IBM has signed a seven-year, $1.25 billion contract with Lufthansa to integrate mobile, social and analytics technologies across Lufthansa’s business.
The outsourcing contract, worth a billion Euros over its period, will involve “(incorporating) business analytics with mobile computing and social business” both in terms of making Lufthansa’s business more efficient and in offering new services, according to the two companies. About 1,400 Lufthansa employees will be transferred to IBM, which also will be managing all of Lufthansa’s data center operations as part of the deal.
IBM said it will initially optimize Lufthansa’s IT operations and move it toward readiness for cloud adoption, a move expected to save about $87.75 million each year. It also said that it will be moving quickly to implement collaboration and messaging tools for the enterprise, as well as new network and voice services, an “optimized electronic workplace solution,” and network security and monitoring. The deal also includes implementation of IBM’s MobileFirst framework for device management and Lufthansa’s mobile app offerings, as well as leveraging IBM’s big data analytics solutions for business intelligence.
IBM has announced a number of partnerships and an expanded big data and cloud portfolio this year, seeking to sharpen its focus on the intersection of mobile, social and analytics for the enterprise, putting itself forward as not just an IT giant, but an innovator.
Most recently, it teamed up with Twitter to add Twitter’s social media data to IBM’s business intelligence offerings. It has a new agreement with Apple for an enterprise device ecosystem that leverages IBM’s software portfolio, and announced the launch of its Watson Analytics cognitive computing analytics offering.
IBM’s infrastructure agreement with Lufthansa is slated to begin April 1, 2015. The contract must be approved by Lufthansa’s board as well as anti-trust authorities, according to IBM.
