As businesses struggle with “bring-your-own-device,” managing employee-issued smartphones and tablets, and experience continuing pressure to simplify and manage operational expenses, choosing the right plan for corporate-issued devices and managing those devices is critical. As such, business decision-makers and IT managers continue to rely on their wireless carrier and other vendors for support with a number of value-added services to reduce complexity and better manage workplace technology.
In mid-July, Compass Intelligence CEO Stephanie Atkinson met with John Tudhope, director of product marketing at Sprint Business, to discuss the newly launched “Mobility-as-a-Service” solutions. Below are the details of the Q&A session:
Stephanie Atkinson: Before we get started, please tell me about your role in the Sprint Business organization, how long you have been with Sprint, and your primary responsibilities.
John Tudhope: I’m responsible for product marketing of our services and devices across both business and consumer postpaid segments. In my role I work to define customer needs for products and then work closely with product development, marketing and sales to ultimately launch new products and services into the market. I’ve been with Sprint since February 2000, when I started with Nextel Communications. I came over to Sprint’s headquarters at the time of the merger in 2005.
Atkinson: When did Sprint officially launch the OfficeFuel brand and begin its rollout of business “as-a-service” solutions?
Tudhope: Sprint launched its new business branding in Q3 last year. It was not a major overhaul, but a refinement of our core strengths around service support and an extenuation of buying technology in an “as-a-service” fashion. We already had built an early “as-a-service” portfolio with our capabilities in UCaaS and in our SaaS offerings with Microsoft and Google. Workplace as-a-service was on the horizon and was a major proof point of our OfficeFuel portfolio as it was converged and fully managed as a service offering.
Atkinson: In March 2015, as part of your OfficeFuel solutions, you made a formal launch for Workplace-as-a-Service even though these services were available prior, and [now] you are officially launching Mobility-as-a-Service plans for business customers. Please describe how these are connected and any background around your overall OfficeFuel solutions for businesses.
Tudhope: It’s fair to say that components of Workplace-as-a-Service were available prior to the launch. However, what was different with WPaaS was the fully integrated and managed aspect of the services into one defined offer with one bill and at one single per-seat price point. It also was a unique combination of wireline and wireless capabilities that all come fully managed by Sprint. This is the real differentiation of WPaaS and it provides great value to the customer to provide site connectivity and voice applications all in one package vs. managing multiple vendors at a higher cost.
Mobility-as-a-Service was a fast follow to this concept as we wanted to change the buying behavior for customers with our core business: wireless activation. Much like the premise of providing businesses connectivity in a fully managed as a service fashion, MaaS is complementary to provide the same types of bundled entitlements for as a service for customers to procure and deploy wireless devices for their employees.
MaaS is simply how customers can now obtain devices with an avoidance of capital and deploy them with support and management by Sprint. WPaaS provides per seat connectivity and collaboration for the company and the customer can choose any type of model for their end point devices. We, however, feel that MaaS is the best way for them to do that as they get so much more value and support than any other traditional device-buying model.
Atkinson: Now for your Mobility as a Service plans, can you please give me a general overview of these solutions and why Sprint believes businesses need these services?
Tudhope: Pricing: We designed MaaS to be predictable in cost for customers and to have the best value in the market. We didn’t raise our price points, but we didn’t necessarily lower them. We maintained our already strong competitive price positioning, but added a whole bunch of valuable services and management to make us stand out.
Options/terms: We think it’s important that customers have the flexibility to get the technology they need, when they need it. We established two- and one-year terms so that customers could choose newer refresh cycles if they wanted to always have the latest devices.
Device selection: This is a huge differentiator for us with MaaS. In other non-ownership models, such as leasing, there are limited device choices based on residual models. We have eliminated that restriction with MaaS and have made the model work with almost all of our business device portfolio. Therefore, customers are not restricted from deploying all types of devices that they need and they can take advantage of the MaaS value.
Upgrading: One of the core values of MaaS is always being able to get into the next new device at the end of the term and not having additional cash outlay.
Data/share options: Flexibility is a theme for MaaS and allowing customers to choose the type of data access is critical to helping them keep costs down and only deploying as much data as they need. We also help with providing usage reports so that customers can constantly evaluate their usage and, potentially, adjust their allotments.
Atkinson: Compass Intelligence believes the value-added services are big drivers for this type of service including reducing complexities and simplifying management of these devices. Can you describe the value-added services that are included with Mobility-as-a-Service?
Tudhope: VIP: This a service that we will provide for one designated end-user per each block of 50 lines that customer has on account. The intent is to go above and beyond expectations with these designated individuals to make sure they have everything they need from training, to content transfer, to full replacement of devices (anywhere we can get it to them) so that any disruption of their productivity is avoided.
White glove: White glove care is encompassing of an assigned care team that will coordinate all aspects of support for a customer. Some of the basics of this is an end-user support call center for 365/24/7 technical support. It also means project management of the customer requirements around deployment and coordination of onsite training.
App loading (device customization): Based on the customer’s unique deployment needs, our care team will define a statement of work with the customer to identify what applications/services need to be run on the device(s) and we will pre-configure and load the applications/content so that when the customer receives the devices they are activated and ready to be used right out of the box.
