Bayer taps Verizon for global network infrastructure

Global pharmaceutical firm Bayer has outsourced management of most of its global network environment to a single service provider – Verizon Business.

Historically, Bayer’s in-house team has looked after its global IT real estate, supported by a variety of tech companies, including Verizon.

In obtaining a next-generation global network infrastructure to support future operations, Bayer says its objective is to free up its own resources to focus on supporting its core crop science, pharmaceutical and consumer health business activities, while further developing a secure, stable but flexible network platform to improve connectivity and collaboration around the globe, and support ongoing digital business transformation.

As part of the deal, Verizon Business has been employed to boost Bayer’s global capabilities to provide a more cost-effective network through technologies such as software-defined networking (SDN).

With Bayer seeking to move its digital operations onto a cloud-based model, Verizon will deliver managed network services to more than 700 sites in 91 global locations. This service will contain a managed global private IP network, a managed software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and professional services support and governance.

Verizon will aim to enhance Bayer’s network capabilities to enable easier and cost-effective network management, and will also deploy next-generation network technologies, including SDN, to improve resilience, flexibility and scalability.

Bijoy Sagar, chief information technology and digital transformation officer at Bayer, said: “Our network is foundational to our future business success, and Verizon has the global technology and innovation capabilities and expertise to support us as we continue to digitally transform our company. Most importantly, we will be able to focus our internal IT competencies on generating value for our core life science businesses.”

The five-year contract is effective immediately and has an additional two-year extension. Verizon Business CEO Tami Erwin said: “Verizon is well positioned to deliver innovative and seamless network solutions for our customers at a global scale. We are looking forward to this next chapter with Bayer, as we ramp up our ability to build a future-ready infrastructure to support their ongoing growth.”