The iPhone and a Japan Rail IC card - a great combination to improve efficiency

More efficient use of time

Before the introduction of the iPhone, having arrived at the office employees would spend 30-40 minutes every day checking their emails – time that could have been better spent visiting clients. With the iPhone, consultants and sales staff are now able to connect to the company’s mail server and deal with their inboxes during what are often quite lengthy train journeys around the city – time that previously had been totally unproductive, and boring for the staff involved.

Thus, the average time it takes consultants to acknowledge emails has improved dramatically. Not only this, the company’s internal communication culture has changed, with emails becoming short and to the point – a positive by-product of having such a small keyboard to type on.

Cost benefits of the iPhone

The company also praises Softbank for its fixed-price unlimited data plan, which now allows effective budgeting, something that previously had not been possible. When asked about the costs of voice calls, whilst the company provided no details of any overall saving, it did point out that 47% of internal calls were now made by iPhone (fixed line extensions having been phased out for many staff) – and with Softbank offering free calls between users of its network from 1am to 9pm this naturally has had a big impact.

Security

When it comes to corporate use, the iPhone is often said to be inappropriate due to its relative lack of security. But due to the way in which they use the device (i.e. phone calls / email access / internet access) Bearing Point wouldn’t agree . Having restricted access to the iTunes App Store, and without programs such as MS Word or Powerpoint or any easy way to transfer documents to or from the iPhone, this is not such an issue (consultants also carry laptops and data cards should they need to work with documents when on the move).

Who’s responsible?

With the phones being on loan to staff from the company, there’s just one main rule: don’t lose them! Staff are warned not to leave them out ‘on display’. If they wish to download games, they can, but are required to pay for the cost of the data.

The company has also notes that less time is wasted with faulty phones. With an automatic backup being made of the phone when synched with iTunes on a company PC, should there be a problem, it doesn’t take long to restore lost settings or data. Additionally, specialist staff are not required: the users themselves are able to sort it out.

Bearing Point are now looking into setting up a VPN server for their iPhone-enabled staff.

Overall, the company is delighted with how the iPhone has changed the way its staff work, and find nothing to fault in the device.

(Original article: 「iPhone」1000台で働く形はこう変わった　ベリングポイント、導入半年
Nikkei Net, 13th March.

There will be no change to the existing data plan, so iPhoners wishing to pay less for unlimited data will need to manually apply for a change in contract.

Doing so will result in the standard 2-year contract being renewed, thus if you change your plan on the 1st April 2009, the contract will be extended until 30th March 2011 (but can be cancelled at any time in exchange for a 9,960 yen fee).

Softbank have today announced new price plans for the iPhone 3G.

iPhone for Everybody is due to come into effect on the 1st March 2009, meaning that you can now pick up an 8GB iPhone for 0 (yep, zero) yen, or a 16GB model for just 480 yen per month.

As is always the case, you’ll need to sign up for a 2-year Softbank contract – but there’s good news here too as they have simultaneously announced a reduction in the cost of their monthly unlimited data plan, down from 5,585 to 4,410 yen. You can also sign up for a cheaper pay-per-packet type data plan, but with a new series of American Idol having recently started you’ll be bound to blow the upper limit in any case.

If you don’t already have an iPhone, now is definitely the time to get one. If you do already have one, now is definitely the time to get one for your wife.

People who enjoy reading kanji-heavy iPhone-related PDF press releases can indulge themselves here.

For those of us that don’t use the Softbank mail address (preferring, say, Gmail or Yahoo instead) this doesn’t apply – we still need to visit Gmail / Yahoo in Mobile Safari to figure out what cute pictures all the crosses were supposed to be.

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