UC and worker mobility technologies present an excellent commercial opportunity for the Channel. Today, UK businesses spend over £750m on worker mobility technologies. This is set to double over the next two years, levelling off after 2020. In this article, Lucy Green, MD of Larato, discusses the revenue opportunity for partners.
Worker mobility offers immense productivity and cost-saving benefits to end user businesses. These technologies are also affordable on any scale. The challenge is that they just aren’t proving easy to market, sell and manage for many resellers.
Why?
Because there are normally several decision makers involved in the purchase of mobile working solutions and so the required go-to-market is more complicated. Don’t let this deter you. In this blog, I am going to show you what steps to take to unlock this opportunity for your business.
Before I set out the steps to take, I will clarify what I mean by worker mobility or mobile working. It is the ability to work from anywhere just as if you were in the office with all of your technology and communications services around you.
Step 1: understand the demand and where you can add value
Why businesses want to buy mobile working solutions
UC and mobility technologies are helping companies manage their cash flow more efficiently, lower their accommodation costs, deliver step-change improvements in business performance as well as enabling them to attract and keep the employees they really want.
Add value to the businesses struggling with the technology
Forty-one percent of organisations fail to adopt mobile working because they need help to integrate the technologies and train their employees. This is an ideal role for resellers to embrace that will earn new revenues.
Step 2: engage the decision makers
Key individuals drive the adoption of mobile working; who these people are depends on the size of the organisation. Here, I summarise the interests and needs of the important influencers for small and medium-to-large businesses.
DECISION MAKERS IN SMALL BUSINESSES
The business owner
The small business owner often has the combined needs of a manager and sales person. Critical here is the fact that worker mobility enables the small business owner to get more work done without a massive cash investment. There is plenty of evidence available that supports this; use it to demonstrate the value a small business owner could gain by adopting these technologies.
The sales person
Mobile working enables sales people to get more work done. Their priority needs are; always-on high speed connectivity so that they can secure access to content, customer data and the applications that help them to do their job.
The Millennial
By 2020, Millennials and Generation Z will form over half of the UK’s workforce. That’s more than 16 million people. Millennials expect worker flexibility; 73% expect to be able to customise their work device. This group will force change. When selling and marketing to small businesses, it’s important to have a pitch for the Millennials.
DECISION MAKERS IN MID-TO-LARGE ORGANISATIONS
The Human Resources (HR) professional
HR is an influential early adopter of mobile working with nearly 90% of HR professionals predicting its rise over the next few years. They realise that providing mobile working is critical to attracting and keeping the right employees.
The manager
It’s been proven that mobile working enables managers to get more work done. It also improves their work-life balance and makes them feel empowered which is why almost 70% of managers support the adoption of mobile working.
The sales person
See above.
The Millennial
See above.
The IT Director/ CIO/ Head of IT
Successful adoption of mobile working needs to meet the requirements of the end user base and the team responsible for delivering the service, normally the CIO office. As a stakeholder in the purchase of mobile working solutions, the CIO needs to see how to implement: roll-out planning, problem solving for end users, mobile device management, compliance and security. These needs should be catered for in any reseller proposition aimed at the larger organisation.
Step 3: Educate to win
The reseller that educates these stakeholders about worker mobility and UC, providing well-structured and objective advice, will reap the benefits of sustained, more significant profits. Our research shows that suppliers taking a longer-term view and investing in developing deep, sustainable, relationships with customers are winning more business and displacing incumbents (including much larger incumbents).