Using an existing mobile device management platform, the NRL managed enterprise mobility, securing its 640+ endpoints, including smartphones and tablets, with high demand for streaming services and data use. The business also needed to support its mobile fleet beyond the office environment and a traditional working day. To shore up its entire fleet, its coverage needed to extend to match-day staff as well as grassroots and football operations. And with plans to digitalise the way grassroots match data is captured and processed, the organisation needed to be ready to support growth as its footprint expands significantly.

Seeking more consistency in the support of its mobile estate, the NRL sought a partner that could speed the response to tickets and support requests. It also needed a partner with scale, potentially providing support for its affiliated organisations, standardising support offerings across the group. With plans to build out its enterprise mobility estate and optimise device management throughout the entire device lifecycle, the NRL needed to adopt extended mobile device management and expense manager tools and take advantage of managed services.

To enable a superior user experience and streamline fleet management administration, NRL needed to prioritise the onboarding of its fleet to robust support services. This required the establishment of an online portal for ease of logging tickets and better tracking their status. The organisation also needed to set up an online procurement portal for managed services, including end user support.

To get there, the NRL rolled out imei Connect as a managed service, including end user support. By combining connectivity and carrier management services, the business optimised the speed, capacity, and cost of its data connectivity between offices and facilities, data centres and cloud providers. At the same time, this one move allowed the business to optimise mobile plans for each user based on profiles and usage patterns and enabled high-speed enterprise-grade Internet – shoring up high volume, high throughput business critical services.

With imei Connect as a managed service, the NRL is taking advantage of a consistent support experience across its organisation. It’s also easier for admin resources to log issues and track cases.

With standardised support now bedded down across the organisation, the NRL is planning to evaluate imei’s portfolio of solutions, including imei Lifecycle to extend managed serviced coverage and Telecom Expense Manager to reduce unnecessary costs, improve inefficient processes and optimise telecom spending. In line with its plans to standardise support offerings across affiliate organisations, the business is evaluating Unified Endpoint Management capability.

The National Rugby League runs the world’s premier rugby league competition with 15 teams from Australia and one from New Zealand. Attracting about three million people to its matches each year, the NRL is watched by more than 100 million viewers on television and has more Facebook fans than any other sport in the country. The NRL also supports the largest and most comprehensive community relations program in Australian sport, known as NRL Community. It provides a platform for rugby league to drive powerful social change with a particular focus on children and young people.