Vodafone Business and Microsoft have announced a new five-year strategic partnership to help small and medium-sized businesses in Europe through the digital transformation journey. The technology businesses will collaborate to create new end-to-end cloud-based services that will employ 5G, edge computing, and IoT capabilities to improve the economy and provide innovative solutions for hybrid work.

Mark Allinson, Strategy and Development Director, Vodafone Business, said: “For businesses to become truly digital, they need networks, cloud and security to work in harmony. 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 an SME Champion and a platform-based business.”

The agreement expands on an existing relationship by providing customers with seamless cloud experiences that are flexible, secure, simple to use, and future-ready – assisting organizations 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 optimize application performance.

Vodafone Business customers will have direct access to Microsoft 365, Teams Phone System, and Microsoft Azure, thanks to the combination of Vodafone Business’ worldwide reach and strengths in developing connectivity technologies and Microsoft’s premier cloud platforms. These solutions increase productivity by allowing employees to stay connected while working remotely and communicate information in near real-time.

The companies will collaborate and co-innovate to create new products in areas such as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) and the Internet of Things (IoT), bringing the benefits of 5G and Mobile Private Networks (MPN) to reality.

Mixed reality is the first field of collaboration. Organizations may improve operations and remote working experiences, as well as establish smoother onboarding and training procedures for employees, by combining Vodafone Business’ dedicated edge computing services with Microsoft’s software and HoloLens 2 headset.

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, speeding up assembly, increasing precision, and increasing efficiency on the factory floor.

With instant access to experts at any time and from any location, task accuracy improves, and the hands-free nature of this technology allows workers to follow instructions and advice while still paying full attention to their physical surroundings, thereby supporting the growing challenges around safety and compliance.

“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 realize growth,” said Rodney Clark, Corporate Vice President, Channel Sales, Microsoft.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Vodafone Business to bring innovative Microsoft cloud solutions, that leverage 5G and edge computing services, and support new ways of working, to market.”

The new services are available from Yesterday (November 4th) to Vodafone Business customers across Europe.