Empowering businesses to deploy and monetize efficient cellular IoT solutions on a global scale is no easy feat. It requires, among a great many factors, years of in-depth industry know-how and the right team members (with diverse levels of expertise) to enable shifts to cellular subscriptions that remove myriad hassles for organizations today.
One company that has experienced sure-fire success in this area is Zipit Wireless, a Platinum sponsor of IoT Evolution Expo 2024 . This event (part of the ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW , taking place February 13-15 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida), is a premier spot for future-mindful innovators to gather, learn about proliferating IoT trends, trade ideas in various panel discussions, and see in person what technologies are being brought to market via the expo’s massive exhibit hall.
Ahead of IoT Evolution Expo, we were able to speak with Ralph Heredia, Vice President of Business Development at Zipit.
Below are Heredia’s IoT industry insights, as well as plenty of helpful information regarding Zipit’s past, present and future:
What recent news or innovations in your products or services would you like to share?
Zipit Wireless has been growing in countless ways over the past year – through acquisitions, expanding our number of carrier partners, deepening relationships with existing carrier partners (as well as other go-to-market partners), and by adding many more features to our core IoT subscription billing platform.
We’re excited to provide more details about each of these growth areas over the coming weeks and months.
What is the greatest value proposition for IoT today?
The greatest value rests with strong opportunities for consistent revenue growth and the strengthening of business models, especially through the monetization of connectivity and much-needed, value-added services.
What key trends are impacting the IoT industry today and what opportunities are they creating?
As cellular proliferates, more companies are leveraging cellular connectivity in their solutions (but are running into operational challenges in managing larger deployments across multiple geographies). The need for seamless connectivity management and subscription billing solutions is becoming widespread. Zipit Wireless is well-positioned to help them overcome these challenges.
How are those trends shaping your products/services?
Zipit has forged strong partnerships with the world’s leading cellular IoT carriers for more than a decade. Through those partnerships (as well as through our direct relationships with customers in the U.S. and internationally), we saw early on that IoT solution providers and device manufacturers would experience a growing need for multi-carrier solutions and consistent, automated downstream billing capabilities across carrier relationships. Solving their connectivity, management and billing challenges has been our North Star for years.
Opportunities are often accompanied by challenges. What are the biggest challenges businesses face in IoT deployments, and how are you helping solve those challenges?
Across the board, our customers want to focus on their core business and what they truly do best. Regardless of the vertical industry or particular IoT use case, device manufacturers don’t want to have to spend their time focused on the operations of connectivity and billing complexities. They want a consistent experience for their end users and dealer networks, no matter where devices are being deployed. Zipit’s offerings do both of those things – they take the technical and operational issues of supporting thousands of devices in the field off of our customers’ plates, and they streamline the end-user experience.
Ralph Heredia, Zipit's VP of Business Development
One trend we are seeing is that product companies are now offering services thanks to IoT. How has managed services impacted your offerings?
This is a big mindset shift, and it’s one that has been key to Zipit’s growth. For years, it’s been our position that product companies do better financially, increase their customer lifetime value and, generally speaking, remain more competitive in the market when they shift from a one-time-sale model to an ongoing subscriber relationship model. This position has been proven to be correct time and again by our customers (like Bushnell) and the analyses they’ve done of key performance indicators like profit per device, device churn and subscription renewals. For years, this has really only applied to the first movers in each sector, but now the broader sentiment is that this shift to subscriptions and services is the future. We’re ready to help those companies make that future-forward shift.
eSIM and the SGP .32 eUICC standard are being offered, but adoption has been slow. Are you taking advantage of this ability? How is it changing or will it change your procedures on bootstrapping an IoT device in the field?
Because SGP .32 was just introduced in late 2023, there are still elements that are being defined (such as interoperability testing and certification). While the perception is that SGP .32 is here, there’s still some work to do between all the carriers globally to support it. This is very important because OEMs and enterprises deploy products around the world, not just in a single market.
We are a long way away from 6G, but the general trends are in line with the expectation that hybrid networks (using private, public, LoRa, Wi-Fi) are the future. How are you using multiple networks in your IoT implementation?
We have multiple customers that are using hybrid networks in their deployments today. While our focus is on enabling the cellular portion, this does not exclude customers from working with us as part of their larger hybrid strategy. In the end, cellular is the backhaul for many of these implementations and the subscription billing is a key component of the enablement.
Please share a success story or two about how your IoT products/solutions have helped customers navigate challenges and turn them into opportunities.
With Zipit’s help, Bushnell made the shift from the one-time-sale of their trail cameras to subscription offerings that they can use to reorient their relationships with their customers. In that time, they’ve seen a dramatic increase in profit per device; around three times what it was with the old model.
Additionally, Hunter Industries is able to offer a fully integrated connectivity and subscription experience into their irrigation controller platform (for devices deployed around the world). Hunter’s customers get a seamless experience in a self-service environment and the by-product of that is that the end user manages the cellular administration. That reduces the operational complexity for the Hunter support teams.
BrightSign is also leveraging our subscription billing technology to be able to seamlessly offer cellular subscriptions to customers in North America and in Europe, and to be able to standardize their offerings across the board so it’s easier to manage and support that business.
More customer stories are being added to our website all the time, so we’d encourage anyone that is interested to visit our website to hear more.
As an IoT company, what is the hardest part of getting your message out?
There’s a lot of fragmentation in IoT and numerous ways to efficiently get to market. IoT spans any and every vertical industry; so, while the opportunity for new connected devices is almost endless, you have to really build connections with companies across the entire supply chain to have the best chance of getting in front of the right customers.
What are you most looking forward to at IoT Evolution Expo 2024?
Being able to reconnect with partners face to face is something we’re looking forward to! You can’t replace those kinds of in-person interactions and conversations that lead to new introductions or impromptu brainstorming sessions.
What is your session and why is it a must-attend at IoT Evolution Expo 2024?
We’ll be sharing real-life examples of customers using our innovative and elegant end-user subscription billing solution enabled by our multi-carrier platform!
Why are you participating at IoT Evolution Expo 2024 and what are you highlighting at your booth?
We’re participating to generate more market awareness, to allow others the chance to discover new and exciting business opportunities, and to engage in meetings with key partners.
At Booth #371 , we’ll be promoting our global IoT data connectivity, multi-carrier platform and end-user subscription billing solutions.
Edited by
Alex Passett
