Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat today announced a strategic partnership to help accelerate digital transformation and strengthen real-time data security for enterprises, with a focus on regulated industries. The intent of the partnership is to enable companies to deliver more personalized experiences across the customer journey, driving improved engagement, profitability, and loyalty.

Seems the business and technology is utmost important in the era of smart digital move, to address this opportunity and as companies undergo their digital transformations and move core workloads to the cloud, the entire C-suite is facing a re-framing of their roles to meet customer demands – all while keeping security front and center. Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Digital Officers – particularly those working in regulated industries such as banking and healthcare – are finding that with the emphasis on data-driven marketing, they are now becoming stewards of critical enterprise and customer information. For these executives, the need to protect data while delivering meaningful customer experiences is paramount.

The partnership will initially focus on:

· Deployment Flexibility with Hybrid Cloud: Adobe, IBM and Red Hat aim to enable brands to manage and deliver their content and assets within any hybrid cloud environment, from multiple public clouds to on-premise data centers. By certifying and delivering Adobe Experience Manager 6.5, part of Adobe Experience Cloud, to run on Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise open source container platform, IBM will offer clients the flexibility to host, access and leverage data in the environment of their choice.

· Adobe Enabled for Financial Services: Adobe joins IBM’s partner ecosystem as a strategic partner providing CX solutions for the IBM Cloud for Financial Services. Using the IBM Cloud for Financial Services, IBM will extend Adobe Experience Manager to professionals in this industry with the aim of helping them as they meet their security and regulatory requirements when delivering personalized experiences to their customers.

· Adobe and IBM Services: IBM iX, the business design arm of IBM Services, will extend their offerings across all of Adobe's core enterprise applications. With broader, integrated support for clients across Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Cloud, and Adobe Document Cloud, IBM iX will accelerate how global brands use data to design, implement, and scale personalized customer experiences to instill trust across every corner of their business.

“Now more than ever companies are accelerating their efforts to engage customers digitally,” said Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience, Adobe. “We are excited to partner with IBM and Red Hat to enable companies in regulated industries to meet this moment and use real-time customer data to securely deliver experiences across any digital touchpoint, at scale and compliant with regulations.”

“The reality is that today businesses across industries are operating in an experience first world where it is possible to gain immense value from data if trust and technology flexibility are central to the equation,” said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Markets. “It is with these principles as the focus of our partnership – bringing Adobe’s marketing expertise, IBM’s industry domain knowledge and the open innovation of Red Hat –that will give clients the confidence to use their data for new competitive advantage.”

“Being competitive in the digital economy requires delivering innovation quickly,” said Ashesh Badani, senior vice president, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat. “Through this collaboration, Adobe, IBM and Red Hat are enabling organizations to deliver great digital experiences in any environment with flexibility and speed across the hybrid cloud, whether in on-premises data centers or across multiple public clouds.”

As part of the partnership IBM has named Adobe its “Global Partner for Experience” and will begin adopting Adobe Experience Cloud and its enterprise applications to transform its own global marketing.