CIOInsider India Magazine

Building on your competitiveness by becoming more collaborative through successful business partnerships is an important ingredient of business success. Business giants in 2024 are building relationships with technology partners through open innovation technologies, which is an effective way to access external competencies and integrate new technologies through sustainable tech partnerships. Let’s deep-dive into the top technology partnerships in 2024 so far.

The Coca-Cola Company and Microsoft’s Partnership
Microsoft and Coca-Cola announced a five-year strategic partnership to align Coca-Cola's core technology strategy system to enable the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and drive innovation and productivity globally. As part of this partnership, Coca-Cola has made a $ 1.1 billion commitments to the Microsoft cloud and its generative AI capabilities. The collaboration highlights Coca-Cola's ongoing technological transformation, backed by Coca-Cola's global priorities and Microsoft Cloud as a strategic cloud and AI platform.

Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Microsoft says, “Through our long-term partnership, we have made significant progress to accelerate system-wide AI Transformation across The Coca-Cola Company and its network of independent bottlers worldwide. We are proud to support Coca-Cola as it continues to embrace the era of AI and looks to solutions like Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot for Microsoft 365 to drive innovation across every area of its business.”

“Our expanded partnership with Microsoft is an important next chapter in Coca-Cola’s journey toward a digital-first enterprise powered by emerging technologies. Microsoft’s capabilities help accelerate our adoption of AI to create incremental enterprise value,” says Neeraj Tolmare, senior vice president and global chief information officer, The Coca-Cola Company.

L3Harris Collaborates with Accenture
L3harris Technologies has recently made a strategic collaboration with Accenture to accelerate the reinvention of the technology. The initiative, which is part of L3Harris' LHX NeXt transformation, centers on building a strong digital core, optimizing operations, and establishing new ways of working to enable future growth.

Christopher E. Kubasik, chair and CEO, L3Harris says, “Our relationship with Accenture will enable us to modernize and automate our IT infrastructure at an accelerated rate. As the industry’s Trusted Disruptor, we are continually identifying ways to unlock innovation so that we can deliver even greater value to our customers.”

Julie Sweet, chair and CEO, Accenture says, “Building a strong digital core will enable L3Harris to more quickly harness the potential of cloud and automation, take its customer service and people experience to the next level, and accelerate its ongoing reinvention. We are excited to work together to help L3Harris optimize operations, drive growth, and reach new levels of performance across the business.”

Telefónica Tech and IBM’s New Collaboration
Telefónica Tech and IBM have announced a new collaboration agreement to drive the adoption of AI, analytics, and data governance solutions and to address the ever-changing and dynamically evolving needs of companies. Although the agreement was initially limited to Spain, it established a framework for collaboration between the two companies to address the complexity of managing new technologies in disparate and changing environments and to help customers derive the full value of these technologies in their business processes.

Elena Gil Lizasoain, director of the Artificial Intelligence and Data business unit at Telefónica Tech, says, “This new collaboration with IBM will help drive the many benefits of Artificial Intelligence, traditional and generative, and proper data management in the business world. By combining the knowledge of both teams, we will continue to advance in the construction of use cases aimed at creating more efficient and sustainable businesses.”

Adolfo Hernández Pulido Technology Managing Director for Telefónica at IBM says, “This collaboration is another step in our long history of working with Telefónica Tech. Together, we are accelerating the digital transformation of the Spanish business community, enabling the development of innovative technology solutions that will help companies adapt to the AI era. Analytics, data governance, and the correct deployment of AI are key elements for today's business success, and we both share the commitment to help businesses achieve it."

Airtel and Google Cloud’s Strategic Collaboration
Bharti Airtel and Google Cloud recently entered into a long-term collaboration to deliver cloud solutions to Indian businesses. The strategic collaboration will offer a suite of cutting-edge cloud solutions from Google Cloud to fast-track cloud adoption and modernization for Airtel’s customers. In addition, Airtel will provide a suite of cloud-managed services to its customer base of more than 2,000 large enterprises and one million emerging businesses. According to reports, the two companies are targeting the large and growing Indian public cloud services market, which is expected to reach $17.8 billion by 2027.

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel says, “As India accelerates its digital transformation, cutting-edge cloud and AI solutions will be at the heart and center of this change. We are happy to partner with Google Cloud and jointly address this market opportunity with secure and scalable Cloud solutions for government, enterprises, and emerging businesses. Together, we will also accelerate the deployment of gen AI in the country and unlock its potential to solve problems.”

Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud says, “Our strategic collaboration with Airtel marks a significant milestone towards our commitment to accelerate cloud and AI adoption in India. Through this partnership, we aim to explore and build transformative solutions that can enhance Airtel’s customer experiences.”

Tata Technologies Partners BMW Group
BMW Group and Tata Technologies, a global product engineering and digital services company, have signed an automotive soft JV contract in Pune and Chennai, Bengaluru, India, subject to review and approval by the relevant authorities. The main development and operational activities must be established in Bengaluru and Pune. In Chennai, we shall focus on business IT solutions.

Warren Harris, CEO and MD of Tata Technologies, says, “Our collaboration with the BMW Group demonstrates our commitment to providing top-tier solutions in automotive software and digital engineering to customers across the world. Aligned with our vision of engineering a better world, we’re excited to bring our expertise to the forefront, aiding BMW Group in engineering premium products, delivering great digital experiences for their customers and propelling its digital transformation journey in Business IT.”

Nachiket Paranjpe, President of Automotive Sales at Tata Technologies, says, “In the evolving automotive landscape, the journey towards software-defined vehicle represents a pivotal shift in automotive software and vehicle development methodologies. We will leverage our deep domain knowledge and SDV expertise to collaborate with the BMW Group towards engineering vehicles that are not just technologically advanced but deliver exceptional experiences to consumers around the globe.”

“The expansion of international DevOps hubs has proved to be a successful model for the BMW Group. I am therefore extremely pleased that we have found a strong and valued technology partner with Tata Technologies and are now also expanding our footprint in India,” says Alexander Buresch, CIO, and Senior Vice President of BMW Group IT.