“We want to expand what Vodafone stands for in consumers; minds,” says Pamela Brown, chief marketing officer, Vodafone Smart Tech. “It’s a significant step because we’re traditionally a mobile phone company.”

Despite years spent dabbling in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector, she admits there is a lot of ground to make up in brand perception. “I’d love this to have higher awareness than it does today. Analysts talk about these massive numbers like there will be 41bn smart devices by 2027. This is significant growth, and I believe Vodafone has a role to play in it.”

Last week, Vodafone introduced the first of its ‘Designed & Connected by Vodafone’ range of smart tech products – Curve, a multi-tracking device that uses GPS, Wi-Fi, Cellular and Bluetooth to help its users to track inanimate valuables such as keys, laptops, bags, as well as keeping connected to loved ones or pets.

It’s the kind of brand extension Vodafone has been gravitating towards for some time.

The company first hit the telecoms scene in the early 90s, as a mobile network provider, and with the proliferation of the internet, it soon got into broadband. Like its mobile competitor EE, Vodafone recognises ‘connectivity’ as its selling point. However, while EE was busy with 5G deals at the Baftas or its sponsorship of Wembley stadium, Vodafone was diving into IoT.

“From the B2B perspective, we’ve been offering smart IoT connections for over 10 years. We have 15 million connections on that side,” shares Brown. And then in 2017, it entered the consumer market with the launch of ‘V by Vodafone’ – billed as a simple system for consumers to connect and manage IoT devices, alongside a product range that included a car dongle, a 4G security camera and a pet location and activity tracker.

The problem is that the term IoT belongs more in a B2B book of buzzwords than in the consumer vocabulary. “Consumers don’t know what IoT is,” Brown says. “But they do know what smart tech is. We learnt a lot with the V by Vodafone range. The category is more embedded in consumers’ mindsets, especially with the explosion of smart speakers.”

Brought on more than two years ago from the team that built Hive, British Gas’ smart home offering, Brown knows a thing or two about changing consumer habits and how to convince people to get on board. She has since pulled the brand out of the ‘IoT space’, as such, and hired a creative director, created an in-house studio and given the brand a full refurb that both aligns with Vodafone’s distinctive red, but also distinguishes itself apart from that side of the business.

“When you think of Vodafone, you probably think of a very red brand. Whereas the new visual identity is a more darker colour palette. We’re trying to bring to life more of the desirability credentials of the device in the imagery and the marketing assets that we create. So we’re using red in a more subtle way.”

The first to be introduced this year, Curve will be followed by two more products which will utilise the same functionalities.

Beyond that, where does Brown expect Vodafone to be in five years’ time? “I hope these products will become every day to people. So whether that’s in-home devices or out of home, we want to use connectivity to help protect people and things that they love.”

The post ‘Consumers don’t know what Internet of Things is’: how Vodafone is changing its vocabulary appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.

Projects have fallen off his wish list during the Covid-19 response but Vodafone chief executive Jason Paris has no plans to apply the brakes to deployment of its 5G network, as the firm focuses on the “internet of things.”

“It is a massive opportunity for business, offering lower latency, speed and security,” he said.

“New Zealand was the 22nd country in the world to roll it out and that was important for us not to get left behind.

“5G brings applications for remote health, autonomous vehicles and things like smart sensors, which allow schools to halve their heating bills, for example.”

Paris said while some operating expenditure and strategic moves had been shelved as the firm shifted into “survival minimum” mode, there were those investments that were the “right things to do” for the longer-term business and its customers.

He told a Trans-Tasman Business Circle video conference yesterday that because data usage was up overall that didn’t mean telcos were making more money.

“Our roaming revenue stopped overnight during shutdown. People are using wifi at home and more people using more data means we have to upgrade our services, with the extra cost of doing that.”

He said from a customer perspective there was also an increased number of hardship requests and provision for bad debts. “So we are helping customers navigate that.”

Shareholder backing

Paris said that, until its sale to the Infratil/Brookfield Asset Management consortium last May for $3.4 billion, Vodafone NZ had been effectively “held back” for the previous five years during which investment was constrained and it was executing to a Vodafone Group strategic template, 50 per cent of which was irrelevant to New Zealand.

“Under the consortium, we are focused 100 per cent on our New Zealand strategy, so we now have a massive opportunity to be more cloud-based and more agile.”

He said the New Zealand and Canadian ownership mix had also created a positive dynamic. “They have different bents, with their level of aggression and retail balancing well – overall we have a clear vision as to where we’ll be in three to five years’ time.”

Unlocking regional talent

Vodafone was reviewing how changes to the workplace could change the way it ran its own business.

As an example, some companies which had previously declined to have people working outside Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, were now unlocking regional capabilities.

Paris said that might result in reduced office space, and headcount, across Vodafone’s main offices.

The post Vodafone NZ committed to 5G, ‘internet of things’ future appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.

NEW DELHI: Country’s second-largest telecom service provider Vodafone India, in its strategic digital focus, is embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data technologies to enhance consumer experience.

The UK-headquartered telco, in its digitalisation quest, seeks to deliver instant consumer services, in tandem with arch rival Bharti Airtel’s recent push to transform information technology (IT) infrastructure.

“Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are helping us understand customer preferences better and that enable us to cater to them accordingly,” a Vodafone executive who do not wish to be named told ETTelecom.

Customers, according to the telco, proactively receive most appropriate plan or pack options to choose from basis the history of their voice and data usage.

Carriers worldwide are aggressively adopting AI, Big Data to serve customers better by integrating analytics into each customer profile thereby tracking voice and data consumption behavior and that also reduces dependency on physical customer care operations.

“At a macro level, these technologies help us design better products and services with a nuanced understanding of customers evolving needs in this fast paced dynamic industry, the executive quoted above said.

New comer Reliance Jio and market leader Bharti AirtelNSE 0.27 % are focusing on digital delivery of services for better consumer experience through in-built app to offer bill payments, plan change and value-added services (VAS).

“Through digital, we aim to bring ease of service delivery which will enable users to customize their plans online and get new or additional connections home delivered by eliminating the need for customers to visit the store,” the executive said.

The Mumbai-based telco, however, said that in a present landscape subscribers seek immediate and efficient resolution to their problems, digitalisation is the only way forward.

Analysts, however, say that telcos are aggressively moving towards embracing AI and Big Data to improve customer service that may also likely to trigger a change from a third-party vendor driven operations to in-house service delivery mechanisms that could also save their operating cost.

Earlier, Bharti Airtel’s Group Chief Information Officer Harmeen Mehta said that telecom operators’ digital strategies should be entirely built on consumer-first model as the companies seek transformation to embrace digitisation.

Last year, Vodafone has launched a chatbot TOBi which it plans to integrate with My Vodafone messaging app to handle customer-centric frequent queries including remote troubleshooting.

India’s No 2 telco, has though, recently introduced a nationwide campaign called ‘Happy to Help’ – a digital transformation initiative building on the current trend of customers moving away from assisted-only care to self-care using digital, any time service.

“As part of this program, we have transformed various customer touch points and have digitalized the entire customer journey from the users having access to various tariff plans to helping them managing multiple accounts all by themselves at just a click, the company’s executive said.

The company said that such digital initiatives help it to offer them personalized products and services to its 22.5 crore subscribers.

Building an integrated ecosystem of digital products might require upfront investments, but helps in reaping the benefits in years to come, the executive added.

The post Vodafone India leverages Artificial Intelligence and Big Data appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.