Phone-as-a-Service Model Aims to Disrupt B2B Device Procurement

In fast-growing organizations, it’s essential that every employee has the tools they need to get their job done. In today’s digital age, that usually means equipping employees with smartphone, a tablet or a laptop — or even all three — preloaded with the requisite business applications.

This means device management has become a necessity for just about every organization. As a result, there’s barely a company in the world that doesn’t have some kind of IT department to keep things ticking over. But they could do well to remember that device management isn’t their primary business.

“An enterprise managing a large fleet of 50,000 devices requires a lot of IT help desk employees to take care of all of the users’ requests and problems, shipping out new phones etc,” everphone founder and chief executive Jan Dzulko told PYMNTS. “But it’s obviously not their business to manage smartphones.”

That’s where Berlin-based everphone thinks it can come in handy, providing a valuable service to midmarket and large enterprises by managing all the devices they use. Everphone literally does everything, from buying the phones and laptops to putting the correct software on them and getting them into the hands of employees.

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Taking the Distractions Away

As Dzulko explained, enterprises don’t like distractions. What they do like, though, is a simple solution that’s convenient and removes as much of the burden as possible.

“Everphone provides a one-stop solution where the employee interacts directly with us, so they’re not going through an IT help desk,” he said.

Everphone provides a second big benefit too, because its service is more sustainable than if an organization were to buy and manage its own devices. Dzulko explained the average analyst at one of everphone’s major customers, Ernst & Young, uses a phone for around two years before upgrading to a new one. With everphone, once the customer is done with the device, it’s shipped back to the company, refurbished and then given out to another customer – such as a food delivery service – where it can be used for further two years, doubling the lifetime of that device.

High-Security Hand-Helds

Customers get the added reassurance of the highest level of security. Dzulko said everphone’s devices are all governed by its device enrollment program from the moment they leave the factory, meaning it has full control over who can access them and what apps can and can’t be installed.

Before shipping the devices to its customers, everphone effectively splits the device into two “containers” — one for business use and the other for personal use. So the employee can do whatever they want on one side for their personal use, while the business side of the phone remains absolutely secure.

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“We put what is called a digital Chinese wall in the middle,” he explained. “So you cannot take a screenshot of that side of the phone and send it to somebody on WhatsApp.”

As part of its refurbishment process, everphone uses special software to remove all trace of whatever data might have been left on that phone. So when the phone is finally sent to another customer, there is not a trace of anything the previous user might have had on that device, Dzulko said.

The net benefit for companies using everphone’s service is not so much the savings it offers them. Rather, it’s the elimination of any internal complexity, Dzulko said. When an organization is managing its own fleet of devices, it typically involves multiple persons who set the phone up, put on the security software, then distribute it to the employee. Everphone eliminates all of that work.

“What we really do is unburden the organization,” Dzulko stressed.

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Plans for International Expansion

There’s clearly a lot to like about everphone, as its recent $200 million funding round demonstrated. Armed with those funds, Dzulko said everphone is plotting an ambitious expansion away from its base in Germany to the rest of Europe and the U.S.

One of everphone’s biggest advantages is the localized nature of the telecommunications industry. In Germany, for example, the biggest telco by far is Deutsche Telekom, but that company has virtually no presence in countries like Britain or the U.S. That’s problematic for enterprises that operate in multiple markets, because it means dealing with different telco providers to get the devices they need for their workers, depending on where they’re based.

Dzulko said one of the things Ernst & Young most appreciates is it doesn’t need to find a new device provider in every country it does business in. So no matter if it’s Belgium, Germany of the U.K., it can obtain all the devices it needs with minimal hassle.

Dzulko believes the simplicity of everphone’s device fleet management model will be just as appreciated in other key markets.

“Our service is perfect for the U.S. because outsourcing and reducing complexity is very much in the U.S. mindset, [as is] that thought of having a very convenient and high-quality product,” he said. “We think the American market is a perfect one for us.”