinforce

We collect and analyze feedback and metrics, identify gaps, address concerns, take corrective actions and reinforce desired behaviours to make them sustainable.

Activities

  • Gather and analyze feedback and metrics.
  • Understand gaps and manage resistance.
  • Implement corrective actions and celebrate wins.
  • Continue to strengthen client’s ability to own and support the transformation.

Deliverables

  • Feedback and metrics results
  • Updates to plans and collateral

Duration

  • 1 week

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Data Modernization Accelerator

Business challenge

Businesses run on data, but you may be leaving value on the table if your existing data estate fails to take advantage of modern data-platform capabilities. You need specialized skills, best-practice deployment of advanced tools and services and expert support during the modernization journey.

How we help

Our Data Modernization accelerator helps businesses classify, prioritize and position your existing data assets to provide meaningful value.

Our team of experts offers specialized expertise in the selection of services to support your data workloads, migration of data to the cloud platform, and post-migration optimization and stabilization of the platform to best support your applications and business processes.

Prerequisites

What must the client have to participate? Examples:

  • Active Microsoft® Azure® subscription
  • Availability of subject matter experts

What to expect

The Data Modernization accelerator includes rapid deployment of advanced tools and services based on a best-practice framework. It accomodates data from existing systems, including Microsoft SQL Server®, Oracle® or open-source products, and provides early value for your existing data assets.

  • Targeted workshops cover estate assessment, risk-migration strategies, Azure data services, networking and security foundations, governance and cost control.
  • Deployment and migration of Azure Data Services platform aligns with your use cases, with the right security and access controls in an efficient cloud ecosystem.
  • Business value from your data gets made accessible using Azure Synapse for analytics and Microsoft Power BI® for visualization.
  • Throughout the process, we maximize knowledge transfer by working with you as a blended team.

Data Modernization accelerator framework

Industry experience

Insight’s deployment methodology and framework have delivered value for clients in a variety of industries including manufacturing, education, oil and gas, natural resources, retail, financial services, healthcare and construction.

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Application Modernization Fast Start

With outdated application stacks and legacy deployment methods, IT teams Benefits struggle to keep up with changing business needs. At the same time, migrating your applications to a modern platform for cloud-native capabilities can be daunting. For organizations looking for a technology partner to help them migrate their existing on-premises applications to Microsoft® Azure® Platform as a Service (PaaS), Insight provides a complete best-practice approach to security, governance and cost control.

Secure, simplify and mobilize your apps in the cloud.

Insight delivers the foundational framework for repeatable best-practice cloud application modernization, leveraging Microsoft architecture blueprints and Azure DevOps-enabled continuous integration/continuous delivery processes.

This offering is suitable for organizations who have undertaken the Insight Application Modernization assessment, to understand your application landscape and determine the highest-value applications to be modernized to Azure PaaS.

Our two-phase approach consists of an application assessment and design phase followed by an implementation and testing phase.

During the first phase, we review your organization’s and applications’ unique requirements in order to tailor and streamline the deployment of a fit-for-purpose Azure-based web application. Key security, governance, cost-control and operational requirements get addressed together at the start of the project through a series of collaborative workshops and knowledge-transfer sessions.

During the implementation phase, the Insight cloud-application modernization team assists you to get your app running in the cloud in alignment with best practices and organizational standards.

Phase 1: analysis & design

To fully understand your current app environment, security posture and target state goals, Insight conducts a brief series of targeted workshops with your relevant stakeholders to evaluate your application for cloud migration:

  • Solution deep dive to gather architectural requirements
  • Best-practice review
  • Operational review: monitoring, logging and telemetry
  • Security foundations

The workshops result in the development of a tailored solutiondesign document for your new Azure PaaS application.

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Insight’s two-phase approach for application modernization

Phase 2: implementation

The best-practice design gets executed in both the non-production and production environments, incorporating Azure services and controls adhering to key PaaS-functionality, security and governance principles:

  • Deploy and configure Azure policies and governance controls based on design decisions.
  • Configure cloud-web application resource templates.
  • Establish integration and connectivity between services.
  • Validate permissions and access controls.
  • Validate DevOps configuration and pipelines.
  • Deploy required Azure resources.
  • Configure and deploy web application.

This foundational offering allows your organization to rapidly adapt and deploy an on-premises Azure PaaS application and set the best-practice standards for further application migrations.

Azure PaaS reference architecture

Why Insight

At Insight, we are proud of our strong consulting team of Azure cloud and application specialists, with a proven track record of successfully architecting and implementing Azure cloud-first applications, application deployments and business-modernization solutions. We have helped organizations across a number of industries develop intelligent, UX-led applications to support their business outcomes for greater customer engagement, employee productivity and operation optimization.

We have a broad mix of expertise in digital transformation, ranging from technology advisory and design to implementation services. With true end-to-end service, we have won numerous industry awards for helping organizations achieve agility, productivity and competitive performance through technology.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Power BI Workshop

Business challenge

Today’s businesses run on intelligence. The ability to discover, share and integrate data intelligence determines which companies thrive and which will be left behind. However, enabling data intelligence requires a deep understanding of both technical platforms and business enablement, combined with experience creating a thoughtful roadmap to align with repeatable business wins.

How we help

Insight helps you unlock the value of your data using the robust capabilities of Microsoft® Power Bi®. This workshop lets you reimagine how your data can generate new business insights. Our award-winning team helps you develop compelling visualizations and intelligence implementations that integrate with your current data estate and demonstrate modern capabilities.

