Vodafone Transforms How Businesses Work with 5G Technology

Pervasive digitization is fueling the future of global economies. Assets, infrastructure, and machines are becoming increasingly connected.

Operations such as supply chain interactions, manufacturing assemblies, and even healthcare procedures are ripe for disruption through digitizing processes. Industrial workforce employees and their use of technology and processes are becoming more digitized.

The “future of work” is no longer a five-year thought leadership pipe dream of how people in corporate offices will collaborate using virtual tools like videoconferencing.

The “future of work” is here with new capabilities including pervasive digitization, autonomous action, IoT, AI, and machine learning. All of this has occupied the minds of technologists, C-suites, and even boardrooms. However, one prohibitive factor that has slowed this acceleration is the ability for connected things to perform complex and critical tasks without latency.

Enter 5G technology, which promises download speeds in excess of 1Gbps and extremely low latency for human-like response. The floodgates will soon open to what will be, the future of work – such as autonomous cars, connected brilliant factories, smart cities, and healthcare procedures. 5G will allow more connected things to send more data to perform analytics. This will uncover answers more quickly, making connected things smarter.

Vodafone by the numbers

85M

IoT connections in 2019

150M

connected vehicles to IoT by 2025

350M

people connected to Gigabit networks by 2025

10x

5G cost per GB efficiency over 4G

Vodafone Germany is the largest subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, accounting for 30% of total revenues. Its purpose is to connect for a better future.

Enabling a digital society requires connecting people, communities and things via Gigabit networks, where data flows at speed, to help make our lives easier, smarter, and healthier.

As the first network operator in Germany to usher in the 5G era, Vodafone Germany is leading the way in digitizing the world around us through real-time data exchange, an intelligent network, and maximum capacity. This opens up completely new fields of application for industry, science and entertainment.

Teradata’s mission is to transform how businesses work and people live through the power of data. Vodafone Germany is a Teradata customer applying data analytics for new use-cases to bring this statement to fruition. 5G technology has a much greater impact than the ability to download your favorite movie faster.

5G’s real promise is its ability to completely transform business processes and operating principles; in other words, 5G technology will transform how people work.

For example, a surgeon may be so specialized that she is the best in the world in performing a highly unique and complex surgery.

Yet, she is 2,000 miles away from the patient who is not fit for travel. She performs the operation remotely over an Internet connection. Any amount of latency in the connection will have life-threatening implications. It’s crucial that technology not inhibit. Enter 5G technology. With extremely low latency, she is able to perform the surgery remotely without technology getting in the way. Instead, robotic and internet technology is an enabler and she saves the patient’s life. That is “virtual surgery.”

Or take a seaport crane operator.

He may move five shipping containers per hour from cargo ship to dock at the port he serves. Not because of the task complexity or speed at which to perform the transporting, but because that is all the site demands at a given hour. Moving him to a remote, centralized location previously meant dangerous remote operations, lifting and transferring cargo containers weighing more than 1 Ton each.

These are two examples where 5G will transform how business work and people live.

So what is data’s role? For Vodafone Germany, 5G begins with using data to identify where to deploy networks first based on the demands of its existing industrial customers where use-cases for 5G technology are ripe for pervasive digitization.

New Use-Cases Informed by Data

“5G brings massive amounts of data available that we did not have previously. The possibility to remotely connect machines, people operating across kilometers of distance at split second response times, machine-to-machine and machine-to-people communications, which was never able to be done before 5G. This enables more use cases for us and our customers, all of which generate data, allowing continued analysis to support decision-making.”

Michael Hansen, director, business intelligence

Anna Dimitrova CFO and Strategy Director at Vodafone

Anna Dimitrova Chief Financial Officer and Strategy Director

Michael Hansen Director of Business Intelligence at Vodafone

Michael Hansen Director, Business Intelligence

Juliette Aucamp Business Intelligence Partner at Vodafone

Juliette Aukamp Business Intelligence Partner for Consumer

Michael Weichert Head of Central Analytics at Vodafone

Michael Weichert Head of Central Analytics & Business Partnering Management

Solmaz Karami Head of BI Strategy at Vodafone

Solmaz Karami Head of BI Strategy, Business Architecture and Portfolio Management

Sven Ophey Senior Project Manager at Vodafone

Sven Ophey Senior Project Manager of Key Accounts

Vodafone is leveraging analytics like propensity modeling, customer valuation modeling, and 4D analytics.

This helps them to identify where enterprise and consumer customers will benefit from 5G technology the most, their profitability and the value it will bring to Vodafone and its enterprise customers, as well as the density and movement of people and machines connected to 5G.

We generate insights with analytics.

“We look to understand where customers reside, how their performance is currently, what the potential outcome for Vodafone will be if they become customers, and what is the profitability of the new customers. With the support of data analytics and bringing more insights into the decision-making process, we can determine whether we should or shouldn’t invest. Success is when our customers are happy with our solution. That we implement the ideas we have for our customers. It starts with IT for network engineering, network analytics, and network maintenance.”

Sven Ophey, senior project manager for key accounts

Vodafone Germany’s 5G deployment viability begins with understanding demographics of its enterprise and consumer customers.

That is, where there is a concentration of existing and potentially new customers that will be most likely to benefit from 5G performance. Using geospatial data and 4D analytics provides the insights needed.

Digital is anywhere, impacting every single process in the company.

“We need to build 5G and with the power of data, we can make our decisions more accurate. For Vodafone Germany to be differentiated by our Gigabit network, we will use data to inform us where to go first. Where are the customers who need 5G? Where do we have market share? Where is the potential and the opportunity in developing new business models? Data will help us to shape new business models for our customers.”

Anna Dimitrova, group CFO and strategy director

“The network optimizes with the data available based on something learned from a connected machine or from a model in the region to handle the specific situation.”

Then you've got an autonomous-acting network which negotiates the network, automatically moving antennas to split network traffic between cells,” says Dr. Michael Weichert, Ph.D, head of central analytics and business partnering.

With cell tower locations identified, Vodafone Germany must then continuously monitor and manage its mobile network optimization autonomously for seamless and ubiquitous delivery of 5G to their customers; manufacturers, healthcare providers, energy companies, smart and connected communities, transportation and logistics companies, and even individual consumers.

Data’s Impact on 5G—Transforming Our World

“The whole world can’t go forward without data. With mobile broadband connecting things everywhere, and the possibilities and opportunities, I cannot imagine moving toward a future this bright without data analytics,” concludes Dimitrova.

Vodafone Germany's answer:

Connecting people and machines to 5G and the IoT to create a better future.

Vodafone Germany applies data analytics to plan, build, manage, and optimize its 5G network roll-out for B2B and B2C customers. Pervasive digitization, enabled by Teradata, will transform how businesses work and people live through the power of data.

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