Vodafone Group entered into its latest strategic operator partnership, this time with Telekom Srbija covering Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in an aim to bring digital transformation to the latter’s consumer offerings and optimise costs across its operations in the three Balkan markets.

In a statement, Vodafone explained it will provide its expertise and procurement capabilities so that the Serbia-based operator can reduce its costs and create value.

As part of the tie-up, Telekom Srbija will gain access to “category insights and strategy coaching”, and options to receive consultancy or end-to-end sourcing execution.

Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lucic stated the operator has been undergoing transformation in the past two years with the goal to “stand side by side with the most developed companies in the world”.

He also expressed hope the partnership with Vodafone will help Telekom Srbija access “all important resources in the sphere of digital transformation and make it possible for us to increase the efficiency of our operations, optimise costs and improve customer experience”.

In Serbia, the company ranked first with 3.6 million mobile connections by Q3 as per GSMA Intelligence estimations.

It’s also the leader in Montenegro with close to 400,000 mobile connections, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina it ranked second in Q3 with 1.3 million mobile connections, data from the analyst company showed.

Vodafone has previously sealed similar partnerships with several other Central and Eastern European markets, including Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia. It typically strikes such deals to give it a presence in markets where it doesn’t own a mobile network.

At the start of the year, it also expanded a tie-up with Russian operator MTS.