India’s diversified conglomerate Mahindra Group is partnering with Google Cloud in its journey to digitally transform.
The group, with a market capitalisation of US$31.63 billion, has diverse businesses, ranging from utility vehicles, information technology, defence, aerospace, financial services and tourism.
It is the world’s largest tractor company by volume and employs 240,000 people in more than 100 countries.
Mahindra Group's CTO Mohit Kapoor said under the partnership with Google, the company’s digital, data and cloud centre of excellence assets, referred to as Mahindra Digital Engine (MDE), will use Google Cloud’s infrastructure and data analytics technology.
Kapoor said this would drive innovation across Mahindra’s multiple business units, including its “core operations, customer-facing channels, and employee experience”.
“The partnership will also embed an agile culture within MDE that will foster innovation, embrace change, and build capabilities by cultivating the right talent,” he said.
The group will migrate its business-critical applications, including SAP S/4 HANA, from its on-premises data centres to the Google Cloud as well as its data warehouse and data lake.
The shift to Google Cloud will enable teams across the group to gain a deeper understanding of customer demands and preferences that were not available previously, Kapoor said.
Further, this will help in anticipating trends and consumer sentiments to accelerate product innovation and drive a “personalised customer experience” via new digital platforms, he added.
Mahindra hopes to simplify complex data management, lower the total cost of ownership, and improve security and governance through this deal.
“We are building for the future with advanced cloud-based technologies and data-driven strategies to speed decision making and maximise synergies across our business,” Kapoor said.
He added that by utilising “Google Cloud’s best-in-class infrastructure and data capabilities”, we can “innovate faster for competitive differentiation, advance our enterprise sustainability goals”, and strengthen our talent pool by attracting the best tech talent in the industry.
Bikram Bedi, Google Cloud India’s managing director, said the two companies are involved on a "multi-faceted, multi-year collaboration" that is helping Mahindra to "accelerate their digital transformation strategies, drive sustained business impact, and unlock long-term competitive advantage."
Kapoor said that the company plans to fully migrate to the cloud, from its on-premises infrastructure, over the next two to three years.
Mahindra will also tap into Google's engineering resources, and site reliability engineering (SRE) and DevSecOps best practices.
