Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air has renewed its enterprise agreement with Microsoft.

Under the agreement, Gulf Air will benefit from a range of cloud-based solutions and services that will help it to improve operational productivity and workforce efficiency in a cost-effective and timely manner, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The agreement, which secures better business visibility and higher internal engagement, was signed by Gulf Air acting chief executive Maher Al Musallam and director of information technology Dr Jassim Haji with Microsoft's general manager in Bahrain and Oman Sherif Tawfik, at a meeting in the airline's headquarters and attended by senior management from both organisations.

"More than ever, people are looking for personalised experiences whenever they utilise a service or product and we find that loyalty is increasingly to businesses that deliver quality customer service. That is exactly what we are opting to offer with the help of our long-term partner Microsoft," Al Musallam said.

Dr Haji said the competitive advantage for consumer-oriented businesses like Gulf Air is to have timely and uninterrupted access to information.

"We are confident that Microsoft Cloud Solutions hosted in our state-of-the-art private cloud will help us build a more connected workforce at the operational level and promote a new level of collaboration across all levels of the organisation while reducing the cost of our IT function," he added.

Gulf Air will also gain access to extensive technical and operational support from a team of Microsoft's experts.

Tawfik said this extended their partnership, supporting the airline in its venture to move to the cloud, boost business processes, increase productivity and create a more efficient working environment while reducing IT operations cost.

Microsoft said its cloud solutions will provide Gulf Air with the highest levels of reliability, performance and security and the best service level agreement policies in the industry.

A cloud-based email, calendaring, conferencing and web-based office apps such as Lync and SharePoint will enable Gulf Air employees to collaborate efficiently and get the right information to the right people at the right time.

The agreement is part of Microsoft's volume licensing programme for organisations, which provides businesses with a simple, cost-effective way to licence the necessary software and create a sufficient infrastructure designed to drive user productivity and influence business growth. - TradeArabia News Service