Beauty Warehouse

Business Challenge

• Doing business is South Africa can be challenging, as many business services remain expensive compared to other countries.
• Recent economic expansion has put unforeseen demand on the country’s infrastructure, which has led to near daily power cuts.
• Ricky Pearl, managing director of Beauty Warehouse needed a cost-effective, reliable mobile solution that would enable him to keep working and stay in touch with his team, even if the power went out.

Solution

• Pearl and his business partner equipped themselves with BlackBerry® smartphones using BlackBerry® Internet Service.
• Google mobile applications for email, calendar and contacts were synced with the devices.
• Other applications accessible on devices include NimBuzz unified chat software for instant messaging and Viigo software to access RSS.

Results

• Able to keep working and make productive use of time when one of the country’s regular power cuts takes place.
• Pearl estimates that he can perform 90 per cent of his office tasks from his BlackBerry smartphone so rarely needs to turn on his PC.
• Increased responsiveness and ability to manage the company in real time.