Manufacturers need to fully understand the level of control they have over their corporate devices, as protecting and managing these devices can be a complicated, time-consuming, and costly endeavor. Bobbie Ramsey, Senior Manager of Managed Services, Intermec, recently spoke with Manufacturing Business Technology about device management and how managed services allows companies in the manufacturing business to focus on their core competencies while increasing productivity and efficiency.
MBT: Could you offer a short breakdown on Intermec?
Ramsey: Intermec, from the solutions and services standpoint, for many years was really focused on the break-fix side of the service business. When I first came to the company, we started spending a lot of time talking to customers and our partner community, and we found that there was a big need in this enterprise space for outsourcing management services. One of the areas under the outsourcing umbrella was managed services, but very specifically related to their mobility devices. And what we learned very quickly was, even though you have customers in this space that have IT staff under their own company, those IT staff members may not necessarily have the proper mobility expertise. When you think about a typical IT organization, they are very focused on wired technology, desktops, phone systems, things of that nature. Those people don’t necessarily transition over to mobility well. Some do, and some don’t. We actually talked to some of our very large customers, who do have very large IT organizations. But when you talk to those IT people, they look at you and say, “Mobility? We don’t want anything to do with that.” That’s what got us down this path, trying to figure out where we want to go from a managed services perspective. As you probably know, managed services are a huge umbrella. You can ask 10 people for the definition of managed services and you’ll probably get 10 very different answers. So because of where Intermec is focused in the rugged, hand-held space, whether it is a computer or a printer, we decided that the focus for Intermec to go is device management.
We wanted to be able to remotely manage devices, to provide a true outsourced opportunity for our customers. Then we could go to them and tell them that if they didn’t have this expertise in house, we could do that management for them. Our vision for that management was for us to, from a centralized location, be able to dial into that device, get into that device, remotely troubleshoot it, remotely control it, and hopefully, in most situations, be able to diagnose the issue and fix the issue so that end user customer can keep that device in the field, working, and get the most amount of productivity out of that device. They rely on it, they need it out there working, because they made a significant investment in that device.
MBT: How important was it for you to emphasize the speed in which you can address issues with devices from a remote location?
One of the things that we focus on is the proactive aspect of device management. Our goal is catch issues before the customer knows there is an issue and to resolve that issue while the device remains in the hand of a user. Outsourcing device management to a company who has mobility technical expertise can increase a company’s productivity, because now the expert is diagnosing that issue without having to put the device in a box and shipping it to t repair center.
MBT: Do you see the trend of U.S.-based companies adopting managed services from outside providers continuing in the future? If so, what’s driving that trend?
Ramsey: Companies want to focus on what they do best. You look at manufacturing facilities and they want to focus on what they manufacture and not necessarily take the time and people within their own organization to deal with issues around rugged, hand-held computers. We’ve seen that in just about every area where outsourcing is successful.
MBT: Do you feel the speed with which technology changes affects manufacturers’ attitudes toward dealing with managed services?
Ramsey: Absolutely. When you get them [manufacturers] engaged in a conversation about outsourcing, they want to go all the way to the end of the spectrum. They don’t want to own it, they don’t want to manage it, and they don’t want to be responsible for it. They want us to do that for them. We’re not quite to that model yet, but you can see that’s where customers want to go. They don’t want to deal with it. They want someone else to be responsible for it.
MBT: Some of the issues IT professionals have to deal with can be very time-consuming and expensive. And if you’re not on top of it right away, the costs of dealing with it can be major. Would you agree with that?
Ramsey: Yes, and you need to even look past issues. Obviously, issues are going to come up whenever you’re talking about technology. But even beyond that, with the way technology is moving, you look at how often these devices have to be updated, just from a software application perspective. When these companies can rely on somebody else to keep those devices updated, that’s huge. When those updates can be done remotely at a planned time, it adds to the ROI.
MBT: There are quite a few types and brands of different devices out on the market today. How does this affect the ability of IT departments to manage all of those different devices?
Ramsey: Many of our customers have a mixed variety of devices out there. Even though they may have a big chunk of Intermec hand-held devices, they may also have a lot of smartphones that are used by a different level of person in the company.
We wanted to expand beyond the Intermec device. Ultimately we ended up doing that. The tool that we use for INControl has the ability to manage really any Windows mobile device. It also has some IOS capabilities, BlackBerry capabilities, and Android capabilities.
Visit www.intermec.com to learn more.
