Tetley extends global roaming for mobile staff

Tea company needs reliable coverage worldwide

The Tetley Group is extending a mobile working scheme to improve productivity.

The tea company is working with virtual network operator Sirocom to provide a global roaming service with access to business applications and the internet for its 80 mobile workers.

Tetley’s management team visit sites in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh where reliable coverage can be hard to find.

‘If our mobile workers are in far-flung places, they cannot do much if they are unable to connect to headquarters,’ said Russell Sommer, group infrastructure manager at Tetley.

Mobile users can now access corporate resources from laptops via dial-up, ISDN, GSM, wired broadband and a WiFi network with more than 40,000 hotspots in 60 countries.

Tetley has worked with Sirocom before, but used an old product with no wireless access.

‘We are dipping our toe into wireless. Take-up is low at the moment, but we expect it to increase,’ said Sommer.

Tetley also evaluated other mobile technologies such as BlackBerry and smartphones.

‘The business struggled with giving us any idea on a return on investment for smartphones,’ said Sommer. ‘There was no business case for BlackBerry devices as they didn’t solve the problem.’