Microsoft has entered into a strategic partnership with John Keells IT in an effort to accelerate digital transformation strategies across both Asia Pacific and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions.
The Sri Lanka-based provider and Microsoft have been partnering since 2012, with the IT consultancy the site of the vendor's first-ever Office 365 deployment in-country.
As part of this partnership, the tech giant will host SAP S/4HANA on Microsoft Azure, representing John Keells' first-ever deployment on the platform and one of the first in the Asia Pacific region to deploy SAP S/4HANA on Azure.
"SAP HANA on Azure will give John Keells IT a joint ecosystem that brings unique insights and rich product integration to help their customers make the most out of running SAP solutions and applications in the cloud — accelerating their performance, productivity, and innovation with seamless enterprise-class support,” said Hasitha Abeywardena, country manager for Microsoft Sri Lanka and Maldives.
"John Keels IT has been at the forefront of digital transformation and innovation and we are happy to have them as our partner and see them driving this transformation across Sri Lanka and beyond."
This is part of the consultancy’s efforts to realise its bi-modal IT strategy as part the push towards digital transformation.
"Building innovative and transformative solutions based on a bi-modal strategy and design thinking philosophy requires collaboration, co-innovation and co-creation,” added Ramesh Shanmuganathan, executive vice president and group CIO John Keells Group and CEO, John Keells IT.