Vodafone Business and Microsoft announced a new, five-year strategic relationship to support small and medium-sized businesses across Europe, on their digital transformation journeys.
Together, the technology companies, will deliver new end-to-end cloud-based services, that will leverage 5G, edge computing and IoT capabilities, to support growth and deliver innovative tools for hybrid work.
The agreement builds on an existing relationship and will provide customers with seamless cloud experiences that are flexible, secure, easy to use and future ready – supporting organisations as they transition operations to run outside of legacy infrastructure with professional and managed services that bring the network, cloud and security together to secure and optimise application performance.
Combining Vodafone Business’ global footprint and strengths in emerging connectivity technologies, with Microsoft’s leading cloud platforms, Vodafone’s customers will have direct access to Microsoft 365, Teams Phone System and Microsoft Azure. Boosting productivity, these tools mean employees can stay connected when working remotely and share information in near real-time.
As part of the agreement, the companies will collaborate and co-innovate to deliver new offerings in areas such as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) and Internet of Things (IoT) bringing the benefits of 5G and Mobile Private Networks (MPN) to life.
The first area of collaboration is Mixed Reality. Using Vodafone Business’ dedicated edge computing services with Microsoft’s software and HoloLens 2 headset, organisations can improve operations and remote working experiences and create smoother onboarding and training processes for employees.
In a manufacturing setting, for example, this immersive technology allows engineers to complete maintenance procedures in half the time and new trainees can learn to operate machinery remotely by following step-by-step instructions, helping speed up assembly, bringing greater precision and enhancing efficiency on the factory floor.
Mark Allinson, Strategy and Development Director, Vodafone Business
Together with Microsoft we are providing solutions that can be rapidly deployed and easily managed to support new ways of working and constantly improve business processes. This marks another step towards Vodafone becoming a SME Champion and a platform-based business.
Rodney Clark, Corporate VP, Channel Sales, Microsoft
More than ever before, small and medium-size businesses, across Europe and Africa, need secure and reliable solutions and services that enable real-time communication, collaboration and innovation, in order to transform their businesses and realise growth.
