Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

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For end-user businesses, saving on upfront costs, flexibility and future-proofing are driving the as-a-service market. Many would prefer to pay monthly with no-upfront costs and the ability to upgrade as required.  XaaS is attractive to vendors because they can create MRR from what was previously NRR. This means the company is more likely to grow predictably and survive severe downturns. They can hire staff to support their growth without having to lay them off if orders dry up. COVID was a disaster for NRR/project-based companies whereas MRR companies in general were able to ride it out and without laying off/furloughing staff.

To meet this need Jola offers a range of intelligent, affordable 4G & 5G routers on a rental ‘DaaS’ (Device as a Service) model over multiple terms. DaaS also means faulty routers are dealt with on an ‘Advanced Replacement’ basis and hardware can be upgraded.

As A Service Model Evolving

As the Internet has become faster and more reliable, centralised cloud-based offerings have grown in popularity. Virtually anything can be sold as-a-service and this model benefits both end users and resellers. The pace of innovation has picked up and end users don’t want to get locked into obsolete technologies. For the reseller, the cost of servicing their customers is lower with aaS and recurring margins make their business more profitable.

Key Trends

A key trend driving the as-a-service model is the move to IP and the imminent PSTN switch-off. There are millions of single-call PSTN lines in the UK that are soon to be end-of-life. Upgrading to broadband is expensive and capital costs of converters and 4G routers soon mount up. Jola has solved this problem for resellers and their customers by providing everything they need, on one affordable monthly rental. Robustel and TPLink routers, plus Grandstream ATAs and ISDN-TAs, can all be taken as DaaS.

Key Benefits

Companies with high recurring revenues are more valuable than those relying on one-off sales. This was brought into sharp focus during the pandemic when companies with a high proportion of recurring revenues featured almost exclusively in Private Equity transaction news. Telecoms resellers saw their multiples increase while more traditional MSPs had to baton down the hatches and furlough staff.

For Jola partners, the DaaS OpEx model has many benefits over CapEx purchase, not least for cash flow. From the end users’ point of view, they usually have lower set-up costs and they pay over a period of time without having to sign a third-party lease. The monthly rental usually comes with a service guarantee, support and future-proofing (the ability to upgrade within the term). Suppliers who offer XaaS products to resellers remove the need for them to invest CapEx in stock.

Xaas products are ‘in-the-cloud’ and with little equipment actually, on the end users’ premises there is less to go wrong and by removing the need for engineers to physically attend site, service overheads are lower.

In the channel, we are seeing an exponential rise in demand for mobile data SIMs, not only for use in 5G/4G routers, pre-Ethernet connectivity and Ethernet back-up but also for digital signage, gaming machines, vending machines, monitoring devices, sensors and ATMs. SIMs are being used in wind and solar farms, measuring and tracking key variables, they are also being used in smart TV cameras, which roam internationally. Manufacturers and service companies are finding new uses for mobile data daily and, as we accelerate towards 5G, this is unlikely to slow down.

It's practically impossible for resellers to provision and control SIM estates without a comprehensive, well-established real-time portal. Choosing a trusted channel-only supplier means the reseller can take advantage of their knowledge and experience when they are bidding for deals. Jola’s most successful partners involve our Partner Managers directly with their customers without fear of disintermediation. Price is really important and mobile data suppliers need to understand that their products have to be priced so that channel partners can win deals at decent margins.

Millions of PSTN lines won’t be able to use a SoGEA or FTTP type replacement due to costs, incompatibility or logistical challenges. Mobile data will be a requirement for customers replacing PSTN lines for intruder alarm monitoring, call points and many other applications.

When the networks made 4G available to the channel around 2016, it changed the game. 3G SIMs running at only a few Mb/s struggled with email but 4G started to be used as a substitute for fixed-line broadband. When, due to political pressure, MNOs swapped out manufacturers recently, they upgraded many towers to support 4G+ which offers download speeds of up to 300 Mb/s. Although the networks do not publish 4G+ coverage it is estimated that over 90% of the UK population has access to 4G+. As 5G becomes ubiquitous it will overtake the number of fixed-line data connections very quickly.

The opportunity for the channel is significant and for those resellers not sure where to start, Jola has productised its unique process of helping customers successfully sell mobile data. It is called The Mobile-Data Revenue Generator (The MRG) and it helps partners to identify low-hanging fruit and win their first significant mobile data opportunity. From there they can start to productise mobile data and develop the eco-system required to sell, support and bill it.

