Waikato Rugby Union, is a provincial rugby union whose mission is to foster all rugby within the province's union boundaries, inclusive of its flagship Air New Zealand Cup team. The Hamilton-based team has 60 staff including the players, and its business activities include providing entertainment and sponsorship opportunities. The team plays throughout New Zealand and requires regular communication between management and player who at different times of the year may be spread throughout the world. With afixed-line infrastructure based in Hamilton, this wasn't easy.

Then
Previously, Waikato relied on a PBX at the Hamilton headquarters, with phones and computers on people’s desks. This meant management and staff were difficult to reach when touring. Email could go unanswered for days or weeks, causing a monster backlog and lost opportunities. When people were away from their diaries for extended periods scheduling of future commitments was difficult. The costs that were increasing were specifically the costs of calling a mobile phone from a landline.

Waikato needed to make their team communication more efficient for staff and players, so they called on Vodafone to help their game as well as their business.

Now
Vodafone regional sales manager Graham Mearns assembled a solution from the many different products and services within the Vodafone network, its mobile developers and partners.

For Waikato, the priority was making sure that everyone could be contacted easily, wherever they were. This meant integrating all mobiles - including management and coaching staff BlackBerrys or mobiles and the players’ own personal handsets – to the headquarters PBX.

Vodafone linked Waikato’s existing PBX and data networks to its 3G mobile network. This means calls to DDIs are now routed directly to each person’s mobile, whether they’re at the ground, elsewhere in the country or abroad. Each user gets a single voicemail box which makes message handling easier and more reliable, and zero tariff internal calling creates a huge “free calling” network between every mobile and landline, eliminating landline to mobile and long distance calling costs.

Managers with BlackBerry mobile email handhelds stay on top of email at home and abroad, while coaching staff store and email biometric training data. Diary appointments are now synchronised with the Aangel voice-actuated service which interfaces with Microsoft Exchange, eliminating the problem of separate diaries.

Aangel turns electronic voice messages into a reminder or a contact. For example, call Aangel and say "New contact Lote Tiquiri, telephone 09 123 4567". Aangel will automatically store the contact in your phone, and in the case of BlackBerry your email server as well (because BlackBerry and Microsoft Exchange are synchronised). Aangel is used for people with phones or when people can't use BlackBerry like when driving.

Achievement
Now players can communicate with physios and coaches, exchanging training data from anywhere there’s coverage. And with the Union periodically holding training camps in Australia, that’s essential.

Gary Dawson, Waikato Rugby Union CEO, says his whole team – business and sporting – is now more accessible to customers, sponsors and supporters.

“We’ve reduced the total cost of communications by about 26% – but the real achievement is in changing the way we all work,” he says. “The success of the organisation depends, to some extent, on its relationship with the media. Players, coaching staff and management all have to be available at all times. Playing phone-tag with a journalist usually ends up in a missed opportunity. Our business doesn’t stop when we’re touring. Neither do I now, even where other networks don’t have coverage,” says Dawson.

“We helped Waikato become more flexible with their working,” says Vodafone’s Mearns. “They can be more responsive to sponsors, customers and each other. It’s even paying off on the rugby field. And with 26% cost savings, that’s a huge result.”

For Waikato, Vodafone’s 3G network has helped to improve performance on and off the field, the total cost of communications is decreasing and rugby is the winner on the night.

For more information
Vodafone
www.vodafone.co.nz

For more information about Mobility visit the Mobile Business Research Pavilion.

November 2006