Vodafone Business and California-based Fortinet have extended the reach of their converged networking and cyber-security services to additional countries across Europe and Asia, as well as the USA.

The two companies are helping businesses deliver on the connectivity needs of today’s hybrid workforce and confront the growing volume and sophistication of cyber threats by converging networking and security into a single, seamless service.

Large and medium-sized enterprises in Germany, and in other European markets – as well as multinational businesses served through Vodafone Business International – can now benefit from Vodafone Business Secure Networking Services.

These services (oneportal.vodafone.com/cosmos-preview-app/EOL-Production/business-products/managed-firewall) integrate Fortinet’s software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and FortiSASE cloud-based security to help organisations secure their networks. They provide employees with the same secure, reliable access to their work applications regardless of their location, all with a single view across network health visibility, performance dashboards and customisable reports. With connectivity across 192 countries, Vodafone Business offers the scale and reach needed to support secure digital transformation worldwide.

“Cyber security is an increasing concern for our customers both in-country and cross-border,” said Marika Auramo, CEO of Vodafone Business. “The breadth and depth of our global partnership with Fortinet means we can provide customers with the benefits of new digital connectivity to more places while ensuring their digital assets, employees, partners and users are protected.”

Joe Sarno, executive vice president at Fortinet (www.fortinet.com), added: “As organisations digitise and scale across borders, secure connectivity is no longer optional, it’s essential. Our expanded partnership with Vodafone enables us to deliver unified SASE that combines advanced security with exceptional performance so enterprises can confidently connect users, devices and apps anywhere in the world.”

• Vodafone Business and Maroc Telecom, part of Etisalat, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide connectivity and digital services to enterprises in Morocco.

The first phase of the MoU will focus on smart city and energy management offerings. It enhances Vodafone’s existing presence in eight African countries via Vodacom and supports Morocco’s ambition to become a major digital hub by 2030.

The partnership will expand over time to encompass a range of enterprise products and services including SD-WANs, mobile private networks, cloud and cyber security. Customers will be able to tailor Vodafone’s global connectivity services and digital platforms with Maroc Telecom’s local know-how to meet their local in-country needs and regulatory requirements.

The two companies will also serve multi-national and regional customers of Maroc Telecom (www.iam.ma) working across industry sectors such as logistics, manufacturing, retail and public services, providing them with a unified portfolio of managed service that can be quickly scaled across multiple markets. Comprehensive pre and after-sales support, billing, implementation, and management are provided.

“By partnering with Maroc Telecom, we can boost the adoption of new digital services in Morocco in support of the country’s digital ambitions,” said Fanan Henriques, business director at Vodafone. “Maroc Telecom’s local expertise and digital skills combined with Vodafone’s scalable, secure platforms will underpin new fintech, healthcare and industrial applications driven by a young workforce and start-up culture.”

The announcement enhances Vodafone’s ongoing relationship with Etisalat (e&), which extends across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 2023, Vodafone and Etisalat (www.etisalat.ae) announced plans to collaborate with multi-national enterprises to leverage their combined services, operational scale and complementary geographic presence.

• Vodafone Business and ServiceNow, an AI platform for business transformation, have announced an expansive five-year collaboration to launch AI-powered service management. This is designed to transform the service experience for millions of businesses with AI capabilities on the ServiceNow platform that lets Vodafone resolve queries, detect and fix service anomalies, and deploy tools, faster.

This supports Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity products, along with new digital services, offering businesses globally a highly personalised experience. It will give Vodafone a single view of customers’ networks and applications both at a local level and across multiple countries and regions, enabling faster and more accurate responses to service requests and issues.

“Vodafone and ServiceNow have created highly programmable and self-adaptive AI befitting of the digital age,” said Auramo. “With AI at its core, we can more easily and effectively support customers with their connectivity needs and digital journeys from large multinational customers to smaller companies, globally or locally.”

Paul Smith, president of field operations at ServiceNow, added: “This collaboration brings together the power of ServiceNow’s AI platform with Vodafone’s deep telecom expertise to give businesses a more proactive, end-to-end view of their services. Together, we’re delivering AI that helps service providers move faster and stay ahead of customer expectations as they evolve.”

The collaboration combines Vodafone’s expertise in managing complex networks with ServiceNow’s purpose-built service assurance offerings for telecoms, including telecom service management (TSM), telecom service operations management (TSOM) and network inventory management. This is accelerated by the power of agentic AI, with ServiceNow’s telecom industry AI agents executing intelligent, context-aware actions that work across the service lifecycle.

As ServiceNow’s launch collaborator, Vodafone supported the development, which uses AI, machine learning (ML) and agentic AI to help predict, reduce and manage service interruptions. With fast data analysis and reporting, customers can stay connected, monitor their cloud storage and detect cyber-security threats, among other features.

In addition, Vodafone’s enhanced service management (ESM) software code, developed by the company, will be exclusively licensed to ServiceNow for integration into TSOM. This helps ensure a uniform experience across all Vodafone customer touchpoints, including online, email and telephone interactions, delivered through Vodafone’s operations teams.

Benefits of this collaboration include:

• Enhanced customer experience: Integrated digital channel and AI capabilities mean businesses can contact the relevant Vodafone department first time, speeding up query resolution. An initial deployment in Ireland led to a 45% rise in customers using digital channels, boosting satisfaction levels fourfold.
• AI driven monitoring: Vodafone’s data ocean will work seamlessly and securely with the ServiceNow platform, enhancing data analytics capabilities. Also, with AI and ML, Vodafone can detect and fix service anomalies within minutes rather than hours.
• Accelerated time to market: Businesses can access the tools and support for rapid innovation and faster onboarding. In Ireland, Vodafone moved 600 customers and 28 products to the new offering in days, rather than the several weeks it normally requires.

Supported by the AI-first ServiceNow (www.servicenow.com) platform, Vodafone (www.vodafone.com) customer care and operations employees can automate and replace costly and repetitive tasks, reduce the volume of cases, and free up agent time. Vodafone will also use the platform to support more small and medium-sized enterprises with the adoption of digital services via a single self-serve managed portal.