Mobile operator engages in discussion with enterprise customers to further its position in managed mobility space. Growth in the number of connected devices in circulation is fuelling demand for managed enterprise mobility services in Asia, Vodafone Global Enterprise said at a CommunicAsia press briefing in Singapore on Wednesday.
"The challenge of the tablet is so dramatic here," said Stevan Hoyle, director of Asia and Africa, at Vodafone Global Enterprise. More people than ever are asking their IT departments to connect tablets and other devices to their office networks. While this could be a challenge for businesses, Vodafone sees it as a big opportunity and has opened up dialogues with its customers to help them benefit from this change in behaviour.
It worked with one big IT organisation, which was already a Vodafone customer, to create a new HR policy on employees' tablets and smartphones, explained Juan-Jose Juan, head of enterprise innovation at Vodafone Global Enterprise.
A flexible policy on connected devices can attract new graduates to work for a company and thereby becomes an asset, Juan said.
Operators must work with their enterprise customers on innovative solutions, Juan said. Otherwise, "all you are is... just a vendor."
To illustrate his point, Juan shared details of some of Vodafone's recent innovations in the managed mobility space.
The telco is working with a large global retail company to provide a managed machine-to-machine (M2M) service for vending machines. At present, the service monitors stock levels, power usage, and if the door of the machine has been left open, for example. But there will be opportunities to take this further in future. "The vending machine could be interacting with the user," with the inclusion of face-recognition technology, Juan suggested.
Vodafone is also leveraging its reach in the consumer mobile phone market through a project with navigation device specialist TomTom.
"They wanted to release a real-time traffic [news] service, but there was no single, good source of timely information they could base it on, Juan said. But Vodafone could solve that problem by using data gathered by tracking its mobile customers.
"If 50,000 phones are on a highway and they are moving at zero kilometres per hour, that highway is blocked," said Juan
"Every single mobile phone has the potential to be a source of information," provided the operator respects customer privacy, he added, noting that operators now have the power to analyse and use all that information.
Enterprises also want real-time data, Hoyle said, referring in particular to the increasing number of multi-national corporations now investing in Asia.
"Customers expect more than a phone bill and a phone," Hoyle concluded.
