Smart aims to take lead in enterprise market

MANILA, Philippines -  Smart Communications Inc. has re-branded its business solutions division and launched Smart Enterprise to offer customer-focused ICT solutions for the enterprise market.

Emerging ICT technologies for peer-to-peer (P2P), peer-to-machine (P2M) and machine-to-machine (M2M) computing is expected to take a great leap forward as the company leverages on its existing next-generation network.

“PLDT and Smart are well-positioned to take the lead in propagating new generation enterprise services,” says Orlando Vea, Smart’s chief wireless advisor. “We have excellent ties with companies large and small. We have achieved this by capitalizing our superior and more extensive and resilient network that we are making even better.”

Vea explains that the consumer space has benefited from several technology developments in recent years, including the explosion of network bandwidth, the coming of “game-changing” devices such as smartphones and tablets, and the emergence of the “cloud.”

These same technology developments are making businesses fertile grounds for offering next-generation enterprise services.

“Today, we will be showing you the other side of the moon,” Vea says in jest at a press conference attended by the media and program partners.

Juan Victor Hernandez, PLDT VP and head of the PLDT Corporate Business Group, affirms that it is this recent development in the ICT space and in the context of the market clamor that Smart Enterprise is reinventing itself and reformulating its vision of becoming the preferred wireless provider of value-added P2P, P2M and M2M solutions.

“The essence of this vision is to transform our service offering from just voice and data packages to industry-specific, value-added total solutions, including tailored fit infrastructure and customized applications,” he says.

Smart’s foray in the enterprise segment actually started many years ago and Vea says it has already done a lot with the partners of PLDT in propagating and marketing enterprise products.

One such product, according to Ernesto Alberto, SVP of the PLDT Customer Sales and Marketing Group, is PLDT’s SWUP (Shops. Work. Unplugged), an end-to-end solution launched in 2006 that enables wireless credit and debit card terminals, remote bank ATM machines, wireless local outlets and many others with a total deployed base of 15,000 as of end 2010.

Alberto says industry projection for this market is robust. “Gartner expects this market to grow 30 percent annually. Berg Insight, a Swedish analyst firm, also predicts end-to-end connections will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26 percent, reaching 187 million connections by 2014,” he said.

“Juniper Research, a UK-based research company, is even more optimistic as it projects the number of connected end-to-end and embedded devices will rise to 412 million globally within the same timeframe,” he adds.

Initial products, applications to launch soon

Though PLDT and Smart executives did not give a firm date for the commercial launch of the products now being tested, they said the initial applications would cover utility meter management, mobile connected smart buildings, tollway management, consumer and commercial telemetry, remote health care monitoring and expanded e-banking connections.

Vea proudly announces the availability soon of an ultrasound wireless device that health care practitioners can bring to the community for pregnant women to use.

“They don’t have to come to the hospital, the hospital will bring it to them,” he says. “The device is linked wirelessly to the doctor or the hospital. This is not only an enterprise product but one that also has a social benefit.”

Hernandez discloses that the other products ready to roll out soon are smart metering for Meralco, a wireless tollway tax payment scheme and merchandizing application both for inventory and tracking status of package deliveries.

The smart metering device for Meralco is equipped with modems to transmit information to wireless data services. This would allow the utility company to monitor and control the electricity usage of subscribers. Capabilities include meter reading and maintenance and disconnection or activation of power wirelessly, eliminating additional risks and expenses in sending personnel on site.

With the integration of the Manila North Tollways Corp.’s infrastructure with the Smart payment facility, transport companies would soon be able to send wirelessly toll payments of trucks to the tollways.

“This would allow cost-effective and efficient management of travel expenses for fleet accounts, particularly for those traveling through the NLEX,” Hernandez says.

On the merchandizing and logistics side, he discloses that most merchandisers today still check inventories using paper and send inventory reports via fax. An application is already developed to do this via mobile phones.

“They can even take pictures of the shelf space and send this via MMS to the corporate headquarters,” Hernandez says.

Another product to be launched is one that has application for tracking and status of package delivery from point of delivery to point of receipt. Handsets that can do barcode scanning and take the signature of the customers will be provided and the data can be sent wirelessly to the office.

“We believe that these smarter solutions are truly game-changing and provide enterprises with an opportunity to accelerate business velocity and generate significant savings from efficiency and productivity,” Hernandez says.

These products and applications are anchored on Smart’s range of wireless access technologies — 3G, HSPA, Canopy and WiMax — and its Web-enabled services that cover the high-end and budget segments of the market and “everything in between.”

Its fixed wireless networks, on the other hand, already cover more than 70 percent of the Philippine population and still expanding.

“Riding on this network, we can offer a wide range of services but we are not here to talk only about NGN but NGR or next generation revenues,” Vea says.

“We say next generation because these services are smarter and their interplay can result in exponential impact on the efficiency and profitability of enterprises,” he adds.