Avanade Empowers Workforce with Microsoft Fabric Skills to Drive AI Adoption
Avanade, a digital innovation company and joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft, is equipping its employees with the skills to guide clients toward AI-driven transformation and future readiness. With a focus on enhancing employee capabilities in data analytics and reporting, the company is driving strategic decision-making and strengthening data security and governance for its clients. By unifying a complex data landscape with Microsoft Fabric, Avanade is empowering its workforce to better support customer adoption of AI technologies.
Avanade has already upskilled over 10,000 employees in Microsoft Fabric. The company is now expanding its consultants’ knowledge to provide deep insights and robust analytics. Employees are now capable of building tailored Copilot solutions and developing accelerators for monitoring and governance. This initiative lays the foundation for customers to more readily embrace and integrate AI into their operations.
“We’re helping our clientele reinvent their businesses with generative AI,” says Sailaja Bhagavatula, Advanced Technology Centers Global Lead for Avanade. “The first step is to help them create a strong data foundation for AI solutions and other advanced technologies.”
To achieve this, Avanade implemented Microsoft Fabric, a software-as-a-service solution. Fabric includes Microsoft OneLake to break down data silos and bring data together. It also integrates Microsoft Copilot to support developer innovation, and Copilot in Microsoft Power BI to make data available across the organization. This comprehensive analytics foundation streamlines data and analytics workflows. This, in turn, empowers employees to deliver outstanding services to customers.
With the help of Fabric University, Avanade created a dedicated learning platform that delivers enhanced data analytics training. The platform caters to a range of skill sets, from business users to IT professionals. It streamlines learning and provides links to internal and external resources for comprehensive certification support, leading to strong certification rates. More than 10,000 Avanade employees are now using Fabric, with over 600 having earned Fabric certification, delivering dashboards, demos, and sandboxes that keep data confidential and secure.
Thaivasilai Thangasamy, part of the Avanade Technology Group at Accenture, states, “Our goal is to roll out to another 20,000 people in the next year so every employee understands Fabric and can work expertly with data and analytics.”
Suman Sundar, Advanced Technology Centers global lead for Data, AI, and Gen AI Lead at Avanade, says, “With Microsoft Fabric, employees can quickly build different dashboards using natural language and Copilot in Power BI. Their day-to-day jobs have been completely transformed.”
With new skills gained from Fabric University, Avanade employees can create demos to show the power of Fabric. Avanade is using Fabric and other Microsoft solutions to develop new AI tools and accelerators, for its own use and for its customers.
“Businesses come to Avanade because they see we’re using Microsoft technologies, such as Fabric, in the most effective ways possible,” says Bhagavatula.
With Fabric and Fabric University, Avanade ensures employees and customers have the skills they need to create intelligent futures today.
