Microsoft Kaizala adds new features like Me chat, Persistent chat, voice and video chat, and web app support

Microsoft has announced that Kaizala is now powering over 1000 organizations in India across government and business institutions, to enhance workplace productivity. Backed by Microsoft’s most trusted and secure Azure platform – which ensures compliance with an organization’s data-use policies as well as GDPR – Kaizala is a ‘made for India’ product. It is bringing mobile-only workers, mainly first line workers, into a digitally integrated modern workplace.

Launched just over a year ago, Microsoft Kaizala is now commercially available across 28 markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa and South America. Microsoft also announced that it will be expanding the reach of Kaizala to Office 365 commercial plans worldwide. Developed by the Microsoft Garage team, Microsoft Kaizala allows millions of people to be connected in a group; create hierarchy-based access to a group; and create groups within groups.

Business organizations using this product represent a cross-section of industry sectors, from BFSI to manufacturing to retail, and include YES Bank, UPL, Alembic, Shopper’s Stop and Eureka Forbes. These customers use Microsoft Kaizala to bridge gap between employees, extended workforce and customers; share information among employees; collect data from the field through polls or surveys; track movement of first line workers; and get real-time analytics on integration with Office 365.

One of the early adopters of Microsoft Kaizala, Dr Devi Shetty, Founder and Chairman, Narayana Health, who is committed to delivering high-quality, affordable healthcare, said, “We believe that at its heart, patient care is a network of conversations, and the quality of these conversations determines the quality of care the patient receives. Microsoft Kaizala serves as an Electronic Medical Record, with no attendant cost, and the patient’s data is shared across the group of treating doctors and nurses. All group members monitor a patient’s treatment and make interventions in real time.” Microsoft Kaizala is being used across Narayana Health’s 25 hospitals, 7 heart centres, and network of primary care facilities throughout India.

Among business organizations, YES Bank is using Microsoft Kaizala for its sales team for real time exchange of information and reports. This has resulted in customers getting a better solution, sales people being more productive and earning more incentives, and happier team managers as earlier the MIS would take up to 10 days to generate. It has led to a 2x to 3x kind of productivity gain.

A leading pharma company, Alembic Pharmaceuticals, uses Microsoft Kaizala for chat-based communication with its employees and field workers, and for data collection and management. “Microsoft Kaizala interoperates with Office 365, a solution that employees are already familiar with as an integral solution to their jobs. User acceptance is key, and employees readily accepted Microsoft Kaizala as it was easy to learn and use,” says Jayaraj Nadar, HR, Alembic Pharmaceuticals. 

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India said, “Microsoft Kaizala, with cloud scale & enterprise security, is enabling organizations to achieve more by empowering employees, engaging customers and enhancing workplace productivity. We are delighted with the rapid adoption in just over a year.”

Microsoft Kaizala is now available in 18 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati and Telugu. Aimed at enhancing workplace productivity, while ensuring a secure platform at the same time, Microsoft also announced new, unique features in Kaizala, like Me Chat and Persistent Chat alongside other features like video and voice calling and web app.

• With Persistent Chat messages are saved over time, hence, even when a user joins a group at a later stage he/she will be able to read messages that were exchanged prior to his/her joining the group.
• Data backup and export lets users back up messages, attachments and action card data of organization groups and export it for auditing purposes, on demand.
• Microsoft Kaizala Web (preview) gives users the ability to use Microsoft Kaizala on their web browser. Microsoft Kaizala Web is simply an extension of your phone.
• Users can now make audio and video calls to their Microsoft Kaizala contacts.
• Me Chat is a user’s personal space where the user can save notes, messages, photos and more. Users can find their saved items quickly with Search, and can forward them to whoever they want.

Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft said, “Microsoft Kaizala is a chat-based communication and data management tool. It is an enterprise ready, compliant and secure chat app. It offers organizations easy and simple way to share data for insightful decision making and gives employees an easy-to-use solution for efficient collaboration and improved productivity. Microsoft Kaizala provides controlled user access and data security in accordance with an organization’s policies and is compliant with data protection legislations such as GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC2 and HIPAA.”

Being an open platform, Microsoft Kaizala has developers across markets integrating their solutions to address business needs. Some of the partner integrated solutions include the following.

• Microsoft partner WittyParrot is enabling field and distributed employees of Finance and Healthcare sectors to easily access health insurance claims, medical records, attendance, distance calculation etc. and verify insurance claims or process medical transactions that are usually connected with backend claim apps or EMR apps. Insurance agents, doctors and nurses use Microsoft Kaizala to pull information, collect data in the field and complete transaction workflow. WittyParrot’s AI enabled voice bots and chatbots coupled with Microsoft Kaizala action cards enable employees, distribution channel and customers to self-service sales and support related interactions combined with message tracking and analytical insights.
• Microsoft partner Bitscape is empowering organizations that have security as one of their top priorities. It is enabling customers to engage in secure and productive collaboration using instant text messages. Customers who used Microsoft Kaizala saved costs incurred on sending daily text alerts/SMS. Microsoft Kaizala also helps employees to collaborate and learn collectively. Some of the pharmaceutical companies are using Microsoft Kaizala to improve field worker productivity and provide actionable insights. Bitscape uses integration of Microsoft Kaizala for workflow automation along with various legacy and enterprise applications including SharePoint, Teams, SAP, HRMS solution and sales applications.
• Microsoft partner PC Solutions is helping organizations with customized action cards depending on their needs, from capturing lead generation to raising grievances to enabling consumers keep track of utility bills, raise a request for new utility connection or connection restoration to enabling employees manage their leaves and view salary slips.

 @Technuter.com News Service