Is recurring revenue on your wish list?
Dec 2, 2019
Why wait until your birthday or the holidays? Eaton wants to treat resellers to a gift that keeps on giving, all year round. If recurring revenue has a nice ring to it, keep reading for an opportunity to help your customers while both of you are sleeping—through reliable remote monitoring.
Eaton's Intelligent Power Management software is an easy-to-use platform with sophisticated capabilities that keep critical applications running through monitoring, managing and controlling power equipment, including UPSs and PDUs.
Software monitoring: IPM is worth its weight in gold
You may not realize there's a tool in your existing product arsenal that can be leveraged for repeated profits: Eaton Intelligent Power Manager® (IPM). Although many reseller partners have been providing the software to their customers for years, some are now discovering an innovative new approach to take advantage of IPM's capabilities. By offering power monitoring as a paid service, partners can transform the software from a one-time license sale into ongoing profits.
Case in point: Elevate Technology Group, an Oregon-based firm that engineers, implements and manages technology solutions, has been featuring IPM as a paid service for the past two years. Although originally packaging monitoring as a free service for clients who purchased a UPS, Elevate recognized an opportunity to monetize the solution. The company then worked with Eaton's partner development team to craft key messaging around the benefits of engaging in a software monitoring service. “Originally, we wondered why in the world we would charge people a monthly fee for this?” acknowledges Geoff Turner, Elevate's CEO. “Now there's absolutely no way we would give it away for free because it's such a huge value.”
Make problems disappear, and keep them from occurring
Indeed, by continuously tracking real-time statuses on their clients' networks, resellers have the ability to resolve problems before customers even realize there is an issue. For example, if an equipment glitch arises, a partner can dispatch a field service technician to a facility in the middle of the night, ensuring all is well when customers arrive at work the next morning. If a device needs to reboot, they can send a signal for it to do so remotely. “A lot of those things customers never think about,” Turner explains. “But if someone else is able to manage it for them, all of a sudden there is real value to it.”
Assessing IPM's alerts and notifications can also help resellers safeguard their customers in the wake of today's ever-escalating security threats, detecting possible vulnerabilities and making sure system software is always up-to-date.
IPM roots out problems others can't
With the information gleaned from IPM, Elevate has mitigated a variety of potential problems for customers. For example, one Seattle firm had been experiencing dirty power issues for years, but was unaware of the root cause. Because IPM honed in on the precise problem, the company was able to bring it to the attention of the building manager and get the issue resolved.
Ultimately, proactively managing and monitoring client networks enables resellers to remedy issues for customers before they become potentially devastating disasters – making software as a service the gift that keeps on giving. “Power is a commodity now, and by having intelligence around that, it enables you to provide a better service in everything else you do,” Turner says.