How we've progressed our partnership with Microsoft

It’s been a little over two years since I joined IBM and took the helm of our Microsoft partnership in IBM Consulting. As I look back on where we were at the time, it’s personally gratifying to see how far we’ve come and how we’ve grown together.

While some likely connect IBM & Microsoft to a shared history of competition, in the last few years together, we have transformed our relationship to a fully integrated partnership. With a focus on a better-together approach set by Arvind Krishna and Satya Nadella, we know we are much better partners than we are even close to being competitors.

Helping clients grow together

Together, IBM and Microsoft have a proven track record of delivering meaningful innovation and industry firsts through the combination of our aligned technology portfolios and consulting services. We have been committed to helping our joint clients build, modernize, and manage critical infrastructure – bringing them the capabilities they require and the expertise they need.

And we’re incredibly proud of the real progress we’ve made in helping enterprises uncover actionable insights that they need to make critical business decisions. Take a look at our recent client stories to see the benefits of this partnership come to life: Petronas, State of New Jersey, Wintershall DEA, and Neste OYJ.

When I look at the key areas where we’ve been most successful in helping our clients, top of mind for me is mainframe modernization and SAP on Azure.

The mainframe remains critical to our clients running mission-critical apps and is integral to a hybrid cloud approach. We’re working together to identify the right approach to mainframe app modernization leveraging the mainframe together with the cloud services available with Microsoft. In fact we recently announced availability of the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace to provide mainframe clients the tools and platform for their application modernization needs. ?

At IBM, we have historically managed many large enterprises’ SAP environments. Now, with Microsoft we’re able to work together to deliver holistic technology and insights to help enterprises looking to modernize their SAP environments.?

Lastly, we’ve focused efforts to deploy IBM technology on Azure including Maximo, Cloud Paks and other IBM software assets.

Investing in our people and via acquisitions to strengthen our work

People are our core product here in consulting and we know having the right expertise is critical to help our clients. That’s why we created 41 centers of Microsoft competency across 170 countries and invested in skilling our consultants who now have over 40,000 Azure certifications. This focus on our people has greatly enhanced our ability to execute for our clients. We also developed a Microsoft specific career path to help generate Microsoft talent within IBM Consulting and committed continued resources to advancing talent diversity, inclusion, and equity within this space, which is extremely important to us across the business here at IBM. These are just a few examples on our list of people accomplishments, which also includes nurturing 1,500 Azure Certified Solution Experts (Advanced), Azure certifications and specializations, and advanced proficiencies with major cloud service providers.

Alongside our people, we’ve been hyper focused on strategic Microsoft partner acquisitions that are core to making this partnership as strong as it can be, including Neudesic, Nordcloud, and Taos. All these moves enabled us to build a billion-dollar business with Microsoft, contributing to the great progress which we’re seeing thrive particularly in the U.S., EMEA, and across Australia/New Zealand.

Recognition in this year’s Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Awards

This progress has been monumental for us at IBM and most importantly, for our clients - and now, I’m excited to share the dedication we’ve put forth to evolve our partnership has paid off. Today we are recognized with Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Award in 13 categories. IBM Consulting is named this year’s U.S. Partner of the Year Winner for GSI Growth Champion, which distinguishes us as the partner that’s demonstrated the most significant growth – one that best offers solutions aligned with Microsoft’s in driving digital innovation and cloud transformation for our joint customers in the U.S.

We also are recognized as a U.S. Finalist in Government for the Connect 360 Solution, World-Wide Finalist as the GSI Growth Champion, and Japan Partner of the Year in Manufacturing. Neudesic, an IBM company, is honored for nine of our 13 total awards, including World-Wide Partner of the Year for Migration to Azure, U.S. Partner of the Year Winner in AI, World-Wide Finalist in AI, and U.S. Finalist in Migration to Azure.

It's rewarding to add these achievements to our growing list which includes 17 accreditations within the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, which confirm and validate our technical capabilities in data analytics, data centers, DevOps, security, ERP, and more.?

What’s next for our partnership

It doesn’t stop here and as we look ahead, we will continue to focus on our sell with Microsoft mentality. To further cement our partnership, we are making significant investments in expanding our Microsoft practice and partnership team, investing in repeatable IP built on the Microsoft Cloud, continuing to embrace a co-selling alongside Microsoft approach, and much more. This year is all about increasing our joint investment velocity to help support and transform our clients and their businesses and I’m motivated by the collaborations and conversations I see happening behind the scenes each day.

We have built a strong foundation for the IBM & Microsoft partnership and it’s incredible to look at our accomplishments to date and the alignment of our portfolios. We can’t wait to see what’s next.

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Chris McGuire

Vice President & General Manager, Global Microsoft Strategic Partnership

IBM Consulting

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