Why resellers should think outside the box with mobility...

Think outside the box with mobility, and its latest offerings, says Fred Viet, Lenovo ANZ channel sales manager.

There are two significant trends that are shaping the mobility space right now and impacting the way resellers should be operating in the market. One of them is 4G LTE and the other is Windows 8 on touch devices.

By delivering higher data transfer speeds across greater distances, 4G has made working on the go much more feasible from a business point of view.

High speed mobile internet coupled with Windows 8 touch devices have inspired companies to create or procure productivity apps which enable mobile workers to operate more efficiently.

This presents an excellent opportunity for resellers who are able to bundle up mobility hardware with software to make it more appealing to business customers.

The best approach would be to target a specific vertical through industry-specific apps. It’s not just office workers who are being empowered by mobile working.

The hospitality industry is a great example of a vertical that is beginning to see potential in arming their workers with mobile devices, particularly as tablets are becoming a popular option for businesses.

Tablets are not merely laptop replacements; they are changing the way businesses operate. Some of our resellers have found success creating apps, such as an app restaurant staff can use to take orders, and pre-loading them onto Lenovo tablet devices and selling that to their hospitality customers.

Manage me

It is clear resellers need to evolve and adapt as new trends come into play and change the competitive landscape. We are also seeing mobility changing our partner demographic.

Today, nearly 60% of our hardware resellers are moving to managed services with the rise of mobility. Introducing a mobile workforce culture into an organisation can be liberating for many employees but can cause a host of headaches for the business.

Device management and data security are important things for companies that allow mobile working to consider. Our resellers are capitalising on this by presenting a holistic offering of mobile devices and managed services to reduce mobility headaches for customers.

For example, we have a longrunning and successful partnership with a software provider for its mobile endpoint security and IT asset management products.

These offerings provide tremendous value for organisations and terrific opportunities for our channel partners.

Mobility presents a business development opportunity for resellers who are willing to think outside the box and provide customers with a cohesive hardware, software, and service solution.

The mobility trend isn’t going away and the channel needs to adapt to stay ahead of the game.