Unpacking Cisco’s Meraki MG52 Wireless Gateway

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I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and our guests today are Daniel Estes, commercial lead for AT and T, Sarah Marshall, Noell Muraki, distribution account manager for Cisco, and Bobby Young, Senior technical Enablement Engineer for Ingram Micro. Danielle, Sarah and Bobby. Welcome, Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us. Yeah, well okay, so we're talking about the partnership with Muraki, AT and T and ingram Micro Ignite.

But first I wanted to just kind of to get to know our guests a little bit better. So, Bobby, you're a veteran with Ingram Micro. I guess give us that quick. You've been with a company how long?

Sure? Yeah, I've been with inger Micro for fifteen years working with Cisco for about thirteen of those, and I'm currently on our technical Enablement team. So our team is basically just here to get you everything you need to go out and sell Cisco products. Excellent.

So you're joined by Danielle who's with AT and T and Sarah who is with Siskama Rocky. So, Danielle, let me go to you first. How did you make your way to AT and D. I mean, what's your background and you know, how has that then evolved to your work here with Ingram Micro.

Yeah. Well, I wish I had this like crazy cool story to tell you, but I came to AT and T right out of college through our IT Leadership Development. Program and that is a good story. Actually, I've been here since.

I think like the worst part of the story is I'm a third generation AT and T employee. Really yeah, So my grandpa, my grandma, my dad, my stepmom all retired from AT and T. Wow, it's kind of cool. There's there's pictures of me sitting on like a like an AT and T truck when I'm like three years old with a hard hat on.

So that's in your blood. Yeah, I feel Yeah, for better or for worse, I guess. You really need to be promoted, like you know, I can. I can imagine this story like you become president and you're able to you know, reference that photo and that's that's your founding story, that's your that's your book right there, that's the back cover of your book.

Yeah, I'll give you our CEO's number and you can just write right for me. Exactly did you ever think about being like the black sheep of the family and like like telling your parents like I'm not I'm not going into AT and T that's it. I'm I'm going to be a painter instead, and they're like, you get back from here. I'm going to Verizon.

I did. I did. That's too much. I feel like the English major was like, you know, the black sheep part, but no, nope, I was like, this seems like a pretty good life, so yep, let's let's go with it.

Yeah. And so specifically, I guess like how how I got to now here? What I do is I support offers where there's like an indirect element of AT and T. So what we'll get into more today is like embedding AT and T connectivity into something that doesn't have like a traditional maybe direct sales path on it.

So okay, excellent, all right, and then Sarah tell us how how you made your way to Cisco and uh and then that worked. How you know how Ingram Micro works with with Cisco Morocci. So I have a little bit of a fun fact. Before I came to Cisco, I worked at Ingram Micro.

So I worked at Ingram Micro for two years, a little over two years, and then I've been with Cisco now twenty five years. So I moved from Buffalo, New York down to Raleigh and the RTP area, and I had supported partners from a PAM perspective out west. I covered some partners out there, and then I did that for about ten years, and then I moved into the distribution landscape and I was really supporting the marketing business development and I supported other distributors at that time.

And then about two years ago I was kind of told that there was this role covering Ingram and driving the Muraki networking business. So I been here supporting Ingram Micro for about two years now. So I'm excited to be back kind of where I started off at Ingram and you know, supporting them and building out you know, their partner enablement programs, and this is one of the things we're going to talk about, you know, the solutions that Muraki have and how INGRAM and AT and T are better together and how we can drive that MG fix wireless solution.

Well excellent. So yeah, I'm glad you bring up this idea of better together because I want to kind of go through the permutations a little bit about what those opportunities are. So yeah, I guess let's go ahead and go back to Danielle and say, okay, so what happens then, so that what are the opportunities that are existing that actually, you know a lot of partners don't really realize. So to me, I guess you know, the AT and T and Cisco both have a very long tenured history of working together, I think over twenty years.

But how do we create like these new streams and keep building upon it? To me, one of the ways we've done that recently is with the Maracci MG fifty two wireless gateway, where Cisco provisioned for the first time a gateway that had an eSIM in it, and AT and T came to the table and said, why don't we figure out a way to have a customer be able to self activate that completely, hands off of having like an AT and T seller, Engage or any sort of partner that has to go in and activate that SIM.

So with this, the customer can create their own account for the first time, they can select a rate plan, and like probably ten to fifteen minutes in to end, with that solution, they can be up and running. And I guess you know, give us the plain language for this. I mean, you know this is this is like what you know? This is the activation piece, right, yeah?

