Vodafone Idea is collaborating with leading global technology partners including IBM to deploy new age technologies with built-in customisations and novel innovations
Vodafone Idea Ltd, the largest telecom operator in India, announced that it has signed a multi-million-dollar IT outsourcing pact of five-year with technology major IBM.
This association will contribute to merger synergy objectives of Vodafone Idea by cutting down its IT-related costs.
“The collaboration will provide Vodafone Idea with a hybrid cloud based digital platform to enable more intimate engagement with its over 387 million subscribers (as of December 31, 2018), enhancing business efficiency, agility and scale plus simplification of its business processes,” Vodafone Idea said in a statement.
The new digital platform will eliminate constraints to exponential growth of data usage led by rising consumption of video, streaming and digital commerce. It will also drive improved customer experience to millions of connected businesses and consumers in India.
“Vodafone Idea is collaborating with leading global technology partners including IBM to deploy new age technologies with built-in customisations and novel innovations. We believe that use of IBM’s hybrid and multicloud, analytics and AI security capabilities will accelerate Vodafone Idea’s progression to an open, agile and secure IT environment,” the statement said.
The pact will also offer a platform for quick joint initiatives in Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence.
Opens new opportunities
Commenting on the development, Balesh Sharma, CEO, Vodafone Idea, said, “This five-year collaboration with IBM, opens new opportunities for us to partner together in domains like cloud, AI and IoT. We will also be able to leverage collateral from the cloud partnership already announced between Vodafone and IBM in Europe.”
“Achieving synergies post-merger from the combination of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular is a strategic priority for us and we continue to be ahead of track,” he added.
“IBM will continue to seamlessly deliver enhanced services for Vodafone Idea leveraging its prior capabilities with Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. It will consolidate applications, and infrastructure including data centers, disaster recovery centers, and further accelerate existing cloud usage,” the telecom firm said.