The Mobile Device Lifecycle - And Why I'm Excited

The last 5 years have been cool. I was fortunate enough to join a company that had grown from a start-up to a small to medium sized business and was only getting bigger. It was a new industry for me, mobile device tech support, as part of MOBI's services for enterprises that need help managing their mobile environments. It was cooler when I realized that these guys were supporting guys like me, just six months beforehand, walking door to door selling Comcast services with my Blackberry in hand and my hotspot in my laptop bag. When I realized that, everything clicked.

MOBI gave me the opportunity from there to test all of my various skills, to work with customers in different ways, with different challenges, and to develop new solutions that filled the gaps for their customers' needs. If you're familiar with managing corporate mobile programs, then you know there are layers upon layers of complexity. If you're not familiar with these complexities, my former colleague at MOBI, Nate Wiersema, wrote a great overview of Mobility Management Services and the larger landscape of corporate mobile environments. In the network of partners that our team built, one of the responsibilities I took on during MOBI's growth was cultivating relationships with companies near and far, that could provide high-value services to the MOBIs' customers that MOBI did not provide through its tools or resources.

One of the issues we saw enterprises struggle with controlling time and again was mobile device recovery and redeployment. MOBI partners with several reputable companies that provide enterprises a solution that helps them regain their assets when they are ready to be retired from the environment. Companies can leverage these tools to generate tracking of these devices that should be brought back into a warehouse, verified for data security, and checked against criteria for possible redeployment, repair, or recycling and getting the most value from the devices they've deployed. When MOBI shook things up and eliminated my position last month, I found that these companies had a genuine opportunity to expand their presence in the marketplace.

The sheer number of devices that companies and enterprises are deploying to their employees and in the field says that the retirement of devices is not only an opportunity but should be a focus for enterprises. These devices are increasingly being trusted to help employees complete their most critical work, holding their most critical data, and costing businesses millions of dollars in hardware. Solutions geared towards the collection of mobile devices from the field bring four levels of value to the enterprise; 1) physical device data wiping and verification, 2) ease of access to gently used or refurbish-able devices they already own, 3) maximum return value on those devices that the enterprise no longer needs, and 4) protection of the environment from the waste generated from used mobile devices.

I'm excited to have joined the Mobile reCell team here in Indianapolis, IN. They have developed a software platform that offers our customers and partners simplified solutions to a complex device lifecycle matrix. We provide value back to our customers by finding ways to streamline processes, minimize customer cost impact, and return high-value devices and money back to the enterprise for use. To simplify the process, we integrate our solution with the leading providers of hardware and Mobility Management Services, like SHI, Enterprise Mobility - Honeywell, MOBI and more.

We should be excited by the mobile devices and how they are changing our work worlds, but we should be paying close attention to the way we manage their retirement. The volume of devices and the amount of data we entrust them with is alone reason enough for enterprises to focus on collecting these devices the right way. The fact that our service can help you gain this piece of mind, but deliver it at no cost while returning dollars back into the program, makes our next conversation a no brainer. I look forward to sharing the stories of how Mobile reCell is solving these problems for its customers, and finding the right solution for your environment.

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