Your customers are working on mobile data projects right now and demand is predicted to increase dramatically over the next few years. If you get it right with M2M and IoT, you will quickly generate high-margin recurring revenue and, due to higher EBITDA multiples, increase the value of your company.

According to McKinsey, revenues from mobile data are set to increase dramatically over the next five years. Factors driving growth are the availability, speed and reliability of 4G, 5G and IoT. Statista says the number of IoT devices worldwide is forecast to grow to more than 25.4 billion IoT devices in 2030. Fortune Business Insights predict this market will be worth £1085 billion by 2027.

People think IoT is very low revenue and you’ve got to win hundreds of thousands. You don’t. You can often get a decent ARPU of £10 to £15 on thousands of devices and sometimes margins in excess of 40%, so it’s a really attractive line-of-business to pivot into.

Your mobile data partner will need to give you the tools to win deals, usually competing with the direct sales arms of the mobile networks. Your supplier will need to be an aggregator with access to all the networks and ideally, they will also be an independent MVNO. Most importantly everything must be automated, with real-time APIs offering zero-touch provisioning and management through a single self-service portal.

They will need to be innovative, with a constant stream of relevant mobile data and IoT products
that the networks would take years to develop and launch. When you partner with the right channel supplier, mobile data is easy to sell, support and bill.

The opportunity for the channel is significant. We may not find ourselves supplying car manufacturers with SIMs for self-driving cars, but ICT resellers already have strong relationships with business customers for IT infrastructure, asset tracking, digital signage, mobile WiFi, monitoring and utilities.

Mobile data is an easy product to sell and provision and needs very little support. Jola took on just over 200 new partners in 2021 and now have over 1200. We recently put 30,000 multinetwork SIMs into iPads for one public sector project, with a very quick book-to-bill timeframe and no issues.

Scale

Our partner didn’t have to add any more people in billing or accounts to support it. SIMs provision immediately using our Mobile Manager platform, so you don’t have to wait three months to start generating recurring margins. As soon as customers put that SIM into their device, you’re billing for it.  

Getting Started

Speak to your existing customers, understand their requirements, and then partner with an aggregator that can provide innovative solutions, unavailable elsewhere. Find out about their current projects and challenges. Once you have established your customers’ requirements, start building your solution. 

The MRG

Jola has developed The Mobile-data Revenue Generator. It is a six-step process to uncover mobile data opportunities. The process defines the way we work with partners and qualifies opportunities, capabilities and skills. We help our partners to focus on key opportunities and ultimately win large, high-margin, long-term contracts.

Selecting the right suppliers

Who will you partner with for the devices, and where are you going to get the connectivity from? What challenges do you need to overcome? Who has the most cost-effective mobile data solution to meet the requirements? Who is agile enough to develop solutions to meet the time frames? Can you manage the data usage across the estate? Can you control usage and costs, maximise your margin and protect your customer from bill shock?

The advertising world has changed dramatically in the last 20 years with social media platforms competing directly with traditional media companies, forcing them to innovate to survive. One of the biggest transformations is in digital signage, which is now one of the fastest growing media markets in the world.

However digital signage has its own challenges. Interactive signs need to be updated remotely with software and messages but often connecting them to a fixed internet connection is impractical and expensive. Where they use 4G/5G, the network has to prevent anyone hacking into the devices as well as protect them from DDOS attacks, which would take them offline.

The routers containing the SIMs must be robust, secure and capable of being provisioned and reconfigured remotely.

Jola’s Solution

We invented an intelligent 4G solution for digital signage, which arrives ‘plug-and-play’ at the customer’s site. It will work anywhere with an electrical socket, can be managed remotely via a portal and is protected from threats at both device and network levels.

Un-steered multi-network SIMs negate the need for expensive site surveys as they connect to the strongest signal and switch automatically if the primary network becomes unavailable.

 The Opportunity

• Connectivity for digital advertising boards in the UK
• Scalability, reliability and ability to deploy rapidly across the country
• Control and ease of connectivity management

 The Solution 

• Robustel R1510, preconfigured with device security
• Aggregated 2GB MultiNet SIMs

 The Outcome

• Dramatically reduced operational overheads
• Great support from Jola development team in building the bespoke configuration
• Reduced costs, increased revenue, improved margin
• Complete control over the SIM estate via Mobile Manager®

According to McKinsey, revenues from mobile data are set to increase dramatically over the next five years. Factors driving growth are the availability, speed and reliability of 4G, 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT). The opportunity for the channel is significant, but many partners do not know where to start.

