Capgemini leverages Amazon Web Services to boost cloud transformations

19 September 2018 Consultancy.uk

Global professional service group Capgemini has launched a new initiative to expand its cloud capabilities, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to drive improvement in business performance. The new partnership will see Capgemini and AWS focusing on SAP and mass application migrations, while working to build more end-to-end solutions to infuse automation, AI and machine learning into customer solutions.

Cloud computing is increasingly becoming part of the wider IT market, as the technology develops, needs from customers change and the price comes down. As the technology continues to mature, creating a host of opportunities for providers as more and more companies consider the technology for their IT needs, the cloud market is worth more than 16% of the global enterprise IT market, while continuing at a growth rate of around 17% per year until 2020.

In this atmosphere in which the business appetite for cloud-based solutions is growing, 30% of service centric companies are projected to move the majority of their ERP apps to the cloud by the end of 2018. To better cater to the booming demand related to this market, international professional service network Capgemini has announced the launch of a group strategic initiative to aggressively expand its cloud capabilities with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon is no stranger to tapping into digital disruption itself, having ridden the wave of technological innovation at the turn of the century to become only the second company in history to be valued as a trillion-dollar entity. Capgemini will look to turn this expertise toward helping its clients to increase business insights, agility, security and cost effectiveness to drive improvements in their business performance. With increasing attention being paid to the needs of European clients in particular, Capgemini and AWS will focus on SAP migrations, mass application migrations, accelerated data center modernisation, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Demonstrating how cloud has fundamentally changed the economic landscape for many enterprises, many enterprises are now under significant pressure to maintain and improve their competitive advantage. According to a report by Capgemini earlier in 2018, cloud leaders are building more than 20% of their applications in the cloud, driven by the need to improve velocity, collaboration, and customer experience.

Combining AWS’s ecosystem of cloud technologies with Capgemini’s experience in applications, on-premises infrastructure and cloud managed services to provide a holistic service, driving time-to-market reductions, productivity gains and cost savings. The initiative will initially focus on assisting the migration of enterprise SAP implementations to AWS, the acceleration of application renewal for the enterprise, accelerating data center modernisation strategies, and supporting European and global enterprises maximise top line business opportunities from GDPR, including to help meet compliance needs and use data more strategically.

Extending a decade-long relationship

Part of the new focus will see Capgemini work to innovate and build end-to-end solutions and accelerators in collaboration with AWS, leveraging the global network of Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchanges (AIEs) to infuse automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning into customer solutions. One example of the kind of work Capgemini will be able to do with the new Amazon alliance is the integration of Amazon Alexa with customer data to create both new interactions and increased customer satisfaction in the hospitality sector.

This initiative with AWS builds upon a decade-long relationship between the two organisations, with Capgemini being a Premier Consulting Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN) and an AWS Managed Service Partner. Capgemini simultaneously holds more than 700 AWS certifications including associate and professional level certifications, with the firm planning and plans to boost this to 5,400 certifications to support the new initiative.

Commenting on the news, Aiman Ezzat, Group Executive Board member and Chief Operating Officer at Capgemini said, “Our clients look for global scale and excellence in digital transformation, enabled by cloud technologies. With a commitment to scaling our AWS capabilities we can bring to our clients’ digital journeys both operational efficiencies and the power of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

Andy Isherwood, Vice President and Managing Director EMEA, Amazon Web Services, added, “Capgemini has already helped many customers leverage the scale, security, and agility of AWS services to innovate on the cloud. This new business group will help organizations of all sizes accelerate their adoption of cloud technologies, and we look forward to collaborating with them to help even more customers on their digital transformation journeys.”