So I mean if you think about traditionally, a customer would have to purchase the hardware and then they'd have to think, oh, how am I going to activate this hardware? I'm going to need a SIM card? Am I gonna do like staging and kitting with that? Am I going to reach out to an account rep or dial an eight hundred number and ask for someone to ship me a physical SIM?

Then do I have to call back in when it arrives and figure out how to activate it? With this e SIM solution, specifically with the MG fifty two, a customer gets to just completely circumvent all of those pain points. So then let me bring you in Sarah, So what then again the same question, you know better together, what are some of those those opportunities that you know the big picture but also some of the maybe low hanging group. So yeah, so if you looking at your current hardware, what you currently have sold of Maracci and maybe you haven't activated your MG is kind of what Danielle was talking about.

So think about it as like your iPhone. If you go into Best Buy and you just buy the iPhone and you never activate the service, You're never going to get the whole value out of that phone. It's same thing with the MG. If you're buying the mgs, you're implementing it into you know, one of your customers, but you've never activated and really leveraged the five G network and that capabilities that we have and able to set up a network real quick quickly without having to do all the connections with all the wires.

That's where we are with this solution. So you have the e sim which makes it even easier, like as Danielle was explaining, to get that MG fifty two activated. And then with the relationship with Ingram and how they support our partner community, so we're all coming together to figure out how we can enable our partners better to sell this solution together. So that's where Ingram comes in because we really look at Ingram as that enablement piece for us.

You know, we are the vendors. You know, Cisco's the vendor. We have the solution, but we need our distributor to really you know, train our partners, get them to understand the solution and how to sell it to their customers exactly. And I think that's been Bobby where specifically of Ingram Micro the ingramaco Ignite team, right, correct, So tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, we can act as that liaison, right, the concierge between all of these different you know kind of organizations, the different carriers as well as the different vendors. Our Ignite team basically, we built a portal that helps partners kind of manage all of those relationships together, specifically on the carrier side, to be able to really help you guys with three things, right, managing those activation opportunities streamline specifically the AT T AT and T activation program and basically you know the rules and the differentiations and then stuff there, and then as well as just helping you get paid on those commissions that you've earned through that process.

For understanding understanding the big picture. Then let me let me go back. So I want to make sure that I understand exactly. So the MG fifty two, this is the Yeah, explain it to me like I'm done.

This is the gateway that you are purchasing to do what. Yeah, So the MG fifty two is the first fully five G capable gateway that Muraki has put out. So Muraki under Cisco, we've had kind of a series of different gateways up until this point. They've been mostly backup opportunities, right, so think of you know, you know, if your power goes out at your house, right, everybody has your cell phone, that's your backup.

Right. In this case, it would be if let's say the main connection to your your your business, right or your kiosk or whatever went out, right, then that GA way could basically act as a backup with five G. With full five G as we have right now, this is really the first opportunity where we are seeing that gayweight being used as the main source of Internet for that business just because of the speeds, because of a lot of the technology that's been put into that it still can be used as a backup.

But even more importantly right now, that backup is not tiered down in service at all. Right, You're not getting a lesser service. Sometimes you're getting around the same speed that you might get through traditional services that you might find through either fiber or cable or you know, business Internet or anything like that. So the opportunity really now is to work with partners that are currently selling Cisco Moroki.

They're currently selling the MX firewalls, the switches, right, They're going in there with that story and they're really successful at it, and really just adding on that one more piece, that one more opportunity, those those two or three maybe more questions to really ask, you know, at the end of the day, hey, what are you guys using four backup? Those mx is have multiple WAN connections in there, right, so they have kind of a backup built in. And really just by asking that question, is it opens up a whole new door of opportunities for your end users adding that gateway in there, right.

And then again if this is your if you're brand new to selling these products, that's where my team can come in. Shelby. I know we've done a podcast in the past around the MG fifty two specifically and kind of what that is. I know that we've done through ingram Micro a couple of different webinars to really break down like, hey, what is different about five G what's different about the MG fifty two.

So there's definitely opportunities there as well as just getting in touch with our team and working with you guys to help your sales reps you know, understand the story and help them you know, be able to kind of close the sales. Yeah, so if you're looking for like customers that this would be great for, you know, as an example, I think that's what Bobby was talking about, Like think about you know, retail, food services, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain, all of this. You know, this MG five MG fifty two can really help all those different type of customers, so even government agencies.

