Airtel to leverage Cisco's cutting-edge digitization technology for SMB communications

India’s leading telecommunications services provider, Bharti Airtel and, tech giant, Cisco have entered into an alliance to offer advanced networking and connectivity solutions to enterprise and SMB customers in India.

As businesses tap digitization for enhanced agility and growth, this partnership will leverage Airtel’s deep customer relationships and network to offer highly secure and cutting-edge digitization technology from Cisco in India.

As part of the partnership, Airtel will offer Managed Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) services in collaboration with Cisco. Built on the Cisco-Viptela platform, Airtel’s Managed SD-WAN service will provide real-time analytics and in-built security.

According to the press statement, this solution will also have a centralized policy, and a management controller that will provide customers with a clear view of data flows across their networks and enable them to optimize data traffic to suit their business needs.  The fully managed, resilient and dynamic central platform will help businesses reduce networking capex and also lower migration issues during the transition of applications and data to the Cloud.

Airtel will also offer the Cisco-Webex service as a one-stop destination for all their conferencing and collaboration requirements. With the Webex platform, Airtel customers will be able to collaborate across multiple audio and video platforms and devices, enabling them to connect seamlessly with remote offices, clients, customers, and employees.

Commenting on this collaboration Ajay Chitkara, CEO - Airtel Business said that Digital India has opened up a huge residual opportunity to help businesses in their digital transformation journey and achieve the next level of growth. Airtel, he says, will work closely with Cisco to bring best-in-class digitization and collaboration solutions to customers and consolidate the service provider's leadership position in the Indian B2B segment.

Sameer Garde, President, Cisco India & SAARC, also commented saying, “Airtel is well positioned to offer next-gen digitization solutions to enterprise customers in India and meet the quality of service expectations.  We are excited to partner with Airtel; this not only reinforces our existing relationship but also highlights Airtel’s commitment to offering a flexible, highly secure and reliable digitization and collaboration solutions to their customers.”