Jola has over 1000 partners successfully selling mobile data. We have productised our unique process and called it The Mobile-Data Revenue Generator (The MRG). The process helps partners to identify low-hanging fruit and win their first significant mobile data opportunity.

Step 1 – are you ready to sell mobile data?

Taking the time to answer these questions will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Ask yourself:

• What do you sell most of?
• Who do you sell to? (How many customers do you have, how big are they, what sectors do they work in?)
• How many salespeople do you have?
• Do they sell recurring revenue products?
• Can you bill CDRs?
• Can you support mobile data?
• Do you currently sell mobile data?
• Why? / Why not?
• Why now?
• Who do you buy from?
• What do you like about them?
• Why did you choose them?

Step 2 – what do you need to get ready for mobile data?

Think about

• Choosing a trusted channel supplier
• Pricing, Ordering, Provisioning, Management, Billing, Support
• Commission plans for salespeople
• Help with materials, productisation
• Training

Step 3 – who am I selling mobile data to?

Knowing your target audience is key here. Adding a product to your website and hoping for leads is not going to cut it in today’s competitive market. You need to know where the deals are you can win. Where do you have the advantage? Start with your existing customer base. What do they buy most of from you?  What else could they be buying from you? Ask the questions:

• Do you currently buy mobile data?
• Who from?
• What do you use mobile data for?
• How many SIMs do you buy?
• How much data do you use?
• How do you manage SIM estates?
• Why/how did you select your current supplier?
• Do you have any issues?

Where do you start?

There are a few strategies to consider:

Work through your customer list from

• highest to lowest spend
• by highest to lowest employees
• by market vertical

When you set out to win new business, marketing often gets involved. Directors are looking to grow the business, and sales are looking for some leads to convert.

How do we win new business?

It costs five times as much to attract a new customer than it does to retain and grow an existing one. If your clients trust you to deliver internet connectivity they are just as likely to buy a hosted phone system or mobile data solutions from you if you can meet their requirements and are a trusted supplier.

Cross-sell/Up-sell

Cross-sell/upsell campaigns are usually easier to implement if you already have a successful comms strategy in place with existing clients. Sales and marketing can work together to deliver complementary services to customers by updating existing sales and marketing materials. Suppliers can help by delivering white label materials that can easily be slotted into newsletters, websites, flyers and proposals to make existing customers aware of new solutions and a customer offer (better price for existing customers, 3 months free etc.) can really help to move the buyer from the consideration phase into purchase/decision phase. Case studies are really powerful as they can reflect back on pain points customers are having, explain the benefits of their unique solution and provide a reference.

Where to start?

What do you sell most of to whom? If you sell internet connectivity is there a demand for 4G back-up or 4G solutions for homeworkers? Is there demand in your base for mobile data? The easiest way to find this out is to give your sales team a list of questions to ask their clients or ask your marketing team to create a survey.

What to ask?

• What do you buy most of?
• Do you buy mobile data? (We don’t mean mobile handsets but the data SIM cards)
• Who do you buy from?
• What do you use them for?
• Why did you choose them as a supplier?
• Are you happy with your current supplier?

Demand for M2M and IoT is a focus for Jola and our partners, as end-users need more than the MNOs can offer them directly. It is a great opportunity for companies like Jola to innovate with solutions managed in a real-time portal, designed to meet specific needs of M2M and IoT solutions in multiple vertical markets globally.

There are already a great many vertical market opportunities in this space where we are helping partners to win. Jola SIMs are being used in tablets, routers, CCTV cameras, lifts, cranes, wind turbines, push-to-talk radios, body-worn cameras, monitoring devices, streetlights, ANPR cameras, yachts, digital signs, personal alarms, door entry systems, smart gates, cameras, buses, coaches and trains.

Mobile data is a critical part of the PSTN/ISDN replacement portfolio. Resellers cannot 100% address the needs of their customers without a channel-only mobile data aggregator and we hope they will choose Jola.

Our internet connectivity and SIP solutions are used by well-known large corporates and SMEs. We help partners to win new business and increase ARPU in their current base to reduce churn.

Jola is an award-winning, channel-only supplier of business communications specialising in mobile data SIMs controlled in our management portal. We offer a wide range of mobile data products and Intelligent 4G/5G solutions, which offer MSPs good margin, which you cannot buy from anyone else.

