For parents, objectivity is a must. We are told that it is not appropriate to have a favorite among our children. Each child should be treated with the same care and receive the same amount of love. Interestingly enough, it’s pretty much the same if you run global alliances, as I do. Though each is unique, I love every partner equally. That said, being a proud Swiss national, I must admit that I have always had a soft spot for Swisscom.
Earning a black belt
At our recent Dell Technologies World conference in Las Vegas, Swisscom was recognized as a Titanium Black Partner, the uppermost echelon for companies working closely with Dell Technologies. Swisscom thus joins the ranks of partners like Atea, Bechtle, CDW, Computacenter, FusionStorm, Insight, Itochu, SHI and WWT. There are only ten partners in the world that have made it to the Titan Black level, and Swisscom is the only enrolled Cloud Services Provider among them. This is quite an achievement. In recent years, Swisscom has invested heavily in building a shock-proof infrastructure for its cloud services, and there’s hardly a Dell EMC product that you will not find in its datacenter. This investment is paying off for both parties.
In a nut shell, Swisscom runs three clouds on our equipment: its Enterprise Service Cloud, SAP Cloud and Development Cloud. These are an integral part of Swisscom’s ‘Journey to the Cloud’ consultation and transformation framework, and are in high demand with local customers. The fact that all data are hosted on Swiss soil is clearly an advantage for any customer conscious of data regulation, notably the new EU directive in force since May 25th, the GDPR. Securing data is one of the top priorities at Swisscom, and this is the reason that the company has emerged as the largest outsourcer of the national market, including financial services. The cloud has long not been an option for many enterprises, but gradually they are warming up to the idea. At Swisscom, the hybrid cloud is in especially high demand.
As the incumbent telecoms operator in its country, Swisscom plays a leading role in the digitization of the Swiss economy. But its leadership goes further, as it will be one of the first operators in Europe actually rolling out 5G in major cities and selected rural areas. Introducing 5G will give an enormous boost to all kinds of new data-intensive services, and it is a prerequisite if connected cars and driverless vehicles are ever to become a commercial success.
The ecosystem always wins
So how does such a close collaboration as the one between Dell EMC and Swisscom come into being? It starts with a firm commitment from both sides. From our end, we have definitely pulled an absolute ‘A-team’ together to work on this partnership, and experience has shown me that the same happened at Swisscom. Dedication to hammering out a mutual offering that perfectly fits the Swiss market has led to an implementation that was deployed in record time, using an agile and innovative methodology.
Another element that contributed to our combined success is the kind of relationship we have built with all of our alliance partners: together we form an ecosystem where each of the participants benefits. This partnership works only when each company adopts a ‘we win, you win’ attitude. And that’s the spirit that you will find in both the Dell EMC and Swisscom DNA.
