Kesko Corporation, a leading retail group in Finland, has signed a new long-term agreement with Microsoft to utilize Microsoft Azure. Kesko is working with Microsoft to offer advanced digital services to consumers, vendors, and corporate customers in K Group’s value chain, which extends across the Nordic and Baltic countries and Poland.
“Kesko is a data-driven organization and a forerunner in retail value-chain digitalization in Finland and other markets in Northern Europe. Customer experience and insight are key to our success, which means that we must be able to offer the best digital experience for our customers and other stakeholders. As a key technology partner, Microsoft has the ability to provide us with scalable, secure and cost-efficient cloud services. We also appreciate Microsoft’s investments in the retail sector, which enable faster development of new services,” says CIO Arto Hiltunen, Kesko Corporation.
Microsoft is always working side by side with customers to understand their challenges and bring the brightest minds – across cloud, predictive analytics, machine learning, cognitive services and more – to the table to help solve complex challenges. In this way, Microsoft’s cloud platform becomes much more than a commodity, it serves as the foundation for imagining and creating the experiences and processes to propel retailers to future success.
“We are pleased that Kesko has chosen Microsoft Azure as their key cloud platform, and Kesko’s utilization of Azure will enable them to unleash application and service development opportunities. A retailer like Kesko is a large ecosystem consisting of diverse actors, such as individual shoppers, staff, vendors, and K-stores of all shapes and sizes. They all require secure and reliable access to services and applications and superior user experience. Azure can offer precisely that and open opportunities for intelligent digital services,” says Pekka Horo, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Western Europe, Microsoft.
The pandemic has dramatically changed retail landscape across the world. To cope with change, industry experts are encouraging retailers to look to the next horizon of retail and reimagine their business. The tech innovations that retailers implement today can better position them to take advantage of the higher intensity digital economy going forward. In order to build resiliency, retailers are encouraged to focus on five areas: Data control and agility, supply chain agility and transparency, rethinking the role of the store in the customer journey, full commitment to ecommerce channels, and connection to the frontline workers. Horizontally across all services run security, identity management, and personal data protection. Azure provides a solid backbone for these crucial enablers while offering flexibility to customize solutions for client specific needs.
Further information:
Pekka Isosomppi, Communications Lead, Microsoft, tel. +358 40 516 2399, [email protected]
Arto Hiltunen, CIO, Kesko Corporation, tel. +358 50 306 4065, [email protected]
Press release in Finnish available here