Note: if you missed Part II of this blog series, catch up and read Part II: Why?
This is part of a four-blog series exploring Tangoe’s acquisition of MOBI.
Part I: Context for the Acquisition
Part II: Why?
Part III: Enterprise Considerations
Part IV: Market Considerations and Conclusion
Industries: Enterprise Mobility Management, Technology Expense Management
Key Stakeholders: CIO, CFO, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Mobility Officer, Mobility Directors and Managers, Procurement Directors and Managers, Accounting Directors and Managers
Why It Matters: Tangoe is the largest technology expense management vendor. By purchasing MOBI, Tangoe gains Managed Mobility expertise, a customer base with high customer satisfaction, and expertise in Robotic Process Automation to support enterprise mobility.
Top Takeaway: Tangoe continues to aggressively acquire market leaders both to increase market share and add Best-in-Breed capabilities, personnel, and technology to its technology management portfolio.
Tangoe Acquires MOBI
On December 5th, 2018, Tangoe announced the acquisition of MOBI, a leading managed mobility services organization based in Indianapolis, Indiana in the United States. With this acquisition, Tangoe increases its IT spend under management to over $40 billion, increasing its lead over other spend management vendors with multiple billions of dollars of enterprise technology under management including Flexera, Snow Software, Microsoft Azure Cost Management, CloudHealth by VMware, Calero, MDSL, Cass Information Systems, and Sakon.
Key Questions for customers to keep in mind that have not been answered as of publication:
What happens to MOBI partners? This could be an opportunity for Tangoe to assign certain capabilities as part of a wholesale clearinghouse that would be available to competitors and partners of a certain size or it could mean that MOBI partners would need to look at a dwindling supply of managed mobility services solutions for help in the near future.
When will MOBI’s capabilities for managed mobility services be available overseas? Expect a a two to three month process before MOBI’s influence, as part of Tangoe Managed Mobility Services, leads to significant changes in Tangoe’s offerings.
Recommendations
Expect MOBI and Tangoe competitors to quickly throw fear, uncertainty, and doubt about how Tangoe will ruin MOBI. Of course, this is part of the game in enterprise technology for every vendor to state as they target the largest vendor in the market.
But behind the hype, this acquisition provides opportunity to conduct nuanced due diligence on how recently acquired Asentinel customers are doing under Tangoe’s management as well as how Tangoe plans to incorporate MOBI’s technology, service commitment, and culture into the larger Tangoe. When competitors bring up questions, get Tangoe to answer them honestly and directly.
For companies considering MOBI Managed Mobility Services, expect MOBI to continue to be sold as a standalone solution for the next three-to-six months. As part of your due diligence, make sure that the functionalities and services that you find most interesting in MOBI are continued in Tangoe’s roadmap or replaced with superior capabilities. This is a time to deeply consider what services and functionalities are most important to your organization’s future managed mobility vendor and to make clear what aspects of service must be kept in place by MOBI to win your business.
For current MOBI customers, expect that your current support team and platform will go unchanged at least for the next three-to-six months. As recommended previously, this is the time to advocate for the functionalities and capabilities that you want to ensure are maintained. This is a good time to remind your account team of exactly how MOBI is important to your organization.
From a strategic perspective, this is a good time to ask about the Tangoe resources that will be made available and how those resources line up with your IT organization as a whole across telecom, network, call center, cloud, and IT asset management.
For Tangoe customers, the addition of MOBI represents a significant upgrade in Tangoe’s ability to manage and support mobility. MOBI has a strong reputation for delivering on strict service level agreements and to maintain satisfaction among its customer base. This infusion of talent is likely to both help Tangoe from a day-to-day support perspective as well as to support projects that require a large number of devices to be customized, kitted, and delivered in a timely basis.
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In Part IV of this blog series, we clarify market implications from the Tangoe acquisition of MOBI. To read the entire report and acquire inquiry time with this analyst on how this acquisition specifically affects your company, purchase the report at the following link: https://www.amalgaminsights.com/product/amalgam-insights-market-milestone-tangoe-acquires-mobi-to-enhance-mobility-management-capabilities/