The second TELUS Challenge event of 2012 was held at TELUS House Toronto yesterday. Welcoming the audience of business clients, Piero Fusco, Director of SMB Wireless Sales in Ontario highlighted the TELUS customer-first approach that includes TELUS' sponsorship of the Globe & Mail Challenge. The year-long series focuses on supporting smaller businesses and helping them address common business challenges. It includes a $100,000 business grant that will be awarded to one business this year.
The event theme was “Moving your business full-speed ahead”, and the first guest speaker provided a perfect example of how this can be achieved. André Charoo of TELUS client Uber explained how his company uses high speed mobile technology to provide its “limo on demand” service.
Uber partners with limo companies and fills the gaps in their drivers’ day. Whenever they’re not busy, drivers power up an Uber app on a smartphone, alerting the system that they’re available. Customers who’ve downloaded the free Uber app simply tap on it when they need a pick-up. The nearest driver is automatically dispatched and the customer can watch the car approaching on their app. After the ride, Uber bills the passenger’s credit card, including tip and HST. No cash is exchanged, so there’s nothing to detract from the private driver experience.
Uber was launched in San Francisco, quickly expanding to New York, Chicago, Seattle and Washington DC. Their first international city was Paris, and Toronto will follow in March.
Photo: André Charoo & Lucas Samuels, Uber
“Our challenge coming here was to find a carrier that could provide us with the reliability, transparency and long-term vision to support us,” said André. “We move quickly, so we needed a company that could support us. I’m very happy we chose TELUS. We’ve already deployed 30 phones in just a few weeks.”
Manager of B2B Sales for Samsung Electronics Canada, Olin Ramprashad followed, demonstrating how Android is built for business. According to Ramprashad, Android is the fastest-growing mobile OS and, since 2010, has been number one in the US. In 2011, the number of Android apps more than tripled, and many of them are ideal for business.
Before and after the presentations, the audience had the opportunity to get hands-on with the new Samsung Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Nexus and a few different-size Samsung tablets. Some of the devices are designed to operate with TELUS’s blazing fast new 4G LTE network, which was launched nationally just last week.
Photo (L to R): Samsung Nexus, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE, Samsung Galaxy Note
More photos are available on the TELUS Business Facebook page.
