Vodafone and Microsoft forge 10-year partnership to transform customer experience | IoT Now News & Reports

Vodafone and Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled an extensive 10-year partnership that uses their unique capabilities to provide scalable digital platforms to over 300 million businesses, public sector organisations and consumers throughout Europe and Africa.

As part of this partnership, the two companies will join forces to revolutionise Vodafone’s customer experience by harnessing the power of Microsoft’s generative AI. Additionally, they will work together to expand Vodafone’s managed IoT connectivity platform on a massive scale. The collaboration will also involve the development of digital and financial services tailored for businesses, with a particular focus on SMEs across Europe and Africa. Furthermore, the partnership aims to revamp Vodafone’s global data centre cloud strategy.

Vodafone will invest US $1.5 billion over the next 10 years in cloud and customer-focused AI services developed in conjunction with Microsoft. Additionally, Microsoft will use Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity services.

Microsoft also intends to invest in Vodafone’s managed IoT connectivity platform, which will become a separate, standalone business by April 2024. The new company will attract new partners and customers, driving growth in applications and expanding the platform to connect more devices, vehicles and machines.

The digital services generated by the new partnership will use the latest generative AI technology to provide a highly personalised and differentiated customer experience across multiple channels. They will be built on unbiased and ethical privacy and security policies under Vodafone’s established framework for responsible AI.

“Today, Vodafone has made a bold commitment to the digital future of Europe and Africa,” said Margherita Della Valle, a chief executive at Vodafone Group. “This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers.”

“This new generation of AI will unlock massive new opportunities for every organisation and every industry around the world,” said Satya Nadella, a chairman and CEO at Microsoft. “We are delighted that together with Vodafone we will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience of hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe, build new products and services, and accelerate the company’s transition to the cloud.”

The companies have identified five key areas of collaboration:

• Generative AI: To increase customer satisfaction, the companies will apply the power of Microsoft Azure OpenAI to deliver frictionless, real-time, proactive and hyper-personalised experiences across all Vodafone customer touchpoints, including its digital assistant TOBi (available in 13 countries). Vodafone employees will also be able to use the AI capabilities of Microsoft Copilot to transform working practices, boost productivity and improve digital efficiency.
• Scaling IoT: Microsoft intends to invest in Vodafone’s new, standalone global Internet of Things (IoT)-managed connectivity platform, which connects 175 million devices and platforms worldwide. Vodafone also plans to become part of the Azure ecosystem making the IoT platform available to a vast developer and third-party community using open APIs.
• Africa digital acceleration: Microsoft intends to help further scale M-Pesa, already the largest financial technology platform in Africa, by housing it on Azure and enabling the launch of new cloud-native applications. The companies are also launching a purpose-led programme that seeks to enrich the lives of 100 million consumers and 1 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the African continent. The goal is to enhance digital literacy, skilling and youth outreach programmes, as well as offer digital services to the underserved SME market. The partnership aims to boost financial services innovation, building a community of certified developers.
• Enterprise growth: Vodafone will extend its commitment to distributing Microsoft services, including Microsoft Azure, security solutions and modern work offerings such as Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile, as part of its strategy to become Europe’s leading platform for business. This enables business customers to deploy Microsoft’s cloud-based services at pace with low adoption and running costs, as well as support the estimated 24 million SMEs across Europe through the provision of a managed platform that grows with their business.
• Cloud transformation: Vodafone will accelerate its cloud transformation by modernising its data centres on Microsoft Azure. This will improve its responsiveness to customers, while simplifying and reducing the operational costs of its IT estate. As a result, Vodafone will be able to replace multiple physical data centres with virtual ones across Europe, simplifying and reducing the operational costs of its IT estate, as well as reducing energy requirements and helping deliver against its sustainable business strategy.

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• Source: https://www.iot-now.com/2024/01/19/141960-vodafone-and-microsoft-forge-10-year-partnership-to-transform-customer-experience/