Summary Bullets:

• Orange Business Services’ annual analyst event, held in Paris July 9-10, offered high-level positioning and insights into key services, strategies and plans.
• Orange Business Services detailed successes and challenges, and provided information in areas including managed mobility, global partnerships and M2M.

Day 1: New Orange Business Services CEO Thierry Bonhomme provided perspective on areas of progress over the past year, as well as the challenges faced by Orange and other European service providers in a difficult economic climate. Bonhomme identified strategic areas of focus for the company such as cloud services, its Workspace as a Service initiatives, and M2M. He also identified several new partnerships (with Tangoe for managed mobility, Streetline for Smart City initiatives, and Akamai for content data management). This was followed by a discussion on current and future network services, and customized one-on-one discussions (in this case focused on enterprise mobility and M2M).

Day 2: Executives focused on Orange Business Services’ customer benefits and roadmap items. These included company’s Workspace as a Service, which encompasses the Business Together as a Service collaboration suite, Business Talk using IP/SIP Trunking, Device Management as a Service, and new telepresence capabilities. Executives also noted upcoming security enhancements, achievements and new plans for the Internet of Things/M2M, and for customer contact centers, big data and analytics. Several customer case studies brought home the level of end-to-end services provided by Orange Business Services, as well as the extent of its customers’ trust. The event concluded with the components of its customer care philosophies and capabilities, and the role of the company’s global account managers.

Current Analysis analysts will write a more in-depth report on the specific services discussed at the event shortly. Overall, OBS made favorable impressions with its enterprise/managed mobility services, and has made excellent progress in M2M. The two-day event has helped Orange Business Services define itself to the analyst community as a trusted partner to large business customers and MNCs, and let the company explain the philosophies and practices that set it apart from its competitors.