Season 6 of IoT Unplugged kicked off with an in-depth conversation with Chris Baird, CEO of OptConnect, who weighed in on the build versus buy argument in IoT: whether to build a connectivity management solution from scratch, or whether to go with a fully managed service.
As a connectivity provider, OptConnect provided its customers with expertise based on having already experienced and navigated pain points and challenges. As such, Baird said that he believed in the value of buying a solution.
There are three factors that typically get underestimated, he explained, which are as follows: the cost of downtime (which often equates to a significant reduction in revenue); the internal resources required to support devices in the field at scale; and scaling more generally as deployments grow.
Siding with a managed solution, therefore, provides you with speed, scale, accountability and resources without draining the team working on deployments. It also proves more cost-effective in the long run, taking into account what frequently gets underestimated.
There are situations, Baird acknowledged, where a company might better suit building their own solution – in which case OptConnect can also support them with that.
Industries that have embraced managed services include the automated retail space, such as self-service kiosks and ATMs; as a consequence of the pandemic, where labour shortages resulted in the implementation of kiosks that depend on constant, reliable connectivity.
Drawing on a customer case study with a fintech company, OptConnect observed that the company initially wanted to build their own solution, until they lost connectivity in a key market for four days as the consequence of a carrier change – resulting in lost revenue, upset customers, and poor credibility.
“That’s the value of managed [services],” said Baird. “You [as a customer] don’t just avoid the problems, you never see them to begin with, and that’s something we do behind the scenes.”
Key takeaways centred on misconceptions revolving around managed services: that the managed service requires a company to give up control when it provides them with more control and visibility, and building solutions are more cost-effective when in the long run, due to unforeseen costs, managed services tend to be.
“It’s important to make sure that we don’t underestimate the human factor in IoT,” Baird concluded. “Connectivity is a technical problem, but solving it is a people business.”
To hear more from Baird and his insights into the build versus buy debate, listen to the full podcast episode, which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and at the link below.
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