Corporate mobility is a hot topic again following Vodacom's introduction of the Blackberrry mobile e-mail device to the South African market - and at least one company has been quick to take advantage of the new opportunities this presents.
"Blackberry offers massive productivity gains," says Zulfiq Isaacs of Liquid Thought, which has just launched Go Wireless, its corporate mobile services division. A recent study in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific region showed that typical users recovered 47 minutes of downtime a day and that team efficiency increased by 29%. Return on investment was conservatively calculated at a minimum of 162%, equivalent to a payback period of just 224 days.
Achieving these productivity gains, however, requires a top-notch implementation, training and ongoing support - all from a team that understands both cellular networks and major enterprise application integration platforms.
"So far there's been no national corporate mobile service provider who could offer all these skills," says Isaacs. "Go Wireless fills that gap."
Go Wireless has signed up several key staff with an average of eight to ten years of GSM network and mobile solutions experience. Combined with Liquid Thought's enterprise solutions experience, Go Wireless is ideally poised to take advantage of the corporate mobility boom.
Chris Dick of Pernod-Ricard, the site of one of the first Blackberry Enterprise Server implementations in SA, says he was impressed by the competence and professionalism of the Go Wireless team. "This is a very new technology in SA but they knew exactly what they're doing," he said. "We had to implement on a very tight schedule to support the executive team on an overseas trip and we're all very pleased with the result. We've saved thousands of rands on telecommunications costs during this trip alone."
Isaacs says Blackberry technology offers the first really workable, productivity-enhancing mobility package in SA. "The corporate mobility market has been stagnant for years, but Blackberry will change that completely, especially since it's the first time the networks themselves are supporting a device. Everyone's running pilots at the moment."
Isaacs says Blackberry's attractiveness to corporates lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate the device, the mobile network and the user's corporate back-office systems. Blackberry Enterprise Server uses push-based technology to deliver data to the device in real-time so there is no need for the user to download messages or to synchronise with the corporate network.
"It doesn't matter where you are in the world; so long as you can access a mobile network you can get your e-mails instantly pushed to your Blackberry - in some cases even quicker than you'd get them at your desk. It's very soon going to become an indispensable part of corporate life in SA."
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Liquid Thought delivers innovative enterprise productivity and business solutions to medium and large companies. It has particular expertise in collaborative Web and mobile technologies, online trading platforms, as well as ERP and CRM business platforms that help companies optimise their use of business information and accelerate their delivery capacity. A Microsoft Certified Partner and 100% black-owned company; Liquid Thought was named one of SA's Top ICT Companies in 2003.
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