Airtel makes big strides in digital transformation with Oracle Cloud

Digital transformation is redefining business operations across the economic landscape. The appetite for adopting a well-integrated and digital-first strategy is definitely on the rise. Cloud has become a critical element of enterprises’ digital strategy, with cloud migration a priority for CIOs. As a result, ICT spending is expected to reach $111 billion by 2024, as per IDC. The telecom sector is one of the largest and fast-evolving sectors of the Indian economy. Telcos are shifting gears, realigning their strategy and reaping the benefits of the cloud. With increasing internet teledensity, the telecom sector is sitting on a massive amount of data, especially given the rapid increase in internet subscribers and the advent of 5G in India.

Airtel, one of the leading telcos, is making big strides in its digital transformational journey every year. The company has invested over $46 billion in creating the digital highway over which 40% of India’s digital activity takes place, and making its network 5G ready. It is also operating one of India’s largest private clouds with a trillion transactions a day on its private cloud infrastructure. The company has capitalised on cloud infrastructure, with Nxtra by Airtel, a data centre platform, already serving hundreds of customers and all hyperscalers. Oracle and Airtel have recently partnered to support the growing demand for cloud services in India under which, Oracle will expand its India West (Mumbai) region capacity with Nxtra.

Pradipt Kapoor, CIO, Bharti Airtel, says, “The telecom industry is witnessing enormous growth and massive digitalisation. We wanted a technology partner that could meet these dynamic demands and help us in the transition to cloud-based applications as we build a digital Airtel.” Reiterating the expansion in demand for cloud-based applications and an innate need to serve a hybrid IT environment, he added, “Cloud has been able to accelerate migrations, can work in interoperable environments, deliver better reliability and performance for our applications.”

Airtel’s business is centred around the digital-first approach today. Layers of digital infrastructure, digital experience, digital enterprise, digital banking and digital services represent the new Airtel. With its investments in hyperscalers (hyperscalers provide cloud, networking, and internet services at scale by offering organisations access to infrastructure via an IaaS model), recent partnership with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and use of Oracle Cloud HCM to streamline employees and HR processes, Airtel is undergoing a digital metamorphosis internally and externally to serve its stakeholders and customers better. The deployment of Oracle Fusion ERP and SCM comes close on the heels of its recent OCI partnership with Oracle and brings it closer to being a digital telco.

Shailender Kumar, regional managing director, Oracle India, says the Oracle Fusion ERP and SCM Cloud can help address some of the challenges faced by Airtel such asreal-time integration, automation and less scope of collaboration, simplification and agility, explains . “This deployment will support Airtel’s shared services operations’ mission of driving productivity and responsiveness,” he adds. “Continuing on our common values around customer-centricity, speed and innovation, the new Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP deployment will help modernise Airtel’s business operations and simplify their internal processes dramatically.”

With the Cloud ERP and SCM deployments Airtel will be able to automate manual processes, gain an on-demand 360-degree view of its financial data and streamline procurement and supply chain management. The deployment will not help transform Airtel’s internal operating models to enable its partners and employees to deliver better customer engagement and service but will also help it be more agile in addressing the needs of its clients.

This is going to be one of the largest digital transformations in the global telecommunications industry, where cloud is helping drive efficiency and integration across a telecom company. Says Airtel’s Kapoor, “This partnership will enable us to fast-track returns from cloud investments with our go-to-market strategy alignment for our enterprise customers. We have seen the benefits of Oracle Applications Suite and with the adoption of Oracle Fusion ERP & SCM Cloud, we hope to overcome legacy issues by developing forward-thinking processes and becoming more agile in addressing customers’ and businesses’ needs, supported by regular automated upgrades.” What News