Repair: We really won’t repair devices other than part of the normal extended warranty commitment. If there are issues with the devices covered under the warranty then most likely we would swap out devices and repair on the back end so that the customer has limited disruptions. Again, we own the devices and need to make sure that customers have an up and running device as part of the as-a-service promise. If there’s an issue that was caused by the customer’s use (lost, stolen or catastrophic damage) of the device and needs repair then our normal repair costs would apply.
Atkinson: What size and what types of businesses is Sprint targeting with MaaS (are certain size and types of industry verticals more suited for this)?
Tudhope: We are targeting businesses of all sizes, but feel that the real sweet spot for us and for our customers is in the segment size of 500 to 5,000 employees. There are not specific verticals that we are targeting with this model. We feel that it’s a perfect horizontal solution that can meet the needs of all business types. However, it is intended for businesses that still want to provide devices for their employees. Therefore, verticals that still have a higher share of corporate liable deployments are more favorable than certain verticals that have a high percentage of companies that have gone to a BYOD model.
Atkinson: Where do you believe MaaS sits from a competitive business pricing and services standpoint?
Tudhope: We think MaaS sits very favorably. We anchored MaaS around our existing Fusion business plan price points, but added all of the value services. We think we’re competitive against the competition, but when you consider that the device is also built-in along with upwards of $20 to $30 worth of services value we feel we blow the other carriers away in total cost of ownership value.
Atkinson: What are some of the plans for additional services and partners for MaaS?
Tudhope: We want to maintain a level of universal appeal. So one of the things we need to be considerate of is including too much into the value proposition of MaaS that you start to narrow the market or give customers the motivation to want to unbundle some of the services because they either already have them or what you’re offering is either more than they need or not sophisticated enough around a particular element.
With that said, we are planning a phased approach to MaaS and have already indicated that we will be adding a cloud storage and anti-virus capability to the overall MaaS model. These are already built into our current pricing model and will be additive at no additional cost to the customer. We’re also looking at a technology that would protect the devices and offer some variation of water resistance for customers.
Outside of those things, we will constantly be working on our portfolio and most other things would come in the form of a buy-up attachable. Insurance for the customer is one of the concepts that we’re working on and hope to have something out very soon that is designed specifically for businesses.
Atkinson: I know this has just launched, but have you received any early feedback from existing business customers about MaaS? What are they saying?
Tudhope: The feedback has been very strong all along the development stage. We designed MaaS with the voice of our customers. Very early on in the process we visited with several of our enterprise customers and their feedback helped us prioritize what we eventually put into MaaS.
Additionally, the primary research we did came out resoundingly favorable to the concept and was something that most respondents (over 70%) said they would like to pursue now.
Since launch, we have spent a great amount of time training and presenting to our sales channels and the feedback and early funnel activity has been very encouraging.
Atkinson: It appears competition has ramped up around businesses, and especially SMB businesses. How do you believe your SMB base of customers and prospects will react to this offering?
Tudhope: We think this is a great offer for the SMB segment. It’s a low-cost, high-support model that can really help them with their mobile strategies and go bigger and faster into a “work anywhere” environment to drive productivity of their workforce.
We want SMBs to know that Sprint is the carrier of choice for sound and transparent partnership to help them reach their goals. We want to be highly consultative and then deliver the actual execution and deployment that enable smaller businesses to act bigger.
Atkinson: In addition, how do you believe these plans/services protect your corporate liable base of customers or bring some of those that moved off of corporate liable accounts back to a 12- or 24-month term?
Tudhope: We believe that MaaS can help companies that are struggling with whether to stay corporate liable or move to the BYOD model make a good decision. The simplicity and cost value can be very enticing to a traditional CL-oriented company and become a better means for delivering in the model that they are used to. They can avoid the unknown and potential complexity and higher costs of moving to BYOD.
We’re not against BYOD. There are very valid reasons for companies to consider it. However, if the need or desire is to still really control the devices then we think MaaS makes perfect sense and removes a lot of burden from internal resources.
Atkinson: What do you find is the most unique about this offer and how it differentiates Sprint in the business market?
Tudhope: The most unique aspects of this are the device lineup availability. It’s completely unmatched in the non-ownership model for businesses. Any other “leasing” type models for our competitors will only be on a very limited set of devices (smartphones).
The other really big differentiators are around the extended warranty, cloud storage, anti-virus and the sum of the white-glove care components.
Atkinson: Now let’s wrap up our discussion. What is on the horizon for OfficeFuel that you can share? Any additional services and options in the works over the next two quarters?
Tudhope: OfficeFuel will continue to evolve and we’ll bring on additional applications and services that help businesses to be more productive, specifically in a mobile environment. We have a planned SMB UCaaS offering coming in the next 30 to 60 days that will be highly integrated with other collaboration software such as Google and Microsoft. We’ll also continue to look at additional SaaS services that make sense to be rendered on mobile devices and bring those in as our channels become more familiar and accustomed to working with customers around all areas of their business.
Customization is another area that we continue to explore so that we have the ability to help customers with their mobile application development and integration needs.
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