Mobile email for global business

JCDecaux is Europe’s largest outdoor advertising business, with 9,940 employees in 55 countries who all need to share the most up-to-date information with their clients. Find out how JCDecaux mobilised their global business presence through Nokia mobile email.

JCDecaux manages one million billboards around the world. It is the largest outdoor advertising company in Europe and the second largest globally, with a reported revenue in 2009 of €1.92 billion. Its presence in all areas of the market – street furniture, billboards, transport and digital – gives it a unique position in the out-of-home advertising market.

“Picking up and reading emails on the go helps our employees react more quickly.”

With close to 10,000 employees managing one million advertising panels around the world, the flow, update and exchange of data is a constant requirement. JCDecaux’s people continually need to share the most up-to-date information with their clients, which makes remote access to the company servers critical. “We know from experience that our employees are more effective in the field when they have access to their email in-boxes,” says Amrish Patel, Information Systems Support Manager at JCDecaux.

In the UK, the company had previously given BlackBerrys to a small number of senior executives. Though about 700 employees used mobile devices, only about 100 had access to email and calendar functions via BlackBerry. “My team had to figure out how to add 600 users to our system in a way that wasn’t as expensive as our existing solution,” says Mr Patel. “At the same time, we were conscious of picking a system that wouldn’t overwhelm us with deployment issues, such as managing additional servers.”

 

Seeking a smooth integration

Also on the IT team’s long list of requirements was that the hardware and software would have to integrate easily with Microsoft Exchange. Additionally, the handset devices given to employees had to be user-friendly enough to get them using the phone in the short and long term.

JCDecaux was already working with Vodafone Global Enterprise as its mobility provider. As Mail for Exchange on a Nokia smartphone provides a prudent way to connect mobiles to a Microsoft Exchange server, the decision was taken to use Nokia handsets on the Vodafone network. “This solution meant that no additional licences, middleware or extra servers were required,” says Mr Patel. “Plus many of our employees were already familiar with Nokia handsets.”

“Our employees are more effective in the field when they have access to their email in-boxes.” 

Selecting the right device

JCDecaux selected the Nokia E63, a handset designed for business use with a full QWERTY keyboard, a large high-quality screen, and dedicated keys for calendar, contacts and online file sharing.

Alternative solutions were considered, but often involved considerable additional costs for servers and licences. Another plus: the Nokia smartphones had broadly similar capabilities to high-end Windows mobiles, at considerably less cost. “We trialled other devices, but the Nokia met our needs the best,” says Mr Patel.

Last, but certainly not least on the list, Vodafone and Nokia have a proven track record for offering a range of devices in multiple countries – a key consideration to JCDecaux. “It’s important that Nokia has the range and brand presence to help us roll out a business phone solution to all our end-users throughout all of our operations” says Mr Patel.

Simple to install with reduced costs

Amrish Patel’s team includes four people who are able to set up the handsets. Instead of needing someone to set up new users at both the server and client side, every user by default has access on the server to Mail for Exchange so there is just a simple client side configuration required.

“Everything runs off Active Directory, so administration is simplified and just becomes part of the third-line regular upkeep of the servers,” says Mr Patel. A key benefit of choosing Mail for Exchange was that it does not require a separate server or extra licences, enabling JCDecaux to keep the total cost of ownership down. This made for an overall solution that worked well with the existing infrastructure and was extremely cost-effective.

More responsive, more productive

The investment in mobile email technology has helped JCDecaux become more responsive to customers, while keeping administration tasks and the cost associated with a larger mobile fleet to a minimum.

With minimal training requirement, JCDecaux employees immediately came to rely heavily on their new mobile email capability, increasingly taking advantage of the web browsing features. The company has also started to look at implementing a mobile customer relationship management (CRM) solution.