Trimble and Microsoft announced strategic partnership to advance technology adoption and accelerate the digital transformation of the construction, agriculture and transportation industries. By leveraging the Microsoft cloud, Trimble and Microsoft will collaborate to develop, build and deliver industry cloud platforms and solutions that connect people, technology, tasks, data, processes and industry lifecycles. This collaboration represents a significant milestone to advance Trimble's Connect and Scale 2025 strategy, which centers on building cloud platforms. The construction process is fragmented, which can result in lost productivity, rework and a lack of transparency.

According to a McKinsey & Company article, The next normal in construction: How disruption is reshaping the ecosystem, the construction industry is lagging with only 1% productivity growth over the last 20 years. This is significantly lower than the 2.8% experienced for the total economy. In addition, one of the significant emerging disruptions that will drive change in construction is the digitization of products and processes.

The ability to link technologies, tasks, processes and multiple stakeholders—such as general contractors, subcontractors, designers, engineers and owners—across the construction project workflow can transform and significantly improve productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability. This partnership expands Trimble and Microsoft's existing relationship to combine the Microsoft cloud with Trimble's construction solutions and industry domain knowledge. Trimble's construction solutions include on-machine and field technology, modeling and collaboration software, project and resource management, and all underlying analytics.

The companies will deliver the Trimble Construction Cloud, an innovative connected platform powered by Microsoft Azure, which is fully enabled for 3D constructible models that will reduce risks, drive speed, and increase efficiency and accuracy across the entire construction project lifecycle, in 2022. In addition to cloud engineering development, Microsoft and Trimble will partner on joint go-to-market strategies and deliver innovative solutions to multinational and regional enterprises. The first solutions will enable continued support of infrastructure investment cycles, and be used for large-scale projects, on which multiple stakeholders work in parallel to deliver connected construction projects.