With an aim to boost collaboration, productivity and digital transformation in India, Telecom Giant Bharti Airtel and Google Cloud have announced a partnership under which the former will offer G Suite to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India as part of its integrated ICT portfolio. G Suite by Google is a set of apps, including Gmail, Docs, Drive and Calendar that are designed with machine intelligence for real-time collaboration.
Airtel says that it serves over 2,500 large businesses and over 500,000 SMBs and technology startups across India. ‘India, with its growing economy and adoption of digital services, offers one of the biggest opportunities to serve customers with innovative solutions. We are pleased to further strengthen our relationship with Google Cloud and build products and services aimed at transforming Indian businesses,’ Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.
India ranks amongst the fastest growing economies and has the second-highest number of internet users in the world. Businesses here are embracing digital tools and cloud-based solutions to enhance efficiency. As per a recent NASSCOM report, the Indian cloud market could cross USD billion and Indian Software as a Service (SaaS) market could top the USD3.5 billion mark by 2022.
‘Indian companies are making a massive transformation to the cloud and we’re thrilled to partner with Airtel to support this transition. The combination of G Suite’s collaboration and productivity tools with Airtel’s digital business offerings will help accelerate digital innovations for thousands of Indian businesses,’ added Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.
Recently, Airtel partnered with Bharti AXA Life Insurance to launch Rs 179 prepaid plan that offers built-in life insurance cover. The bundle offers unlimited calling to any network, 2 GB data, 300 SMS along with a term life cover of Rs 2 lakh from Bharti AXA Life Insurance. The pack has a validity of 28 days. The insurance cover is available to all customers from age 18 to 54 years and requires no paperwork or medical test. The policy or Certificate of Insurance will be instantaneously delivered digitally.
