The winners of the Google Cloud Partner of the Year Award 2021 have been revealed, and we are delighted to have won the Industry Solution Partner of the Year award for Telecommunications. The Google Cloud Partner Awards recognize winners for their creative spirit, collaborative drive and customer-first approach.

Alone, we are smart, together we are brilliant

Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, is a firm believer in industry alliances: "Our partnership with Google Cloud in service of our customers – both CSPs (Communications Service Providers) and enterprises – provides choice and freedom to run workloads on-premise and in the public cloud. Cloud-native network functions and automation will enable new agility and use-cases in the 5G era.”

“We’re proud to recognize Nokia as our Industry Partner of the Year for Telecommunications based on their deep knowledge and evident experience in helping Telecom customers succeed,” said Bronwyn Hastings, VP of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels, Google Cloud. “Nokia has demonstrated strong technical and service capabilities over this past year, and we look forward to expanding our work together to help organizations across the Telecom industry digitally transform their businesses.”

Customers are equally enthusiastic about Nokia’s partnership with Google Cloud: Alex Choi, SVP of Strategy and Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, said: "We're excited to see two innovative organizations [Nokia and Google Cloud] joining forces to accelerate ecosystem innovation across critical areas like Open RAN (Radio Access Network), virtual RAN, and the cloud-native 5G Core."

Nokia and Google Cloud are uniquely positioned to help accelerate digital transformation through cloud-native technology.

Rethink the art of the possible

Working closely to optimize and evolve cloud-native network functions, Nokia and Google Cloud co-innovate new solutions to help CSPs deliver 5G connectivity and services at scale.

Nokia's cloud-native 5G core and Cloud RAN on Google Distributed Cloud Edge, built on Anthos, will enable hybrid cloud orchestration and management, lower network CAPEX and OPEX, and help modernize networks at scale.

Telenet Belgium selected Google Cloud and Nokia to deploy their cloud-native 5G Standalone Core to drive new revenue streams, offer more dynamic services and increase agility to adapt to evolving industry needs.

Reimagine business models

Our partnership with Google Cloud allows CSPs to build an ecosystem of services that are deployable anywhere, from the edge of the network to public clouds, private clouds, and carrier networks. Businesses will benefit from lower latency and realize new use cases by enabling more efficient development and delivery of cloud-native applications at the edge.

For a deep dive into how hyperscalers can help CSPs innovate at scale, read our blog, ‘Cloud hyperscalers and CSPs: It's not a question of if, but when and how.’ 

Rejuvenate market positioning 

Service providers can improve operational efficiencies, starting with core business (BSS) and operations (OSS) support systems, allowing them to focus on driving exceptional customer experiences. Smart analytics solutions built jointly between Nokia and Google Cloud provide a multi-cloud data platform to assemble disparate data sets and deliver business insights to meet objectives and enable new monetization opportunities with a better experience.

According to a Nokia survey of 100 communications service providers, only 11% of CSPs feel they have sufficient BSS to monetize 5G. In contrast, 98% said they plan to alter or extend their BSS to support 5G business models over the next five years. We previously looked at this topic in a joint webinar, “Data strategies for the 5G era,” where we discussed in more detail how to drive competitive differentiation and transform business models in the 5G era.

Nokia and Google Cloud: an award-winning collaboration

The partnership between Nokia and Google Cloud brings together Nokia's deep expertise in telecommunications, including leadership in 5G and cloud-native solutions, with the global scale of Google Cloud's platform and their strong history of innovation in open source, Kubernetes, data analytics, and AI/ML.

Together, Nokia and Google Cloud lead the evolution of telecommunications through the co-innovation of new services in a secure, scalable, and sustainable multi-cloud environment.

To learn more, check out:  
2021 Google Cloud Partner of the Year Award winners