During this fast start workshop, explore:


Powerful, interactive visualizations

Role-based access control and segmentation

Data manipulation and management with dataflows

Real-time data integration

Preparing for transformation

To get the most value out of this workshop, you need:

  • Business and technical stakeholders hungry to get more from your data
  • Possible scenarios that could benefit from exploration and implementation

Our approach

Idea & envisioning Rapid PoC Visualization & read-out

We begin by exploring the power of Power BI and align its capabilities with your business opportunities. You bring some current candidates (reports, data sets or use cases) and together we shape one to three cases for PoC implementation.

Next, we roll up our sleeves and build a data model to support implementing the PoC cases. We consistently refine our delivery and direction with your business, IT and leadership stakeholders. At the end, you receive code and artifacts, as well as one to three demo-ready Power BI solutions deployed.

Finally, we drive executive and technical read-outs to facilitate PoC understanding and knowledge transfer covering demos, implementation, value assessments and future opportunities. We demonstrate value to your business, IT and leadership stakeholders and identify next steps in your Power BI journey.

Industry experience

Insight’s deployment methodology delivers value for clients in a variety of industries including manufacturing, education, oil and gas, natural resources, retail, financial services, healthcare and construction.

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

IoT Analytics Pilot

Business challenge

Insight frequently encounters clients with costly operational concerns related to the integration of existing Internet of Things (IoT) data. Turning sensor and device data into operational intelligence requires implementation of complex services and capabilities, and specialized skills are needed to deliver a platform that offers enduring value.

How we help

The Insight IoT Analytics pilot focuses on deployment of capabilities supporting improved automation of data capture and reporting outputs, for an improved level of operational visibility into facility and asset data and improved report-generation timeliness.

We help you build a framework, demonstrate a use case and empower you to take full advantage of infrastructure and edge-compute capabilities. This foundation can be integrated with new and existing devices and systems.

Our approach includes two phases to first establish a foundational understanding of requirements and outcomes. We then build out a pilot implementation to deliver a suitable infrastructure foundation and demonstrate key features and capabilities.

Prerequisites

To deliver the best benefit from this engagement, the following environment and conditions are recommended:

  • Active Microsoft® Azure® subscription
  • Availability from internal stakeholders and staff
  • One or more target analytics or business-intelligence use cases, which benefit from integrated IoT data capture
  • Existing deployment of devices or sensors, which provide source data to the solution

What to expect

The pilot includes:

  • Consultation: We begin with an in-depth workshop set to understand your business needs and determine the best use case for your available devices and data. This includes discussions around workload and specifics around connectivity and output requirements.
  • Design: Our experts recommend specific solutions based on identified opportunities. Popular solutions include a reference architecture of Azure IoT and Azure Synapse, including data models based on the industry data warehouse models in the Synapse gallery to drive the most value.
  • Deployment and setup: The approved package, including networking, identity security and monitoring configuration applied to scoped services, will be deployed and the analytical models developed to meet use-case requirements.
  • Value assessment: Testing and validation, both of outcome achievement and value realization, will be executed and documented to determine appropriate next steps for scale and adoption of further use cases.
Phase 1: Align Phase 2: Deploy Phase 3: Scale
Preparation Site survey Solution design IoT & analytics service deployment Solution development Deployment & testing Plan for enterprise deployment

Other Modern Workplace services from Insight

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

IoT Envisioning Workshop

Business challenge

Organizations need timely and efficient data processing to make critical, real-time business decisions. However, studies find 73% of data generated is not analyzed. It can be challenging to effectively manage and integrate a myriad of different types of devices: Assets may be difficult to monitor, connectivity may be poor or nonexistent and devices may be used in locations that are insecure.

How we help

The Insight IoT Envisioning workshop delivers expert guidance to teams embarking on an Internet of Things (IoT) journey or those desiring an improved IoT roadmap. Harnessing the power of Microsoft® Azure® IoT services, including IoT Hub, IoT Edge, Time Series Insights, Digital Twins and Stream Analytics, both new and existing devices can be sources of operational intelligence. The roadmap defines integration with new and existing devices and systems, clearly outlining next steps for a pilot implementation.

Prerequisites

To deliver the best benefit from this engagement, the following environment and conditions are recommended:

  • Active Azure subscription
  • Availability from internal stakeholders and staff
    • Executive Outcomes session for business leaders
    • Technical Skilling session for hands-on practitioners
  • One or more target use cases which will benefit from IoT deployment

What to expect

The following workshops and deliverables are included:

Executive objectives

  • Outcome discovery and use-case definition
  • High-level discussions on objectives and business-value opportunities
  • Meeting with business-process owners

Technical readiness

  • Technical discussion with technical stakeholders
  • Includes discussions on sensors, devices, protocols, syncs, sources, how environments operate together, gateways, etc.

Roadmap and next steps

  • Prioritized set of milestones with actions, dependencies and prerequisites identified
  • Presentation of roadmap with discussion of near-term opportunities

Strategic partnerships for Azure IoT

Intel logo Lenovo logo NVIDIA logo Cradlepoint logo Microsoft logo

About Insight

At Insight, we define, architect, implement and manage Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions that help your organization run smarter. We’ll work with you to maximize your technology investments, empower your workforce to work smarter, optimize your business and create meaningful experiences.

Contact your Insight Canada account executive to get started. Talk to a specialist

Insight excellence - Microsoft awards

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    2022
    Microsoft Canada Partner of the Year

  • award icon

    2023
    Canada Inclusion Changemaker Impact Award

  • award icon

    2023
    Canada Modern Marketing Impact Award

  • award icon

    2023
    Canada Public Sector Impact Award

  • award icon

    2023
    Canada National Large Solution Provider Impact Award

  • award icon

    2023
    Worldwide Solution Assessments Partner of the Year