Kruben Pillay, the newly-appointed Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Datafree Technologies
Access Point Name (APN) connections, long used by enterprises to securely connect mobile workforces to corporate applications, have become too costly and cumbersome for many organisations.
Datafree Connect, an alternative offering by Datafree Technologies, offers a faster, more streamlined alternative that also slashes the cost of data misuse.
So says Kruben Pillay, CCO of reverse-billing leaders Datafree Technologies, who expects the company’s next phase of growth to a billion rand revenue company to come from large enterprises seeking to overcome the APN headache.
Pillay explains that APNs have been in use for years, largely due to a lack of suitable mobile alternatives.
“Major enterprises like retailers, healthcare services, logistics, security and mining groups need their field staff and remote workers to connect to the organisations’ systems and applications within a closed and highly secure environment,” he says.
“Unlike wireless networks that cover only specific sites, APNs allow employees to connect from wherever they are.”
However, deploying and managing APNs is a complex exercise.
They can take weeks to deploy, and issuing SIMs to individual employees is time consuming and logistically challenging.
Enterprises must either foot the bill for dedicated company mobile devices, or their employees must toggle between personal and work SIMs on their personal devices.
Importantly, up to half or more of mobile data intended for corporate use is wasted on personal use, Pillay says.
“With an APN, managing usage is possible but can involve complex and time-consuming configuration on corporate IT infrastructure, with whitelisting and blacklisting of thousands of IP addresses.”
Another common challenge with allocating mobile data to employees is that when they run out of data, their work is impacted and the employer inevitably must top up their allocation.
The simpler way
Datafree Connect eliminates the complexity and wasted costs involved in APNs, allowing organisations to provision and manage access to work-related tools quickly and easily.
Pillay says where an APN can take up to four weeks to set up, Datafree Connect takes only a day or two.
“With Datafree Connect, you don’t need to issue SIMs or new devices to employees – they just download the standard Datafree Connect app and they’re up and running, and they don’t need to swap between devices or SIMs.”
Datafree’s model also means employees never run out of data for work-related apps.
Datafree Connect gives employees a curated, secure workspace linking them securely to all the tools they need for work, such as email, maps, corporate environments, video calling, messaging and collaboration tools.
When accessing these apps via the Datafree Connect workspace, they do not use their own mobile data, and even better if an employee has run out of mobile data balance, they can still use their work-related apps and online tools.
On the backend, management and security is streamlined using the Datafree Connect online dashboard with simple configuration and comprehensive reporting.
“With Datafree Connect, enterprises can allow access to third party apps like WhatsApp to specific user groups or individuals quickly and easily,” Pillay says.
Administrators can add or remove employees and applications and set data limits at the click of a button, as well as gain unprecedented visibility into data usage with granular reports on data usage to support cost control and financial forecasting.
Datafree Connect has been successfully trialled and rolled out by major e-hailing and courier companies, security firms, and major enterprises with teams of remote and field workers.
