CV_Spring_2021

MOBILE & WIRELESS Unfortunately, those aren’t the only characteristics that will be famil- iar to veteran agents and partners. They also could experience flash- backs to previous trips around the track that ultimately became a “race to zero.” Similar to cheaper long- distance minutes or saving dollars on bandwidth bits, basic device management and optimization can often be solely about saving dollars per device, even to the point where the solution quickly pays for itself, and that proposition on its own is rarely sustainable for long. The good news is, mobile device audits and optimization, and the hook of immediate savings they can provide, increasingly are seen by channel partners as just the “tip of the spear,” said Natasha Royer Coons, chief revenue officer at Advan - tix Solutions, that can point partners toward substantially larger and stickier opportunities that go well beyond cost reduction and can take partners deeper across customer’s tech stacks. Once installed, expense manage- ment suites “can present actionable analytics and new ideas – and execute on those new ideas to deliver better business outcomes,” said Royer Coons. “This approach frequently leads to a larger engagement involving infrastructure, networking and cloud.” Certainly, the need to manage mobility and remote endpoints has exploded. The sudden mainstream- ing of remote working has pushed corporate devices to the very edge, if not beyond the edge of corporate networks. About a year ago, IT direc- tors were forced to put their heads down and do whatever it took to keep operations flowing and employees connected and collaborating. Now that they have had a chance to catch their collective breath and look up, IT departments are encountering a maze of hotspots, tablets, smartphones, and other devices that are suddenly outside the traditional four walls. Inordinate amounts of IT’s time hence is being spent making sure all those new devices on the edge are count- ed, secured, affordably connected, patched and compliant. “We are all working out on the edge – working from living rooms and kitchen tables,” said Greg Plum, channel chief for expense manage- ment provider Brightfin “You need the ability to control that.” Indeed, the demand for expense management and device security endpoint management driven by the remote work revolution, say executives within space, has been similar to the impact remote work had on the use of unified communications and video meetings. While there still may be little upside for partners in simply “slinging MDM licenses,” the opportunities to bundle and integrate run up and down enterprise IT tech stacks. Bundling MDM and MEM with help desk and SIM-device connectivity, says Royer Coons, adds $20 per device in monthly recurring to a deal, amounting to several thousand additional dollars in MRC for the partner on a 1,000-device deployment. Cellular data connectivity, in particular, said Royer Coons, is gaining interest among Advantix’s VAR partners, “because they already own the hardware and the MDM/mainte- nance around the device.” Whereas VARs used to leave connectivity to the customer, “increasingly they are pairing connectivity with all manner of SIM-capable hardware devices.” Companies dependent on distribu- tion, such as e-commerce, dispatch, transport and logistics, are particularly “hungry” for SIM-device connectivity and mobile audit/optimization. These operations often employee fleets and field teams; have deployed hundreds of devices including tablets, handheld scanners, mobile computers and IoT gear; and rely on a consistent two-way flow of information, said Royer Coons. The evolving offer As mobile and remote devices become increasingly prevalent to day-to-day operations and their numbers multiply, it makes increas- ingly less sense to separate mobile management from the networks they continue to expand and the resources being utilized through them. In other words, managing mobile assets, fixed assets and cloud assets separately could take up to three times longer than if all three were compiled and presented in one place. This almost inevitable evolu- tion within mobile management and unified endpoint management (UEM) is exemplified in the recent evolution Source: SWZD How are you partners making money on mobility? (check all that apply) Source: ChannelVision Magazine survey They’re not Device/Fleet management Expense management 5G connectivity Other Mob le Phone Policy: Compan -owned PROVIDING 5G-CAPABLE SMARTPHONES/DEVICES PROVIDING AN ALLOWANCE OR STIPEND FOR EMPL WIRELESS DEVICE AND SERVICE TO 5G PROVIDING 5G-CAPABLE SMARTPHONES/DEVICES Tabl t Policy: C mpany-owned Mobile Phone Policy: Personal Tablet Policy: Personal Enterprise 5G Smartphone Ownership Plans Source: M rning Consult; Verizon 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Already done/currently doing this Planning to do in th next 6 months Pl Planning to do in the next 13-24 months No current plans to do this D 24% 15% 25% 20% 23% 20% 18% 8% 21% 31% 21 31% 34 CHANNEL V ISION | May 2021