Scott Petty is the Chief Digital & Information Officer for Vodafone Technology, taking responsibility for all IT and digital systems, both in servicing customers and running internal capabilities across both Europe and Africa.
Petty explains that Vodafone’s transformation strategy towards a New Gen Telco is built around three main pillars.
“Our first is an internal focus. So automating processes using our data more effectively and digitising our internal processes within the organisation. Great examples of how we plan mobile base stations, how we run financial processes and leveraging all of our big data analytics to, to make the business more efficient. And you can measure our success in this area, primarily through cost efficiencies and cost savings.”
Digital channels form the next pillar in the strategy, and how Vodafone reacts and serves its customers, including everything from their mobile apps through to AI chatbots, to e-commerce platforms, and even the retail and contact centre environments.
“It’s about creating fantastic digital experiences for our customers to help us sell better and help us service our customers better. And we really see that translating into both revenue growth opportunities and cost efficiency.”
Petty believes the third area is probably the most exciting, as it entails creating new products and platforms for Vodafone’s customers using digital technology. Petty says that they are “focusing in new areas that allow us to create sources of revenue growth. A recent example is 5G, building a new ecosystem of applications and creating revenue growth opportunities for the business.”
As a purpose led organisation, Vodafone invests heavily in making sure they’re driving change for the good of society, not just driving revenue capabilities. They have created industry-leading capabilities with the Vodafone Foundation and continuously launch new services that grow connectivity around the globe - such as IoT, MEC, a mobile space network and Europe’s largest 5G and fixed broadband network.
Scott Petty has been at Vodafone for 12 years, counting the launch of 5G as one of his crowning achievements. But he considers his biggest achievement to be the shared rural network, a partnership built with three operators in the UK and The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to create coverage capability in the edges of the country that had little to no coverage at all.
Petty says that it was about “making sure that the country as a whole had the kinds of cellular connectivity that it needs to move forward. It really transformed the industry as a whole and started us working together to make sure we created a better society for everybody.”
In a previous role as CTO for enterprise, Petty led product development.
“With our IOT platform, we created a great capability. That's led to a world-leading position and the many services that we're able to create around that.”
In his time at Vodafone, Petty has seen many changes in the market, which required the business to be “much more efficient in the way that we deliver our services and capabilities,” according to Petty.
“We've had to learn to become a tech company, to develop our own capabilities in sourcing our resources and really valuing software engineering and development capabilities. It’s created ecosystems and partnerships with terminal vendors and network vendors, and allowed application developers to create new services. That was a really big cultural shift for us as an organisation. I'm pleased to say we're well on the way to achieving that, but more to do, to make sure that we create new capabilities and new platforms that will fuel our revenue growth in the future.” he added.
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