“Vodafone is becoming a convergent service operator in Europe.” It already has an extensive fixed infrastructure and will make an additional investment in Romania this year to develop its infrastructure there even further, said Lause, who got his position with Vodafone Romania in April last year.
Vodafone is focusing on expanding its fixed communications network because more and more corporate customers are asking the operator for service packages consisting in fixed and mobile communications, international calls and roaming, and this is a significant trend on the market, he said.
One thing is changing, however, and that is customers are no longer negotiating around price but around a focus on full communications packages, they say they want a single provider for all their communications needs, Markus Lause says.
A stronger focus on fixed communications is one of the three priorities set last year when Markus Lause became chief commercial officer of Vodafone Romania’s Enterprise Business Unit.
The first thing Vodafone did was to redefine its pricing policy for Romania and set a very clear three-pronged strategy: improving mobile data penetration in Romania, becoming a stronger player on the fixed services market to be able to provide integrated solutions to its customers and more openness to working with partners such as resellers and IT&C solution integrators, the Vodafone official said.
Lause came to Vodafone Romania from Vodafone Germany, where he had served as enterprise sales director. How was his first year in Romania? It was a good year because the economy is growing, unemployment rate is stable and companies were more open to investments, he said.
The prevailing trend of the local market last year, Markus Lause added, was the surge in demand for smartphones, tablets and mobile Internet. More and more enterprise customers are using smartphones and tablets to add a touch of mobility to their business processes. The surge happened on both consumer and enterprise segment, he said.
Vodafone gained a number of major enterprise accounts last year, the executive said, such as Banca Carpatica, Gazprom, Danone, Schneider and Deutsche Bank. The company also renewed contracts with HP, Cisco and OMV Petrom (SNP.RO) to name but a few. The OMV contract is a three-year deal, with Vodafone managing the entire mobile fleet in both Austria and Romania.
Vodafone is the second leading mobile phone operator in Romania, has more than 8 million customers and posted EUR750 million revenue last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)