Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) has entered a seven-year partnership with Microsoft to accelerate its digital transformation and offer an enhanced experience to its customers.

Microsoft said the services it will provide to BPCL include infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS), platform-as-a-service (PAAS), network and security services on the cloud, including Azure native services on Azure data factory, and application programming interface (API), internet of things (IoT), and analytics.

The partnership is part of BPCL’s digital transformation effort, called ‘Project Anubhav’, through which the company wants to deliver a consistent customer experience across all its divisions.

Rahul Tandon, chief general manager (Project Anubhav) at BPCL said, “Through our cloud-based digital transformation project, we are focused to build innovative and customer friendly solutions which are increasingly interconnected, smart, always available, and provide a single window of BPCL services to customers seamlessly."

BPCL said it is using Microsoft Teams and the workplace, productivity suite to provide a secure collaboration experience to BPCL’s employees across the country.

“Bringing together BPCL’s operational expertise with Microsoft’s cloud and AI capabilities, our partnership will help fortify BPCL’s business operations with trust and security at the core," said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.

The partnership will focus on creating a digital customer experience for BPCL customers via UFill, a fuelling solution powered by Microsoft Azure, which improves the fuelling experience of customers by providing them more control and making the process transparent.

Further, BPCL said its digital nerve centre, called IRIS, will remotely monitor thousands of sensors, integrating its fuel stations, retail terminals, bottling plants, consumer pumps, RDI (Railway Diesel Installations), and VTS (Vehicle Tracking System) systems, to ensure the company’s entire supply chain is tamper-proof and delivers a quality experience.

BPCL is also building a conversational AI platform, called chatbot Urja, to provide anytime, anywhere customer support across its platforms. It will leverage Azure Analytics and allow customers to access the chatbot on WhatsApp and Facebook.

BPCL is one of the leading oil and gas companies in India with over 19,000 retail outlets. The company has been working with various companies such as SAP, Salesforce, Accenture, and Deloitte to step up its digital transformation efforts.