With a global economy still recalibrating from the far-reaching effects of the pandemic, enterprises everywhere are applying lessons learned as they reorient themselves for future growth and innovation. For all of them, setting new roots in powerful digital technologies will be crucial — yet only half the world’s companies have begun that journey.

A recent report by the International Data Corporation estimated some 65 percent of global GDP will be digitized by 2022, a trend being addressed by most boardrooms. An estimated 69 percent of company boards of directors have urged their firms to kick digital transformation efforts into high gear, according to Gartner.

The digitization imperative is the driving force behind Kyndryl’s newly-forged partnership with Google Cloud.

Together they will unleash the power of data and analytics, applied artificial intelligence (AI) and infrastructure modernization to help customers gain new insights and drive business outcomes.  By running their most critical business systems on the global and sustainable Google Cloud infrastructure, customers will be able to seamlessly deliver applications and data across their entire footprint, from headquarters to the network edge.

“Google Cloud is particularly appealing to large enterprises such as banks, retailers and healthcare providers that collect a lot of data from their call centers and need ways to better understand it,” said Harish Grama, Global Practice Leader, Kyndryl Cloud Services. “Google Cloud lends itself to mining that data for intelligence.”

Partnerships with hyperscalers like Google Cloud and Microsoft -- and leading solutions providers SAP and VMware -- are giving Kyndryl’s customers the freedom of choice to find cloud solutions that fit their operations, not vice-versa. In a world where most enterprises are operating with multiple clouds and hybrid IT infrastructure, this choice is critically important.

Against this  backdrop of monumental technological change, three industry-leading enterprises — BMW, Raytheon Technologies, and RSA Group — this week announced they have selected Kyndryl, the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider, to shepherd much of their mission-critical operations into dynamic cloud-based ecosystems.

Massachusetts-based Raytheon Technologies, expects to double its use of cloud computing to realize significant cost savings and meet a goal of reducing its data center footprint by 60 percent. Munich-based BMW, one of the world’s leading luxury automotive manufacturers, turned to Kyndryl to manage the enterprise storage-as-a-service infrastructure that is critical to its production processes across 17 countries — including its major markets in China, Germany and the US. London-based RSA Group, tapped Kyndryl to move more than 85,000 gigabytes of data into a security-rich cloud-based system, allowing it to speed complex automated data processing by 30 percent — all in under six months, and without disrupting ongoing operations.

Together, these companies are harnessing the power and benefits of the most contemporary tools for doing business. These efforts, along with the kind of work that Kyndryl is doing through its strategic partnerships, will be critical to enterprise success in the digital era and beyond.