Vodafone 2013 Annual Report Download - page 38

Sustainable business
The global footprint of our telecoms network,
our signicant presence in emerging markets
and our long track record as an innovator
in mobile communications, enable us to make
an important contribution to socio-economic
development. This is underpinned by our
strong commitment to operating responsibly
and ethically.
Our consumers and government and
enterprise customers face signicant
challenges, ranging from food shortages
and ageing populations, to lack of access
to communications and nancial services.
Mobile technology has become a vital
tool for improving people’s livelihoods and
qualityof life.
Delivering transformational services
A 2012 report by Deloitte and the GSMA found
that a 10% expansion in mobile penetration
leads to a 4.2% increase in economic
productivity in emerging markets. As 68%
of our customers live in these markets,
our efforts to extend the coverage of our
networks creates tangible socio-economic
benets, while simultaneously building our
customer base.
We continue to explore new market
opportunities to bring further sustainable
benets to societies through new partnerships
and the development of products and services
that focus on: agriculture, education, nance,
health, low carbon products and services and
smart working.
Building up to commercial scale
Our aim is to create commercially viable
services that can be scaled up and rolled out
across different markets, adding value for
customers, commercial partners, our business
and society. Our mobile money transfer
solution, M-Pesa, and our M2M platforms are
already well established, and work continues
to extend their positive impacts.
M-Pesa continues to grow. New services
include a savings product, M-Shwari, enabling
people in Kenya to save as little as KES1
shillings (less than 1 pence) and a funeral
insurance plan in Tanzania, both of which
further drive the nancial inclusion of people
with very limited resources. There are over
18.1 million active users of Vodafone’s M-Pesa,
up from 14.4 million a year ago. (See page 27)
Vodafone’s M2M solutions connect machines
to the internet, transforming them into
intelligent devices that exchange real time
information. This opens up new possibilities
for how businesses are run, as well as the
opportunity to reduce running costs and
carbon emissions.
In 2013, we continued to establish Vodafone
as a leading M2M technology provider, offering
new end-to-end services, including remote
energy monitoring solutions.
Our carbon-reducing applications for M2M
are wide-ranging, from improving eet
management performance, to enabling
smart energy grids. We now have contracts
in place to supply over 9.5 million M2M
connections to specically enable carbon
reductions through energy and fuel savings
forour customers.
Fostering enterprise and partnership
In sectors such as agriculture and health,
we are developing commercial solutions
in partnership with governments and NGOs,
to deliver a range of business and sustainable
benets to society, as well as further growing
our business.
In 2013, we announced two new strategic three-
year partnerships. The rst, with the US Agency
for International Development (‘USAID’) and the
NGO, TechnoServe, aims to reduce poverty and
increase resilience for half a million smallholder
farmers across Kenya, Mozambique and
Tanzania. This will be achieved through the
introduction of simple but innovative mobile
technologies, including a registration system for
growers, information on crop prices, collection
days and quality reminders.
Improving lives
around the world
Vodafone’s strategic focus on emerging markets,
enterprise, data and new services brings signicant
opportunities to align our business growth with our
goalto be a sustainable business, by contributing to
resource efciency, energy and carbon reduction,
andsustainable development.
Connected Worker research
Our Connected Worker research, explores how
mobile technology can be used to make
organisations more productive and efcient, while
improving the quality of life for workers in emerging
markets. Findings across 12 markets highlight the
potential for six workforce management solutions to
boost workers’ livelihoods by US$7.7 billion by 2020,
while enabling a further US$30.6 billion in
commercial benets to organisations, through
improved productivity.
36 Vodafone Group Plc
Annual Report 2013