In my regional role, I work with our partners all over Asia Pacific. While each market has specific nuances, the Australian market is truly unique. Australia has one of the best mobile network infrastructure provisions globally but also has one of the highest concentrations of small-medium sized businesses (SMBs). According to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman*, 99.8% of Australian businesses are classified as SMB, or employing less than 200 people! Australia has a relatively small population for a country of its size, but demand for connectivity is high. Australia is a world leader in many technological advancements, be it medical technology or even Wi-fi, which was conceived here.
It's no secret that many organisations today lack internal IT staff. This is a trend that has been seen globally as organisations try and cut costs and invest more heavily in cloud applications, but it’s not just about costs and macro-economic pressures. In Australia, it’s the nature of business operations. The higher proportion of smaller size businesses means far fewer organisations have internal IT resources, and if they do, it’s limited. These organisations need to stay agile, are always changing, and need their technology to support their lean teams as much as possible, instead of being a burden to manage. This creates the opportunity for Australian partners to meet that need.
How? By building a wireless managed service practice. We’re starting to see it already - partners who are ahead of the game are going all in and building wireless practices within their business or pivoting entirely to become a ‘wireless service provider’ for their customers. Similarly, Fixed Wireless Access is being offered by carriers to SMBs and the uptake of that is growing at a rapid rate.
Some of the benefits for partners that have a wireless managed service solution include:
- Increased revenue: Partners can achieve higher lifetime margin on core services, plus add additional revenue streams through value-added services such as security or tiered service offerings
- Recurring revenue: With a more predictable and stable monthly revenue stream, partners can more accurately project earnings and scale business.
- Cost savings: With Wireless WAN there is no need to run expensive fibre cables to locations and partners can provide their customers with day-1 connectivity. Support costs can be reduced by utilising Out of Band Management features, which negate the need to send support staff onsite to troubleshoot many issues.
- Turnkey solution: With industry-leading Wireless WAN, a cloud- based management platform, and seamless integrations with existing systems from a single trusted supplier, it’s very simple to manage.
- Partner support: At Cradlepoint, we are all channel all the time. Partners are an extension of our company and Cradlepoint is here to support our partners every step of the way with comprehensive onboarding, go-to-market, training, and sales support.
Some benefits for customers utilising a managed wireless service include:
- Lower upfront cost: High initial capital expenditure is replaced by monthly payments for bundled services and hardware.
- Zero touch deployment: Pre-configured and remotely configured endpoints that enable plug-and-play connectivity upon installation.
- Day-1 connectivity: Customers can have immediate network access without having to wait for traditional wireline fibre cable access.
- Augment lean IT: Customers can rely on network experts in their managed wireless service provider and reallocate existing resources to growth areas of the business. This is of particular importance for SMBs, who operate lean teams and need to optimise resource use.
- Flexibility: Enables scaling businesses, or ones that move locations or set up pop-up venues, to access their network from any location and move network endpoints as needed.
It takes considerable resources, time, and expertise for a customer IT team to install, configure, and monitor an enterprise’s Wireless WAN infrastructure. With SMBs and growing organisations, as the business expands, so does the management challenge. No business wants to sacrifice top-of-the-line network reliability or security when IT resources are stretched thin. With so many businesses turning to managed network services or more specifically, managed Wireless WAN providers, as a cost-effective and scalable way to address their network infrastructure, the opportunity is ripe for partners to consider building a wireless practice.
*ASBFEO: Number of small businesses in Australia, 2023 (https://www.asbfeo.gov.au/small-business-data-portal/number-small-businesses-australia)
