How Partners Can Capitalize On IoT Managed Services

Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer a new normal in the industry. According to a recent report by Verizon, the number of connected devices IoT will result in 5.4 billion by 2020. While there is a perception that IoT majorly caters to connecting devices with internet, cloud and manage services the channel ecosystem is perfectly suited to own this market.

The value of IoT for a business cannot be unlocked without a cloud, managed services and telecom. All three must work together for IoT to deliver real-time, actionable, available-anywhere data. The report “IoT: Why it won’t succeed without the channel” discussed the opportunities for partners in the IoT manage services. The report said that partners need to earn expertise in all the three areas to deliver competent and stable IoT solution to customers.

“Focus on building an offering in an abstract manner, tying alerting and management tasks together between different platforms using internal human processes and existing RMM tools. This approach provides the largest revenue opportunity and forces the introduction of repeatable processes early in partners’ managed services growth,” the report mentioned.
Customers also want visibility and control of IoT devices, but won’t want to deal with deploying, configuring, securing and maintaining problem-prone hardware. That’s where partners come in. By leveraging these focused cloud platforms, partners can provide a one-stop managed service that handles configuration of the wired or wireless connection the device use to transmit data.

Security and data management are other key components of IoT ecosystem. The Adaptive Mobile report says that up to 80% connected IoT devices currently deployed lack adequate security, with four in five devices on the market vulnerable to malicious or inadvertent attacks and data breaches. Sadly, most of the customers opt to remain insecure, leading to all manner of critical infrastructure problems. Here partners can come in a big way to address the pain points of customers.

Also Read: How Channel Partners Can Find Success With IoT

Similarly, data is the reason most customers are in the IoT market in the first place. Depending on the type of IoT project, gathering device data in a central location accessible by the customer may be enough to make partners’ offering a success. Other times, making full use of the device’s capabilities will require partners to build an analytics layer on top of the data.

Device management is another significant aspect of IoT ecosystem. Some IoT deployments have thousands or even tens of thousands of devices deployed and sending data to a cloud platform. That’s great for partners per-device revenue model. Offering secure decommissioning of devices with written certification that data was removed is another add-on that will be lucrative in many verticals.

“While moving into the IoT market seems confusing, the reality is that the skills your team has developed by being an MSP, a CSP or a telecom agent are the exact building blocks required for a successful IoT practice. Adapt existing processes to match the IoT life cycle, and ensure your team has mastered all three legs of the IoT managed services triangle — cloud, telecom and managed services — before attempting to build an IoT practice,” the report concluded.