Summary Bullets:

• What a difference a year makes! In 2012, Vodafone was just starting to make sense of its acquisition of Cable & Wireless; it is clear that the operator has made significant progress in its aim to become an ICT provider of fixed and mobile network services and IT solutions (or as Vodafone said “an ICT transformation provider with a mobile core”).
• Key themes and discussions during Day 1 included: a significant sales and delivery restructuring, plans to enlarge its footprint in emerging countries, a focus on fixed and mobile security, the importance of SMEs as a customer segment, a new Carrier Services (wholesale) group, the ongoing process of providing consistency across its operating companies, and Vodafone’s journey up the value chain to provide managed and transformational services.

Day 1 of the Vodafone Industry Analyst Summit, held in London on November 6^th and 7^th, included deep dives on a wide variety of subjects relating to its Enterprise business. Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao kicked off the event, setting out the company vision to continue to be a strong player in the enterprise and a leader in emerging markets, with “selective” service innovation and cost efficiencies in place to help the company continue to thrive in a still recovering global economy. Presentations by Vodafone Group Enterprise, the new Carrier Services organization, a key M2M customer (BMW), Vodafone Global Enterprise, the new Cloud and Hosting services group, the M2M organization, (followed by a customer testimonial by GlobeTracker), and the Enterprise Products and Network Strategy organizations completed the plenary sessions. The afternoon was packed with “deeper dive” breakout sessions on M2M, Carrier Services, Vodafone Global Enterprise, and Cloud and Hosting Services. The discussions on the 7^th will feature the Cable & Wireless integration, Vodafone’s partnership with BAE Systems for providing customers with network security, and a session on how Vodafone is “One company with local roots”. There are also demos on a number of M2M services, the One Net UC solution, and enterprise mobility management solutions.

All in all, analysts have been impressed with the amount of information Vodafone has provided about its strategy and vision, the role of the key organizations that participate in Enterprise services, the progress that has been made since the C&W acquisition, and the detailed roadmap for many of its services. Current Analysis will be writing an Advisory Report next week to provide more detail about the discussions and key take-aways. After Day 1, I am amazed at the huge number of initiatives underway across so many areas of the business, and impressed at how deeply Vodafone appears to have incorporated the new assets and capabilities of C&W to really change its market position.  While it may still have mobility at its core, Vodafone is pulling out all the stops to become a strong and highly competitive ICT provider.