Microsoft turns to data to drive business success

Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, in 2017 Microsoft was an $85 billion technology company that employed 114,000 people and operated around the globe. In 2014, Satya Nadella became CEO and accelerated the company’s transformation to a cloud services business model. The transformation inspired new attention to and capabilities around data, particularly in the areas of metrics and dashboards, analytics-powered work processes, and data science services. By 2017, 61 percent of Microsoft’s workforce was using business intelligence monthly. This working paper describes Microsoft’s journey to becoming a data-driven organization and the key activities that facilitated the company’s progress.