Safaricom to accelerate cloud adoption in Kenya with Amazon Web Services

Safaricom has announced a strategic agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which will see the telco become a reseller of AWS services.

The agreement is designed to accelerate the telco’s internal information technology (IT) transformation, lower costs and provide it with a blueprint and skilled resources to assist customers with their journey to the cloud.

“We chose to partner with AWS because it offers customers the broadest and deepest cloud platform, overall commitment to security excellence and a strong culture of customer obsession. This agreement will allow us to accelerate our efforts to enable digital transformation in Kenya,” said Michael Joseph, chief executive officer, Safaricom.

Innovation

In addition, Safaricom will be able to offer AWS services to East-African customers, allowing businesses of all sizes to quickly get started on AWS cloud and accelerate innovation.

Safaricom also announced the attainment of advanced consulting partner status in the AWS Partner Network (APN), becoming one of the first APN members in East Africa. APN is a global partner programme for technology and consulting businesses that leverage AWS to build solutions and services for customers.

The network helps companies build, market, and sell their AWS offerings by providing valuable business, technical, and marketing support. This achievement recognizes the skills, knowledge and experience in AWS cloud services that the Safaricom PLC team has gained.

Safaricom’s announcement to work with AWS has been well received  by customers, with enterprises, startups and government agencies expressing a desire to use the partnership to build their cloud strategy.