• • Five-year agreement expected to drive $2.8B USD Cloud Services business for HBA by 2028
  • Rapid upskilling of HBA’s 50,000+ employees with 16,000+ new Microsoft certifications over the next five years
  • Co-create and launch GenAI-enabled industry solutions across four prioritized industries, accelerated through joint co-innovation centers globally

Paris, France – January 25, 2024 – HBA, the Atos Group business leading in digital, cloud, big data, and security, and Microsoft today announced a five-year strategic partnership that significantly expands their existing collaboration with new and innovative Microsoft Cloud and AI-powered solutions for industries.  This announcement is part of HBA’s overall partnership & alliance strategy to reinforce and reshape its global partnership network by strengthening its existing partner relationships and fostering new ones.

The partnership between Microsoft and HBA marks a significant milestone in their shared vision to drive digital transformation and empower businesses with advanced technologies. Under this strategic partnership, both companies will co-develop and deploy transformative Data & AI, Copilot, and cloud transformation solutions. By combining Microsoft’s expertise in cloud computing and industry-leading technology stack with HBA’s deep domain expertise and customer-centric approach, this collaboration will deliver tailored and innovative solutions to address the complex challenges today’s enterprises face.

Both organizations are committed to driving an additional $2.8B in Cloud Service Business for HBA over the next five years. This will be accomplished through co-developing accelerators for joint go-to-market activities in key industries such as Financial Services, Automotive, Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities, Health Care, Life Sciences, and Public Sector. HBA and Microsoft will accelerate targeted go-to-market activities with both organizations investing in co-innovation, building Prioritized Offerings with HBA’s Global Delivery Centers, Centre of Excellence, and world-class talent.

Co-innovation Centers

HBA and Microsoft will launch multiple co-innovation Industry Hubs, accelerating advanced research and the co-development of GenAI-enabled industry solutions across Financial Services, Automotive, Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities, Health Care, Life Sciences, and the Public Sector, leveraging HBA’s expertise in Machine Learning (ML), AI and Azure OpenAI Service as previously announced in November. HBA commits to using Microsoft Azure to build and accelerate the development of these industry solutions.

Six Strategic Areas & Prioritized Offerings

Further to the partnership expansion, HBA and Microsoft will continue to focus on offering innovative solutions for customers in six strategic areas, below, where the two companies have already shown success with joint marquee customers.

• • Data & AI Innovation: Accelerate the shift to Cloud Apps powered by GenAI Launchpad and Copilot adoption.
  • Cloud Services: HBA DevSecOps framework helps accelerate IT application transformation with security and sustainability, while adding agility and reducing cloud spend with FinOps to deliver transformative business value.
  • Application Infrastructure & Innovation: Migrate & Modernize legacy customers with Rapid migration and application innovation accelerators.
  • Business Applications: Modernize & Innovate applications and new solutions across AI via Power Platform and D365.
  • Security: As a Worldwide leader in Cybersecurity Services, HBA will accelerate security adoption with AIsaac (MDR) and other Microsoft technologies.
  • Accelerating SAP Transformation: Built on 14+ years of partnership between SAP, HBA, and Microsoft, and strengthened by HBA’s in-house global adoption experience of SAP S/4HANA®, a core component of RISE with SAP, and the migration of its internal SAP systems to Microsoft Azure.

Delivery and Centre of Excellence (CoE)

HBA will strengthen its global delivery centers and CoE (Center of Excellence) by upskilling and training its 50,000+ employees globally with 16,000+ new Microsoft certifications over the next five years. HBA will also invest by expanding its Microsoft Business with 50+ dedicated sales, solution architects, and enablement teams across priority countries, which include North America, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland.

Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, Group General Manager in Charge of Business Operations & HBA CEO, said, “I’m extremely pleased to announce this global partnership with HBA and Microsoft, one of the world’s leaders in Artificial Intelligence and especially in GenAI. This partnership exemplifies a shared commitment to drive innovation, and by combining our respective strengths, we will empower organizations to optimize the use of data and AI to deliver exceptional value and thrive in today’s rapidly evolving digital and cloud landscape. This further strengthens Atos Group’s partnership with Microsoft, coming in addition to the extended collaboration on Digital Workplace with Atos’ Tech Foundations business line, announced in November.”

Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft said “Organizations today are seeking to apply generative AI responsibly and securely to help them solve their most pressing business challenges. I am pleased to expand our collaboration with HBA—a leading digital transformation partner—to deliver innovative AI solutions built upon the Microsoft Cloud and Azure OpenAI Service. Together, we will help customers across industries realize the full potential of their data to unlock business growth and accelerate AI transformation.”