Jola’s ability to innovate is one of our success stories. We continually innovate to help partners win. On average we launch a new product/product extension every month.

We were first to market with a real-time automated portal and we continue to lead and innovate in this important area. Partners bidding to win mobile data opportunities for M2M and IoT solutions such as 4G SIMs in tablets in the public sector or Multinet SIMs in smart water meters are being asked very specific questions about their portal. End-users want to know how real-time the data is and how automated the portal is.

End users do not want multiple supplier portals to deal with, they want the ability to order a wide range of technologies from multiple network operators in a single portal. They want direct access to activate SIMs, add bolt-ons and share data across accounts. They need access for their end users to be able to monitor usage in real-time. Suppliers who can offer real-time, automated portals are better placed to win the deals.

We invented an intelligent 4G/5G solution for digital signage, which arrives plug-and-play, will work anywhere with an electrical socket, can be managed remotely via a portal and prevents hackers from gaining access to the digital content.

MSPs save money on site surveys, as we use un-steered multi-network SIMs which will connect to the strongest mobile signal anywhere. They can be rapidly deployed to multiple sites globally, will arrive pre-configured with the Jola App, allowing auto-configuration. There is no need for manual configuration on site, saving valuable time and set-up costs.

Apart from innovative Layer 2 LTE offerings for ISPs and unique big data tariffs, Jola recently built a new, fully redundant, highly scalable IP edge network specifically designed to deliver high performance and secure mobile data services. Jola Partners’ critical services now enjoy protection from DDoS attacks and super-high speeds globally via the Cloudflare network. Cloudflare’s 121 Tbps worldwide network blocks an average of 86 billion threats per day.

Retailers, such as fast-food restaurants, have invested in self-service kiosks to allow customers to order their own meals in-store and have them delivered to their seats. Connected kiosks require gateways, routers and data SIMs. Stores typically have multiple connected devices, which are becoming more complex and expensive to manage.

Self-service kiosks in hotels allow guests to check in and out. They are really useful at peak times to reduce waiting times and improve customer experience. Automating processes help reduce costs for the hotel, which no longer needs to pay employees a premium to work unsociable hours on the front desk. Kiosks are also used to promote upgrades and extras, generating additional revenues.

MSPs installing self-service kiosks in multiple locations must consider electricity points, the availability of connectivity as well as the management of an increasingly complex IT network at each location.

Connected kiosks often require gateways and routers in addition to mobile data. Managing multiple connected kiosks in different locations can be costly and complex to manage. Site surveys are often required to establish the strongest mobile signal in each location.

Jola partners offer a unique solution with their Intelligent 4G/5G routers. Our routers are smart and negate the need for a gateway. Jola SIMs are all managed within one easy portal. MSPs can easily manage and monitor data usage across sites. We offer multinetwork roaming data across all four major mobile networks, and our routers arrive preconfigured. 

Suitable for mobile broadband and large-scale IoT rollouts, our routers run a unique operating system allowing apps to be installed alongside the core routing software. 

Do you have customers who use a lot of mobile data? Are you looking for a reliable and cost-effective solution you can manage?

Customers, such as CCTV specialists are now being asked for live streams from their cameras. To do this, specialists need reliable hardware and large data SIMs, that they can monitor and manage.

EE advertises itself as the UK’s best network for 4G and 5G. EE M2M SIMs are specially designed for use in demanding applications. They have a ruggedized design and have higher data endurance and greater heat resistance than normal SIMs.

Jola is an award-winning, channel-only supplier of business communications, specialising in mobile data SIMs. We are a global data specialist, providing innovative IoT and mobile data solutions to MSPs, ISPs, IT Support companies and Telecommunications Resellers.

Jola is a mobile data aggregator and MVNO, which means that we offer services from all major UK networks and hundreds of networks globally. We have been selling mobile data to the channel since 2014, and we understand our partners’ pain points and the needs of their end-users in each vertical market. Over time, we have developed a unique portal that gives partners the control and visibility they need to manage global SIM estates. We have also developed unique hardware solutions that save our partners time, helping them create a great customer experience, maximise their margins and minimise costs for their customers.

Mobile Manager is our M2M/IoT SIM management portal, which communicates in real-time with multiple mobile network operators. Mobile Manager handles M2M SIM activations, ceases, suspensions, reports, alerts and bolt-ons and can be used by resellers and their end users to manage large estates of M2M SIMs in multiple devices worldwide.