How twin tech is helping _VOIS design a new future

Vodafone’s shared-services entity _VOIS are reimagining their future - with the help of the cutting-edge digital-twin capability developed by Deloitte, based on F1 technology.

Using vast amounts of data to replicate a company’s operations, digital-twin technology can be used to simulate different processes and outcomes.

To deliver the best possible value for Vodafone Group across all of their services - a vast portfolio ranging from customer care to cyber security, marketing to analytics - _VOIS saw the opportunity to use this technology in a new way.

Working together with _VOIS, our data simulation experts built digital twins of the systems managing its important call-centre processes, like scheduling and workflows.

The aim was to see how twinning could help _VOIS carry out tasks more efficiently, in ways that would have a positive impact on their people and customers.

“It’s an important evolution in digital twinning” said Deloitte’s Eytan Hallside “as it’s the first application of the technology that looks to optimise processes and people’s time, as well as physical assets”.

Delivering value

As well as providing shared-services support for Vodafone, _VOIS is a strategic partner that helps Vodafone’s businesses deliver new capabilities through people, process and tech innovation.

“Over the last ten years, we’ve delivered considerable value to the Vodafone group” said _VOIS Director, Gary Adey.

“Recognising the power of digital to help us go even further, one of the things we started to look at was the idea of digital twins.”

Understanding its operations

To get started, our consulting team worked closely with _VOIS to thoroughly understand their operations.

We then built two prototypes to model scenarios related to workload and forecasting, including the most efficient way to staff call centres.

“By building a detailed digital replica of _VOIS systems and processes, we were able to test alternative call-centre shift patterns, call flows and task allocations to determine changes and deliver more value from _VOIS’ existing resources” added Eytan.

“And because twinning removes the need for ‘live’ trials, users can test more scenarios and understand the impact on operations in near-real time”.

“As a result, _VOIS was able to increase productivity by 15% just by managing our resources in a different way” added Gary.

Supporting people

As part of their work to deliver more from their existing resources, _VOIS was interested in how the simulations could make changes that would have a positive effect on their people.

Managing workloads more efficiently has already led to positive effects including greater flexibility in shift patterns.

In addition, an early application of the technology helped _VOIS to shape shift-patterns in a way that enabled them to tailor jobs to suit, for example, students interested in short-term positions.

A model for the future

“When we started developing the twin we thought we were being disruptive” added Gary “but COVID-19 has been a catalyst for rapid change, and reinforced the need for digital transformation faster than many businesses had in their plans.”

Future plans for _VOIS involve modelling new types of roles, such as a three-hour shift for people with caring responsibilities and working patterns for people who are re-skilling or returning from parental leave.