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Where viable, we have continued to self-build our transmission
network to support the radio and fixed network by connecting
more base stations with fibre and high-speed microwave
transmission. During the year, we increased the percentage of
sites with self-provided high-capacity transmission to 92.1%.
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We continue to modernise our core network systems leveraging
virtualisation and convergence technologies to fully integrate
applications that also complement our journey to realise our
cloud ambitions. The adoption of these technologies will
improve our flexibility, optimise network resource utilisation and
improve our time to deliver new products and services.
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Over the years, we have extended our Customer Experience
Management (CEM) capabilities through the introduction of
probes and tools to improve network performance, operational
efficiency and customer experience. Our CEM systems are being
used to improve both the voice and data experience of our
customers and play a key role in the planning of our network
and deployment of new services.
best
technology
continued
03
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We have grown our fibre to the home and business footprint
(FTTx) with over 21 000 end-points passed in selective areas.
Through streamlining our order management, delivery and build
processes we have improved the overall customer experience.
We are exploring potential partnerships in order to improve time
to delivery, cost efficiencies and expand our footprint.
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We continued to securely connect our enterprise customers
through both mobile and fixed technologies, such as fibre,
microwave and mobile 3G/4G. This was complemented through
our OneNet Business suite enabling our customers to
experience the benefits of a fully unified communications
service. Our cloud services continue to evolve with the
expansion of offerings such as the rollout of the IBM Cloud Point
of Delivery (POD) which is the first of its kind in the Middle East
and Africa, and also one of the first solutions in the South African
market to provide both a cloud managed services offering for
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), as well as a SAP-certified
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
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Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the key strategic growth areas
of the business and we will continue to drive investment in this
area. Vodacom’s existing global IoT capabilities and footprint will
be enhanced with IoT end-to-end application capabilities and
propositions. We have partnered with global technology solution
provider PTC to implement a local version of the ThingWorx
®
IoT
platform in order to develop new IoT applications and solutions.
We have commenced to overlay a low power wide area network
onto our existing national mobile footprint to support the myriad
of IoT application verticals.
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During the year, Vodacom South Africa received an award for
achieving the Best IT Performance within the Vodafone Group.
Extensive work was done to understand the customer
experience and associated systems throughout the year. Overall,
we maintained excellence in system and service availability. As
part of our cloud journey we are augmenting our ability to scale
on-demand services for digital customers without overloading
our back-end systems.
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The transformation of our customer relationship management
(CRM) and billing systems are now bearing fruit. Vodacom has
completed the consumer contract and top-up migrations to its
new CRM system. Prepaid functionality was included in the
delivery scope, and a small base of prepaid customers have
already been rolled out and is active on the new system.
Vodacom will take a pragmatic approach to rollout the rest of
the prepaid base onto the new CRM systemmoving forward.
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We continue to focus on ensuring our customers are always in
control by providing a set of world-class self-service tools that a
customer can access 24/7 for free. The MyVodacom app has
undergone a complete re-design, adopting global best standards
in user experience and design. It is now even easier to use and
has received very positive customer feedback. Our app users
have more than doubled in the past year.
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As part of our digital transformation we are enhancing our IT
platform architecture through a common service model
leveraging standard Application Programmable Interfaces (APIs).
We believe this, together with agile methodologies, will improve
time to delivery, enable the reuse of capabilities to be more
efficient and ease the integration with third parties.
Vodacom Group Limited
Integrated report for the year ended 31 March 2017
34