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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the way in which consumers and businesses have adopted technology-based solutions. According to data compiled by McKinsey, in a matter of eight weeks, the world has leapfrogged in consumer and business digital adoption by five years.

The trend is no different closer to home. Businesses across all sectors, particularly MSMEs, have had to accelerate their digital adoption in some form or the other to ensure the safety of their employees and overcome immediate challenges. This includes payment collection and optimising cost structures, preserving cash, securing timely credit, and engaging customers.

At the same time, there is an increasing realisation of the need to adopt a business revival track in order to thrive in the current landscape. This means leveraging technology solutions to pivot to new business models, enable remote working, and the automation of processes to reduce costs and improve efficiency, among others.

However, with the explosion in remote working trends comes increased vulnerability to business operations. According to a study by Check Point Software Technologies, 71 percent of IT and security professionals globally have reported an increase in security threats and attacks since the COVID-19 outbreak.

To help MSMEs get on the business revival track by solving these problems and tap into new opportunities, Vodafone has developed a suite of services that provides ease-of-use, augments communication and collaboration, and ensures safety of data for MSMEs to usher in a new era of growth.

MSMEs can use the following solutions to connect remotely from anywhere, attend meetings globally, conveniently access data and work productively from anywhere.

Getting in touch with your customers, whether to understand their needs and provide them with appropriate solutions, or going the extra mile to provide them the right kind of support, is crucial for businesses today.

To meet this need, Vodafone Audio Conferencing Service is a reliable, cost-effective solution that provides a host of services for seamless communication and collaboration between businesses and their customers across geographies and time zones.

The service consists of an audio console, which is a user-friendly web portal that gives users complete control over their conferences and lets them dial into a conference on-the-go, among other features.

The service is built on a superior IP-based conference bridge with a built-in trunk level echo cancellation that provides excellent voice clarity. It allows for international toll-free access from 92 countries and international toll access from 50 countries.

Vodafones Cloud Telephony Solutions is a Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) that businesses can use to rapidly set up customer engagement infrastructure to provide service and support to their end consumers or customers.

The Cloud-based architecture of Cloud Telephony Solutions enables process automation capabilities of key telephony functions, which allows employees to focus their energies on revenue-generating activities. This includes order booking, payment collections, customer appointments, among others. This also allows the business to save costs due to flexible usage-based and transaction-based billing, and the ability to avoid the hassles of hardware maintenance and obsolescence of voice infrastructure.

To offer the maximum potential for businesses to communicate and collaborate, Vodafone has collaborated with Microsoft and Google to offer Microsoft 365 and G Suite services.

Microsoft 365 is Microsofts cloud-based productivity suite that combines the latest edition of Microsoft Office with the latest collaboration and communication tools Teams, Exchange, OneDrive, and a lot more, to help employees work together effectively.

Employees can increase their productivity with an expansive suite of services like business-class email with 50 GB mailboxes, advance spam filters and enterprise-grade security; HD quality video conferencing, and online screen sharing and video meetings with up to 250 people with Microsoft Teams; 1 TB of cloud storage with every license of a business, and the ability to share files and create backups on-the-go.

G Suite is Googles all-in-one suite of cloud-based applications that provides employees with business class emails, HD video conferencing, cloud storage, productivity apps and much more, enabling employees to collaborate better and be more productive. Businesses in need of connecting teams can use Google Meet a secure, enterprise-grade solution which delivers a seamless, reliable, and simple video conferencing experience.

Users can avail these easy-to-use apps across a variety of devices, be it a computer, smartphone or tablet. They can also foster greater collaboration with the ability to work on the same documents, spreadsheets and presentations, set up team calendars, meet up via Hangouts and share files securely with Drive.

G Suite users also have access to advanced admin controls like back-up, eDiscovery and data loss prevention with Vault that provides best-in-class security and encryption to ensure that your business and customer data is safe, centralised and protected.

In a time where remote working and collaborative tools have become the new norm, it is important to prioritise the security of important data from advanced external security threats.

Vodafone Super Shield is a cloud-based security solution that offers protection from viruses, malware, email spam, unsafe websites and other attacks, with advanced web threat protection, URL filtering, device control and more. It is powered by Trend Micro, a global leader in security services, and is also hosted on the Cloud, which means there is no need to deploy or maintain a server, making it a cost-effective and comprehensive security solution.

The nature of remote working and collaboration has meant that end-user devices are the most vulnerable to external threats. Vodafone Secure Device Manager (VSDM) a comprehensive Unified End-point Management (UEM) platform that protects business operations from such threats. It enables trusted apps and content on any device, at any time and from anywhere, by delivering mobile security.

The platform is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) for better malware and threat management, and also comes with an AI-powered advisor for security updates and breaches. The solutions allow the operation of only permitted applications across devices, the remote configuration of email accounts and remote push critical in-house or public applications.

Vodafones Workforce Management Solution is a Cloud-based business platform that gives companies of any size and across any industry the ability to build and customise a mobile workforce management solution for their specific business needs with 200+ pre-built app modules.

It has features like GPS tracking, clock in and out from smartphones or tablets, sharing of forms to mobile an employee's phone or tablet, and messaging users, admins or groups from the app or web console that help to streamline the productivity of employees and improve their accountability.

The rapid pace of digital adoption across the country means that more and more people are spending their time online via smartphones, or other devices. In order to stay relevant to their customer base in the digital age, businesses must have an online presence.

Often, small business owners do not have the time, the expertise, or the resources monetary or otherwise to create their own website. To help small businesses establish their much-needed online presence, Vodafone has launched WebBuddy a suite of online presence services that enables small businesses to set up their professional responsive websites, and even sell their products through an integrated e-commerce solution.

MSMEs can also enhance their digital presence by availing professional email IDs with WebBuddys Business Email. These mailboxes can be mapped to the domain of their choice and are available in a variety of storage options ranging from 2GB to 10GB per mailbox, among other features.

Enterprises now need greater agility and more mobile data at much faster speeds for successfully getting themselves onto the business revival track. To that end, the Vodafone REDX plan provides users with unlimited data and calls in India; ISD calls to international locations at special rates for 14 countries; access to international and domestic airport lounges; and complimentary access to leading over the top (OTT) platforms for entertainment.

To ensure that work from home productivity remains uninterrupted, Vodafone has also launched affordable data plans that cater to a variety of usage needs Right from small data packs that offer 20 GB at Rs 100 and 50 GB at Rs 200, to larger ones that offer 200 GB at Rs 799 and 300 GB at Rs 999.

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How Vodafone is helping MSMEs gear up for their business revival - YourStory