A Blueprint for VARs: Growing Revenue through Sensors

An IoT sensor is a piece of hardware that detects changes in an environment and collects data. That data is transmitted to a central system via wired or wireless technology, where it is visualized and analyzed.

Without sensors, we could not monitor the temperature of freezers in a warehouse or determine if somebody has entered or left a building. They are pervasive in so many areas of our world that they are an excellent source of additional revenue for technology VARs.

In this document, we cover three main aspects to help you on your sales journey:

Information for your clients on why they would benefit from a sensor solution
How you can increase your revenue by selling sensor solutions
Some essential technical information to help design and deploy a better sensor offering.

ELA Bluetooth Sensor

In this document, we cover three main aspects to help you on your sales journey:

Information for your clients on why they would benefit from a sensor solution
How you can increase your revenue by selling sensor solutions
Some essential technical information to help design and deploy a better sensor offering.

Why should businesses (your customers) care about sensors?

It has never been more challenging for many to run an organization than in this current economic climate. Costs for key inputs have increased, while your customer’s appetite to pay more has not. Your employee costs have increased while finding good people is more complex than ever in many sectors. Finally, the cost to finance replacing a large-scale machine is dramatically higher than just a few years ago. To summarize, you need to do much more with less, even more than ever before.

Here are three ways that sensors can help your customers do more with less:

Sensors help reduce the downtime (and delay replacement) of key machinery

Reduce lighting/HVAC costs when no one is around by installing motion sensors
Monitor key operation metrics to see if devices are starting to show early signs of failure
Be alerted to after-hours or unauthorized usage
Be notified if a key device has been moved or tampered with

Sensors to Improve Customer Service

Ensuring that key customer areas are at a comfortable temperature and humidity level
Alert to the presence of a customer via motion sensor

Lower Theft and Waste with Detection Sensors

Alerting to the presence of someone in a restricted area or after-hours
Attaching a sensor to key devices to alert if they leave a particular area (this also helps to improve productivity lost to searching for items)
Maintaining a consistent environment so that perishables are not wasted

How can the channel generate demand and grow revenue in sensors?

Adding new product offers can be a difficult challenge for many resellers. While bringing on new revenue-producing product lines is excellent, you must ensure that the products fit your current business focus. Ideally, a new product line would be similar to what your team already knows, making it easy to get up and running. Finally, as great as it can be to sell hardware, most businesses are equally focused on selling software and recurring revenue with each sale.

Sensors are often an ideal fit for these criteria for many IoT resellers. The products often work with existing products in your lineup and are great secondary sales to existing products. They also offer a wide breadth of potential revenue sources.

Some key points about how sensors may fit into your portfolio of products:

Sensors are among the easiest of all technologies to understand. Customers are aware of what temperature, moisture, and humidity are and the effects that they can have on comfort, spoiling food, etc.
Each sensor solution sale opens several different avenues for hardware revenue. A gateway is often accompanied by an antenna(s), a bracket and cables. Also, it is not uncommon for customers to use hundreds, if not thousands, of sensors.
While they are simple to understand, many customers will look to have devices set up on-site, enabling installation, setup, and maintenance contract possibilities.
The most significant area that resellers want to increase is recurring revenue. Sensor solutions often require cellular network access and routinely involve software license sales.
Support can be a costly part of the business for a reseller, so it is essential to reduce the support burden. Sensors are relatively basic devices and are reliable.
While the most common sensors (like temperature and humidity) will make up a significant part of many deployments, hundreds of different types of sensors are available. There are different local communication methods (think Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LoRa, and ZigBee) to meet customers' needs.
Most organizations will benefit from a sensor deployment. This includes white-collar offices, warehouses, restaurants, schools and more.
One of the biggest deterrents for some customers with technology is the inability to expand or be locked into a particular technology. Sensors work on multiple technologies, which can sometimes be interchangeable. Either way, adding new sensors or gateways is easy to do.

How to tell if your customer needs sensors

Here are a few key customer types to focus on:

Do they have areas that customers and clients use? This may include a waiting room, restaurant seating area or most hotel or convention centre areas.
Do they have storage spaces where items are susceptible to theft or spoiling? While food is the first thought, consider the storage of pharmaceuticals, weapons, electronics and more.
Are there any key devices that are vital and tend to go missing? Two commonly asked for are keys (such as at a car dealership) and skids (which affect most warehouses). Other ones are high-value tools, medical carts, and high-value retail items.
Do they have issues with after-hours or unauthorized use of key equipment? This may include machinery like forklifts and loaders, vehicles like school buses and large-scale printing machines.
Is a particular area susceptible to environment-based concerns? The range here is quite broad. For some, it may be to maintain a controlled environment in areas such as laboratories; for others, it may be an area where flooding is a concern; and for others, it may be potential spoilage of perishables.
Is there government or industry compliance for storing and delivering essential items? Food storage and delivery, storage of fragile items, and transporting sensitive material are just a few examples.

Technical information required to design solutions with sensors and close those deals

Once you have gathered some initial interest from your client, assessing what types of solutions may be best for their needs is important.

Technical questions to assess the opportunity for sensors

What is the environment for the solution (i.e., indoor/outdoor, devices located long-range from base, multiple floors)?
What durability is required for equipment (i.e., will it be outdoors or in a warm, controlled environment)?
Are the sensors stationary, or are they on a vehicle?
How do they want to be notified of an occurrence (text message, email, audible alarm, etc.)
Do they need to integrate data from the sensors into an existing application (more details in the next section)?
Is there power available for the equipment, or does it need to run on battery?

At some point in the design phase, a few things will need to be determined:

How will the gateways access the internet?

Is there a landline connection available? If not, is there sufficient wireless coverage?

How will the sensors communicate with the gateway?

There are a few choices, each of which may be good depending on the environment. If feasible, the customer can run wires between sensors and the hub. However, a wireless option will likely be the cheapest and fastest to set up. Some technologies to investigate for the wireless option include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, LoRa and others. The best option will be based on factors like battery power, range and durability.

Does the customer want a hosted, turn-key solution, or do they wish to host it themselves?

Hosted solutions offer many significant upsides. They are already created and running, offering a lower upfront cost and quicker time to market. They also are often updated regularly for additional features. Some customers may have security restrictions or wish to integrate the sensor data directly into their existing platform.