Bayer Pharma AG and Microsoft Corporation Enter into Strategic Partnership to Optimize and Advance Digital Capabilities for Food, Feed, Fuel, Fiber Value Chain
November 17, 2021 at 09:00 am EST
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Bayer Pharma AG announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corporation to build a new cloud-based set of digital tools and data science solutions for use in agriculture and adjacent industries, bringing new infrastructure and foundational capabilities to accelerate innovation, boost efficiency and support sustainability across value chains. Agriculture and agribusinesses benefit from a wide range of digital tools and data-powered insights through platforms like Bayer?s Climate FieldView ? used on more than 180 million farming acres across more than 20 countries. Still, there is work to do to optimize the entire food, feed, fuel and fiber value chain and its use of the precious natural resources required to power the planet while ensuring broader efforts to combat climate change. Under the agreement, Bayer will work with Microsoft to co-develop new solutions that address critical industry scenarios such as farming operations, sustainable sourcing, manufacturing and supply chain improvement, and ESG monitoring and measurement. The companies will do this by developing the go-forward infrastructure for digital farming solutions and data science capabilities. These new solutions and capabilities will be available to businesses ? from startups to global enterprises ? in agriculture and adjacent industries for use in their own offerings. Bayer will also migrate its digital farming core capabilities to the new infrastructure for its own customer-facing solutions. The partnership builds upon a longstanding relationship between Bayer and Microsoft, and a shared commitment to data privacy, cyber security and customer trust. This partnership is a significant, strategic step forward in accomplishing Bayer?s ambitious target of 100% digitally enabled sales in the Crop Science division by 2030 and accelerating its ability to deliver outcomes-based, digitally enabled solutions to customers. Bayer is committed to setting a new standard for the industry in data-driven, digital innovation.
Microsoft Corporation is the world's leader in the design, development and marketing of operating systems and software programs for PC's and servers. The group also builds and sells computer equipment. Net sales break down by activity as follows:
- sale of operating systems and application development tools (47.9%): primarily for servers (Azure, SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, GitHub, etc.) and (Windows);
- development of cloud-based software applications (23%): programs for productivity (Microsoft 365; Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access), integrated management and customer relationship management (Dynamics 365), online file sharing and management (OneDrive), and unified and collaborative communications (Skype and Microsoft Teams);
- sale of video gaming hardware and software (7.3%) : mainly Xbox;
- enterprise services (3.6%);
- sale of computers, tablets and accessories (2.6%);
- other (15.6%).
The United States accounts for 50.4% of net sales.
Bayer Pharma AG and Microsoft Corporation Enter into Strategic Partnership to Optimize and Advance Digital Capabilities for Food, Feed, Fuel, Fiber Value Chain