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Home Sales
Humans Enhanced or Inhibited?
Will smart home owners ever spend
enough on tech to make a residential channel
partner business model viable? We’ll, not yet,
but Parks Associates’ research shows 50 per-
cent of U.S. broadband households consider
$20 or more per month for a comprehensive
smart home service to be a good value. More
than a quarter of respondents easily could
justify $30 or more per month.
Chip-enhanced humans
may seem like the stuff
of science fiction, if not
a George Orwell novel,
but lawmakers in Nevada
recently introduced a bill
that would make it a felony
to require someone to be
implanted with the type of
chips and sensors being embedded into household appliance,
toys and pets.
According to Nevada state senator Becky Harris, such tech-
nology already is used by companies in Belgium and Sweden to
identify employees. “It’s done under the idea to unlock doors or
use copy machines or maybe pay for lunch, you could use your
hand,” she said. The tiny chips, about the size of a grain of rice,
can be easily implanted under the skin via kits that cost about
$100 and include a tag and an injection tool, Harris said.
“As I began to look into the issue, I was surprised with the
merit that I believe the issue warrants,” Harris told a Senate
Judiciary Committee.
Reportedly, hundreds of Australians already have turned
themselves in for chip implants, which then allows them to un-
lock doors, log into computers or turn lights on and off with the
wave of a hand. The
Wall Street Journal
has reported an esti-
mated 30,000 to 50,000 chips have been sold globally.
When you’re a channel partner, managing the in-
formation around prospects and clients is just as much
a part of the job as giving the pitch itself. But all those
hours, onerously entering notes from meetings and
contact info and reminders into the CRM system from
the office – boooooooring.
Fortunately, for those with Android smart watches,
that task just got easier and way more fun, with the
ForceManager multi-platform CRM.
ForceManager helps salespeople easily log data
about their prospects and clients, which can then be
managed from any device. This includes computers
and tablets but also smart watches. Users can check
into a meeting from a smart watch, and use Google’s
voice recognition system to dictate short notes, which
appear in an instant within the dashboard, which is ac-
cessible via the cloud on computers, tablets, phones
etc. It’s essentially the James Bond-
ification
of CRM.
“We will definitely see a continued migration over
to mobile as more and more companies turn to cloud-
based [CRM] systems,” said Victor Sanchez, director,
inside sales, ForceManager, speaking to
CIO
. “Mobile
CRM provides reps with access to client data whenever
and wherever they need it. With mobile, reps simply
pull out their device, record their sales visit details and
slide it back in their pocket. Done.”
30
Percent of mid-market firms reporting that they are currently using IoT, according
to Techaisle surveys. Among small businesess, 18% say they have deployed IoT in
one way or another.
Source: Parks Associates
Monthly Recurring Fees: Consumer Value and
Pricing for a Comprehensive Smart Home System
U.S. Broadband Households
Outsourcing Frequency: Disaster Recovery
Source: Computer Economics
0%
20%
40%
60%
44%
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
42% 42%
49%
36%
Percent of Organizations
$41-$50
$31-$40
$21-$30
$11-$20
$1-$10
$0
More than $50
A NewWay to Channel Sales
8
Channel
Vision
|
March - April, 2017
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