So it's really you know, taking combining the power of the Maraki platform, that dashboard right and being able to you know, have enabled the agility of branch and expansing it out to like a seamless network, right. So really that management of the dashboard, you know, with the overall Maraki solution and then bringing in MG fifty two, you know, you have a lot of opportunities, a lot of use cases that you can really position this with. And yeah, the government piece is interesting.

We just we just recorded a podcast about you know, technology, Cisco technology in the public sector and understanding and how you know how to sell that, so you know, those can be public sector, healthcare, education, those types of things, right, Yes, totally, Okay, So am I am I mistaken? Is this similar to or not the same thing as the AT and T commercial with the office characters? Do you all know what I'm talking about? I know what you're talking about.

I mean, I certainly think that this could be a device that you could put into a small business, similar to the small business that I want to say his name's Twite, but we're not allowed to say that rain Is is starting up in those commercials. I think the MG fifty two would play perfect in that space as a component of their network, specifically again that cellular, whether it be primary or backup. So I don't know. If you have Rain's phone number and you can call them up and see if you can spin up another commercial, that.

Would be nice. Yeah. Again, because I was like, okay, this this is that, because that's the message that you know, Yes, this is uh you know, it may have been couched as a backup Internet, but really it's it's the it's the full shebang. It's it's you know, fully as strong, as as reliable as you know, your your primary and that we actually could be your primary.

Okay, So there's another thing that you mentioned, the SIM. Tell me kind of explain a little bit about the SIM and then again, what's good to understand for partners that are looking to sell this. Yeah, I mean so the SIM embedded SIM kind of the way that I view that the world is going to go over the next few years. It's more secure.

Again, you don't have to worry about procuring a physical SIM. It's just simpler when it all comes together and works well, and it does most of the time with SIM technology. And this is like the SIM car does that kind of what we're talking. Yeah.

Yeah, So you've got like the physical ones like on your phones that you could get like like a needle and pop out, and then they have ones that are embedded. You can't you can't easily take them out of the phone. They come shipped with the SIM kind of in there, like soldered in there, I would say, and that it stays that way so I mean to me, that is a really cool feature of the MG fifty two and one that I think customers, I know customers see value in. But the MG fifty two has two physical simports as well, And so the message to a Cisco VAR is whether you enable connectivity in the MG fifty two with the physical SIM or the e SIM you can get with your Ingram micro counterpart, and they can tell you how you can be compensated for it.

And the process is easy. I'm told it takes less than twenty four hours in probably fifty percent of the cases for you to get onboarded and then you can start selling immediately. So it's another way to just help your customers out. It's another piece in their puzzle of their network infrastructure that you can help them solve for and by you doing it and to end it kind of like secures the solution for you as a VAR and is another layer and way of locking out your competition.

That would be how I would look at it. And compared to the physical sim why why is the embedded ZIM better or or you know, safer? I mean because with the physical SIM card you can you can take it out, you can put it in a different device. There's just layers of potential for security risk with it that don't exist with the SIM.

I think that Cisco would say that they have a lot of software and capabilities that prevent those security risks from taking place in any of their devices, and like, I willheartedly believe that. But it's just it's just easier, like if you wanted to switch, you know, from Carrier A to Carrier B, or just activate again without doing that procuring of the physical SIM card, waiting for it to ship, physically inserting it into the device, then figuring out, okay, well now how am I going to power it on?

You don't have to do any of that with this SIM. It's kind of all put together and presented to you in a way that makes it a lot easier. So okay, so you're talking about the embedded SIM and the the activations. What about something that that's more di y I guess you know, kind of self service if you will, Daniel.

Yeah, so I mentioned the self service portal that we have where customers can go in and activate them on their own. I guess it's it's worth mentioning. And let me be very clear, if a customer self activates. It doesn't remove the far from the ability to receive compensation from AT and t ON on that activation.

The VAR would still pass along IMEI and SAM information. Once OFVAR is onboarded into the ignite program, they are given a template to fill out for compensation and it'll give you all the all the fields that you need you need to submit in and with the self activation, you still just fill out those fields, submit them in and make it clear that it was an SIM activation and you're compensated the exact same way. And as a partner, you don't have to go out and physically put that in for your customer.

You can just you know, you don't have to do that physical provisioning. That's what you're saying, and that's also makes it, you know, similar to Raki dashboard. You can send you know, out any of your Maraki equipment and you can get it activated up on the dashboard. So now with this ASIM just makes it even simpler.

