Econet’s Machine2Machine services boon for corporates

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HARARE – Business and corporate organizations are poised to enhance their customer service experience as well as create new products after Econet Wireless, the country’s technology and innovation leader, launched Machine2Machine (M2M) services early this week.

Announcing the service, Econet said the introduction of M2M technology will boost productivity and efficiencies for Zimbabwean businesses and is set to be a key enabler in achieving a digital economy.

“The adoption of M2M based applications, particularly in areas such as smart agriculture, healthcare, tele-education, smart building, and smart cities, among others, will have an enormous impact in boosting the country’s socio-economic development and enabling the transition to a digital economy,” the company said.

M2M is a technology-driven network of devices that wirelessly communicate among themselves, without human intervention, using digital connectivity.

Organizations and businesses benefit from M2M by using the data collected by the devices – for instance in monitoring inventory supply levels, energy use, equipment temperatures, and such like – to guarantee service quality, boost operational efficiencies and save costs.

Econet said M2M services are already helping firms across the world to deliver personalised and differentiated services to their clients, while significantly improving efficiencies.

“It’s a win-win for both service providers and their clients. A familiar example is the growing use of smart meters in the utility industry, which is enabling service providers to efficiently collect and measure usage data while at the same time providing two-way communication and enables the delivery of customized offers for clients.

“We ar bringing this kind of technology at a far more complex and scalable level, to deliver critical solutions for local and international service providers, so they do the same for their clients,” Econet said.

The company, which has the widest geographical data network in the country, said organizations involved in fleet management and vehicle tracking, Point of Sale (POS) machines and fiscal devices, security and surveillance, along with smart metering should consider M2M services as “mission-critical”, saying it would leverage its extensive network footprint for maximum client benefit across the country and beyond.