Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Social Housing

Jola supplies MSPs with mobile data solutions to monitor and control the usage of gas and electric systems in social housing. Usage is monitored to try and create efficiencies and move towards a carbon-neutral goal. The challenge their customers have is one of affordability. Hardware costs are high as is deployment countrywide with single network coverage issues.

Hardware

End-users expect always-on 24/7/365 internet connectivity and reliable hardware to be able to monitor usage in near real-time. They don’t want to be paying over the odds for data usage and would prefer to pay monthly for hardware.

Partners can work with end-user businesses to meet the unique connectivity requirements of their customers, helping to test and roll out solutions which exactly meet their needs.

Trends

In the upcoming year, businesses are expected to focus on several trends in the analytics space. Automated analytics is set to increase allowing businesses to quickly analyse data and to generate insights without manual analysis. Machine learning algorithms are predicted to be used more widely to help with decision-making. There will be a greater emphasis on data security. Real-time analytics will be a major focus and there will be a shift towards hybrid cloud analytics as businesses look to gain competitive advantage and retain security over their data.

Demand for faster, more reliable internet connectivity has never been higher for business users. Companies are turning to mobile data solutions for both interim and longer-term solutions, as they can provide faster speeds and be installed very quickly. This provides opportunities for trusted suppliers.

Jola partners differentiate themselves by offering bespoke solutions for different vertical markets such as secure, intelligent 4G and 5G solutions for digital signage. They are plug-and-play, will work anywhere with an electrical socket and are protected from hackers.

MSPs save money on surveys, as they use un-steered multi-network SIMs which will connect to the strongest mobile signal. They can be rapidly deployed to multiple sites globally and 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.

With technologies being switched off (PSTN, ISDN, 3G) and the current economic climate, demand for cost-effective, managed mobile data solutions from the channel, has never been so high. There are solutions such as lift lines and alarm lines where fixed line connectivity is impractical and 4G/5G is much faster and cheaper to deploy.

Hotels and care homes are replacing single phone lines with managed 4G and 5G solutions and other single PSTN applications like lifts, alarm lines and door entry systems are following suit. There is a need for temporary WiFi for construction sites and fixed IP SIMs for CCTV cameras. Multi-Net SIMs are required for ANPR cameras, wearables and tracking devices. 3G SIMs in thousands of devices from fixed line backup to street signs need to be replaced. The list goes on, and the opportunity for the channel is massive. 

There is huge demand from businesses for unlimited SIMs for mobile phones, tablets, routers and smart devices. Jola’s Three Business Unlimited SIMs combine the UK’s best 5G network with price points which allow resellers to make substantial recurring margins.

Jola, the leading mobile data specialist in the channel, has teamed up with Three Business UK to develop and launch Unlimited SIMs specifically designed for resellers. Jola is offering a range of competitive Unlimited SIMs on the UK’s fastest 5G network.

There is huge demand from businesses for unlimited SIMs for mobile phones, tablets, routers and smart devices at competitive rates. Resellers have struggled to compete with Mobile Network Operators directly until now. Jola’s Three Business Unlimited SIMs combine the UK’s best 5G network with price points which allow resellers to make substantial recurring margins.

Lee Broxson, Jola’s CSO commented, “Our channel partners have been asking for competitive, unlimited SIMs for phones, tablets and routers for some time and the Three Business Unlimited SIMs meet the requirement. Being on the UK’s fastest 5G data network, with 99% UK 3G/4G coverage means they will work anywhere and will access the UK’s fastest 5G speeds at no extra cost.”

Mobile data opportunities in construction are plentiful, as companies look to improve their waste management, reduce their construction costs and improve employee safety.

All construction sites need temporary telephony and WiFi for site offices. Jola partners operating in construction are also providing mobile data solutions for tracking and monitoring equipment and for security solutions such as IP CCTV cameras and alarm systems to help construction sites improve security and reduce costs.

Tool Handling

On a construction site, an array of tools are used by trained operatives to complete jobs at each stage of the project. Cranes, for example, need to be fitted with data loggers to record key operational parameters so lifting operations can be reviewed and monitored.

Equipment Monitoring

Asset-tracking devices can now be glued to almost any construction tool. Bluetooth technology combined with an app on a smartphone allows for a near-real-time tracking of location. It also records where the device was last seen should it go missing. 

Worker Safety

Push-to-talk radios, monitoring and recording devices all help improve communications and support safe systems of work.

Site Monitoring

Construction sites are often targeted by criminals so tracking assets and investing in CCTV is a must for sites however long they are operational.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges construction companies face is managing their IT requirements in multiple sites on short-term contracts. Channel partners can help by offering short-term contracts and devices on a DaaS model with no upfront costs. SIMs can be carefully monitored in Mobile Manager and pooled data allows usage to be shared. Companies like Jola are helping partners operating in vertical markets such as construction and manufacturing, to understand the needs of their end-users and provide case studies of similar solutions used with excellent pricing to help win the deals.

Mobile data is helping businesses innovate within the service and maintenance industry. Jola partners offer solutions using smart devices and multi-network roaming SIMs to help them service vehicle fleets. It is much more accurate and efficient than engineers completing manual paperwork and office staff retyping this information into relevant systems. Private APNs are used to ensure secure data transfer.

Jola resellers help property owners and developers to monitor carbon levels. They have created solutions to monitor energy consumption across many different devices within the home. Their devices need 4G to report usage information and for general maintenance of the equipment.

We support resellers working on predictive maintenance within commercial ovens. The devices monitor the health of the ovens, predicting in advance, when the ovens will need to be serviced.

Jola MSPs offer managed solutions on a pay-per-month basis. SIMs are being used in smart sensors to measure air quality, as well as in smart fire and burglar alarms. Smart routers that are pre-configured and arrive plug-and-play help reduce installation costs and multi-network SIMs negate the need for engineer visits.

New products

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