Program Highlights

• Resetting employees’ minds about what constitutes success.
• How to choose which projects to cut or fund.
• Why it’s critical to concentrate on customer care.

After reinventing itself years ago from a software-for-PCs producer to a software-for-the-enterprise producer, Microsoft is now in the midst of a multi-year initiative to transform itself again—to a software-plus-internet-services provider. And Microsoft remains committed to that transformation, notes Chris Capossela, despite the global economic downturn. In fact, it sees the crisis as an opportunity to rally all parts of the company behind its “big, big bets” for the next five to ten years.

For the short term, Microsoft’s strategic direction to employees comes down to four simple guidelines: understand what they can and cannot control, prepare for an unknown length and depth of downturn, strengthen customer and partner relationships to grow market share, and act with a sense of urgency. For the longer term, the single-minded focus on its software-plus services initiative—which led to Xbox LIVE® and Exchange Online, for example—will continue to demand innovation on all fronts: technology, new business models, global pricing plans, and even naming and packaging practices.

Chris Capossela is responsible for worldwide product and business management for the Microsoft® Office System. He has spent more than 15 years with the company in marketing, technical and field positions, and was previously general manager of the Microsoft Project business unit. He has a BS degree in computer science and economics from Harvard University.