Company background: "HSO is the second largest Microsoft partner in the globe," Holwagner reports. It focuses on industries including professional services, manufacturing, finance, and the public sector. HSO continues to grow not only with its traditional ERP services but also around cloud and AI services. "The mission here is really to improve our clients' business performance with the results of Microsoft solutions."
AI's market impact: "It's definitely a transformation happening faster than anything I've seen before," Holwagner says. While there's already been significant advancements with AI, it's still only the beginning of what has yet to be built out and understood. He breaks down AI across four different roles:
1. At the top level, boards and owners are pushing for areas of efficiency to stay competitive, reimagining the business model using AI.
2. The next level is the CTO or an IT manager; they have efficiency demands, but they're also primarily thinking about how to contain information and data in a security model.
3. The business leaders or department heads are being tasked to think about efficiency using AI but they're mostly busy keeping their engine going. They need tools that show them where to get ROI.
4. The last level is HR, which might be considering where AI is filling in for various jobs.
Perspectives for applying AI: HSO looks from a responsibility perspective in three different areas. First, it aims to educate customers on what's possible while also focusing on what's doable. Second is protection, which involves having control over your domain information. The third area is thinking about use cases for specific AI components.
Organizational transformation: With the introduction of AI, there's a transformation happening across organizations in a variety of industries. AI has been thought of as a technical element when it needs to be included in functional conversation, especially for consulting businesses, Holwagner notes. Leaders and managers must understand the concepts of weaving in AI to give it value. AI transformation will likely lead to a "healthy reduction in certain areas" in the workforce, but "the transformation of what people are going to do in the organization is going to change." It will be more business logic transformation consulting and fewer hands-on the keyboard-related tasks, Holwagner shares.
Summit NA: HSO will be attending Community Summit North America. You can connect with HSO at booth #209. The HSO team will be presenting several sessions throughout the event as well, including:
- The Latest D365 AI Agents and Features to Automate Your Supply Chain on Monday, October 20th
- Delivering a Scalable, Secure Data & AI Platform on Monday, October 20th
- 3 Hidden Risks of AI in the Enterprise—and How to Manage Them Responsibly on Tuesday, October 21st
- Solving Customer Master Data Challenges for a 360° View in Dynamics 365 CE (CRM) and F/SCM (FO) on Wednesday, October 22nd

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AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: HSO's Kelly Holwagner on the Rapid Impact of AI on Organizational Transformation

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AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: HSO's Kelly Holwagner on the Rapid Impact of AI on Organizational Transformation