The new logistics hub project is designed to service European markets , but Ninian says similar projects are being considered to serve Vodafone ’ s African markets , marking a significant push into new geographical territories .
“ This is where digital meets physical – supply chain meets customer ,” he says , explaining how digital tools are being pushed into the physical supply chain to offer more value to customers . “ For us , this is the next part of the transformation journey ,” he adds .
Going beyond to deliver more value is key here . The capacity of technologies like AI to automate tedious and simple processes is only one piece of the puzzle , as Richard elaborates : “ It ’ s not just a case of looking at all of the simplistic stuff and digitising that . I think you need to start looking at how you digitise some of the more complex processes as well .”
He uses AI here as an example , with its capacity to interrogate databases , the internet and other resources to generate a procurement strategy . This automation is useful , saving hours of labour that would ’ ve been spent compiling the strategy .
But how useful in practice is that strategy if it is not tailored to Vodafone Procurement & Connectivity ’ s unique needs or is the same strategy that anyone can access using AI ?
“ We don ’ t want everybody else ’ s results ,” Richard says . “ We want results that are unique , which means furthering that algorithmic machine learning . AI has to lear what we do and how we do it .” mobile-magazine . com 27