After spending a couple days talking with solution providers, carriers and other attendees at last month’s Super Mobility Week-Powered by CTIA event, I returned with an altered perspective. Instead of a push toward full mobility — swapping out the traditional workstations for more portable alternatives — many businesses are taking a more integrated approach.
The traditional PC workstation isn’t going away. Recent industry research attributes at least some of recent decline in sales to budget constraints rather than obsolescence of technology. Many organizations have used a significant portion of their IT budgets to acquire mobile devices and build the wireless infrastructure to support them. To offset those investments, they may have cut back on other purchases, research says. Since desktops are typically easier to maintain over time, some companies simply extended their replacement schedules.
Use PCs, Phones and Tablets in Tandem
After two years of decline the PC market is stabilizing, according to Gartner Research. A number of factors may be responsible for that somewhat positive sales trend, including end-of-support for Windows XP. Several manufactures have suggested it’s just a sign that businesses have made their mobility investments and are getting their PC replacement cycles back on track.
Those trends were the focus of several conversations I had with industry experts during the Super Mobility event. In the CompTIA Executive Certificate in Mobility workshop, one solution provider shared how his organization leveraged app development to land several new clients. Another participant’s company recently landed a larger managed services contract after helping that customer rewrite its employee mobility guidelines.
Both solution providers were using smartphone and tablet technologies to complement rather than replace traditional PC sales business. Another MSP discussed his company’s “seamless work environment” offering: a virtual desktop an employee can access from almost any Internet-connected device, including smartphones and tablets.
There are endless ways to work tablets, smartphones and similar technologies into your portfolio, but their real value comes from how you implement them in your clients’ workplaces. Some of the more creative solutions I stumbled across at this year’s event include:
Engineering firms: Allow employees to create and adjust proposals and projects at the worksite, and sync that information between their headquarters and customers.
Restaurants: In addition to installing table-side tablets for ordering and payment, some stores allow customers to use their own smartphones and mobile devices.
School/municipality/non-profit board of directors: Replace the pile of meeting minutes, notes and other materials with a simple file-share enabled mobile application. This can be extremely cost-effective, allowing members to use their own device or one supplied by the organization.
These ideas just scratch the surface of what’s being shared in the tech community. Solution providers are a creative group, and those with mobility-minded employees are sure to prosper with host of even more original applications.
Use Mobility to Enhance Your Offerings
My key takeaway from this year’s is that mobility should enhance a channel business rather than splintering off as a separate IT services practice. Rather than focusing on the devices, providers should consider how these technologies can improve their existing and future solution sets. As several speakers and attendees told me, be sure to take time and review your customers’ work environments, both internal and remote, before developing your own strategy. Assess their long-term business plans and then research the mobility options that can make a real difference in their business, as well as yours.
Are you interested in enhancing your existing mobility practice or simply trying to get a new one up and running? Take a look through all the valuable tools and practice enhancement resources CompTIA developed specifically for solution providers. The portfolio is quite comprehensive, covering virtually anything you would need to build a successful mobility strategy.
Brian Sherman is principal consultant at Tech Success Communications, an IT channel business development and marketing firm. He served previously as chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
