Mobility Management Promises Partners More Money

Mobility management holds different connotations for nearly everyone, but panelists today will emphasize that mobility management means money-making opportunity for channel partners.

First and foremost, channel partners ought to be helping their enterprise customers oversee not just the expense end of wireless telecommunications — they also should provide lifecycle management such as device procurement, remote kill, network security, help desk support and policy enforcement. Those are just some of the issues Al Loges, senior vice president for alternate channels for Vercuity, and Scott Jonasz, director of sales and business development for TeleBright Corp., will address during the panel, “Make Money With Mobility Management.”

Vercuity has developed a telecom expense management platform for Fortune 1000 companies. TeleBright’s software targets businesses spending less than $1 million per year on telecom services.

With the proliferation of PDAs and smartphones comes the challenge of ensuring wireless gadgets are on the right rate plans, allocated to the proper users, and backed with the appropriate security policies. “Without a question, channel partners should step in and do managed services,” says Loges. A partner need not be a wireless dealer for a particular carrier to do this, he adds. Rather, as revenue from wireless carriers dwindles into the saddest of margins, channel partners need to position themselves as their clients’ go-to-guys for wireless devices and services. This provides monthly recurring revenue, increases customer retention and leads to being able to provide other value-added offerings, Loges says.

“It’s very lucrative,” says Loges.

Jonasz agrees, and says being able to help end users get what they need in real time is the key to success as a mobility manager. He emphasizes the need to use a platform that alerts the channel partner, in real time, that a device has been lost, for example, and needs to be replaced. The channel partner can go to the warehouse or supplier right away, get the new device and ship it (or deliver it in person) the same day. Jonasz is a big proponent of wireless lifecycle management and he’s right to think in that vein. Aberdeen Group research analyst Joe Basili predicts this segment of mobility management will become the next big thing as more and more enterprises look to outsource their telecom oversight functions. Says Jonasz, “Many channel partners in mobility management have the opportunity to not only manage assets and gain revenue, but do activations.” With a charge of $1-$5 per device for activation, this adds up to a lot of income.

Also joining the panel is Doug L. Stevens, vice president of sales and marketing at MobilSense Technologies Inc.

The speakers are planning an interactive set of presentations with plenty of time for Q&A.

Aberdeen Group www.aberdeen.com
TeleBright Corp. www.telebright.com
Vercuity www.vercuity.com