And as a partner, you don't have to go out to your customer and manage that. You can just you know, do it from your your computer at your desk and get that partner and get that customer up and running right away, So. Can we talk about some of the maybe more financial opportunity then, So you know, you had the analogy that this is like going into Best Buy and buying a phone and not doing the activation. You're just walking out with the hardware and you're not walking out with a service that you can use right away.

You've walked out with a project basically that you need to you need to do something about work on I guess can you talk about the all point this to either one of the three can talk about the opportunity that exists one of course, you know for the dollars left on the table, but what what type of financial compensation opportunity or are we talking about? I can take that, So I would say that typically you could expect like two times the monthly recurring Breke plan cost on this.

So if you think like maybe it's fifty to eighty bucks a month, depending on what rate plan you select, then for every device you activate at and T will pass through let's say one hundred to my math is not great, one sixty would be passed on. Now I should caveat that. That's what we pass on to Ingram in this case, and Ingram could maybe for their program hold a portion of that back from what gets paid to the actual VAR. But that's a good way to look at it.

Sometimes, I know we do two x spiffs on top of that, so the carrier would receive or not the carrier of the VAR would receive closer to maybe four x minus again whatever gets held back at the program level, Bobby, anything to add on that. Or yeah, I mean just from I mean from a from a hardware perspective. You know, Sarah and I took a look through some of our i want to say, maybe top ten or top fifteen partners that are transacting Moroki right now, and there was just a surprising number of people that weren't activating those devices.

They were selling the MG fifty two's, they were selling cellular capable devices, but not activating it. Right. And to your point, right, it's it's you know, at the end of the day, it's really if if you went into best BUYO, you know, you were really excited to get that new iPhone sixteen, right, and you and you know you got it, you maybe even unboxed it, right, you looked at it, you powered it on, you went, you paid for it, you got home, and then all of a sudden you couldn't use it, right, that would be a bad customer experience, right.

Beyond that, it introduces the idea that now you know, that end user can really kind of you know, think about where they want to activate it. Right. So, as the partner, if you're controlling that opportunity, right, you're not only creating that full customer experience where that partner gets shipped the MG fifty two. To Danielle's point, using you know, using a streamline process, right, that thing is activated, you know, almost immediately, and at the same time, you know that that end user isn't then having to scramble around trying to find a simcard somewhere or go to a local place to try and find one, or call your competition to be able to activate that device that you just sold them.

Yeah, and the one thing that we see with Cisco, when you're adding that five T gateway to routing sales, we're seeing that it can increase the deal size by thirty percent. And then you also when you're using you know, fixed wireless, it typically frees up the customer's budget due to networking cost savings, so you're being able to sell more and increase your deal size, and then obviously with the SB activation payments, increase your margins on the MG by up to five times greater when you activate that SB payments with ATNG.

That's that's a really impressive. Okay. So clearly there's the product opportunities that are you know, maybe being left on the table, and then there's the financial opportunities for partners. Just you know that this is really a great lower to lucrative way to grow the business.

Bobby, for the partner that is just stapping their toe into this, how you know what's a good starting point. And then also you know, for for anybody that already is is in this and it has questions about something that we talked about, how how can they find out more? Sure? Yeah, So from a from a hardware side, I would say reach out to my team either any of the technology consultants in your area.

If you don't know who it is, you can always come to me Robert dot Young at ingram micro dot com just to learn more about the devices right to to like I said, right, get the sales pitch right. Make sure your technical engineers know what they're doing. You know, from a from a pre sale side, make sure your sales reps know what questions to ask when they're going out and kind of you know, pitching it. And then from an Ingram Micro Ignite side, we actually do have an email address you can get started to get your own portal set up, and that's Ignite ig n E at ingrammicro dot com.

Go ahead and email them say hey, I'm interested in becoming a basically a carrier provider, a partner and they'll basically be able to get your accounts set up excellent. Well, I appreciate all of your guys insights. Bobby, Danielle and Sarah, thank you so much for joining. Me, Thanks for having us, Thank you, thanks for having us.

Thank you, and thank you listeners for tuning in and hopefully subscribing to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro. If you have it already, be sure to do so or you can find all of these episodes on the Ingram Micro Exvantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Skirhawk. You've been listening to B to B Tech Talk by Ingram Micro.

This episode was sponsored by Ingram Micro Exvantage. B to B Tech Talk is a joint production between Sweetfish Media and Ingram micro To listen to this episode in many others, visit ingrammicro dot com.