Ooredoo Picks Google to Drive Digital Offerings

Google Cloud has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ooredoo Group for a strategic technology partnership which will further advance Ooredoo's digital offerings.

The MoU, which was signed at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain, will see Google Cloud play a prominent role in the enhancement of multiple end-user and enterprise services being offered by Ooredoo for the countries in which it operates and Ooredoo's connectivity and datacenter services for advancing Google's cloud proposition.

The partnership will see Google Cloud support in the development of Ooredoo's service offerings across a set of its markets with a new TV and entertainment proposition based on Android TV, and will leverage the strengths of both organizations to make innovative media services available to Ooredoo customers. Ooredoo will explore making Google's subscription-based products, namely Google One, YouTube Premium and Google Workspace available within its markets for both end-user and business customers as subscriptions or bundles.

For its enterprise customers, Google Cloud and Ooredoo Group have initiated a collaboration powered by artificial intelligence (AI) which enables Ooredoo's current contact center to streamline its operations and create a more personalized and intuitive customer care experience. Upon the successful implementation of the AI solution, Ooredoo together with Google will package their AI based Contact Center Solution and resell it to enterprises in Qatar later this year to modernize customer care. The MoU will also extend existing Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) partnerships between Ooredoo and Google to drive monetization in newer markets.

Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ooredoo Group, said: "We are delighted to be partnering with Google Cloud to drive our business transformation and further enhance Ooredoo's customer experience around the world. As a leading ICT provider, we have a strategic commitment to investing in innovation and technology to ensure we remain at the cutting edge of digital advancement, and ensure the products and services we offer our customers are second to none. This partnership will support us in our strategic aim of driving the adoption and use of analytics to deliver a more personal experience and improve efficiency. We look forward to working with Google Cloud to explore ever more possibilities as we move into the digital future."

Ghassan Kosta, Google Cloud Country Manager, Qatar said: "The multifaceted strategic technology partnership between Google Cloud and Ooredoo Group is going to support their digital transformation roadmap using the latest technologies running on the cleanest cloud in the industry. The partnership is going to enable a much wider availability of premium products to both B2B and B2C customers in the markets where Ooredoo Group has presence around the world. Significantly, both organizations are proactively joining hands to develop an extensive technological ecosystem that leverages innovation, security and expertise for the purposes of IT modernization, upskilling talent and creating product offerings and bundles that are unique to commercial as well as individual requirements in today's world".

Google Cloud will become an intrinsic part of Ooredoo's multi cloud strategy and will be a key partner in several regional initiatives for datacenter connectivity, colocation facilities, and point of presence in the region. Tied into the government's vision to accelerate innovation, the agreement will also see the establishment of an innovation lab by Google Cloud and Ooredoo Group to foster new ideas, testing, development and training. The lab will create agility from conception to productization of several ideas for a target audience which includes Ooredoo internal teams, developer communities, startups as well as enterprise partners.