Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to AppCudo's podcast, a series where we talk to players up and down the connected device supply chain. My name is Allison Mitchell and I'm the VP of Sustainability at App Kudo and I'm pleased to be the host of App Kudo's podcast series covering industry trends, customer journeys, sustainability topics and more. If you have topics of interest or guests you'd like to hear from, send me an email@alison mitchellpcudo.com Today we will learn about one customer's success with device recovery, an effort that is truly challenging for IT and mobility teams with a global and hybrid workforce. Our guest today is Marielle Wilding, Senior Customer experience manager at AppCudo. Welcome to the podcast, Mariel.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Muriel, you've been with App Kudo for almost a year and I would love to hear a little bit about your background and your path to appudo, and then we'll get into how you're helping this particular customer and other enterprise customers in the recovery of their mobile assets.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I came to App Kudo through connections from my time working at a manageability services startup where I worked in several different customer facing roles, including dedicated on site support for a large motor vehicle company. And I've also spent time working in the software development startup space, delivering multiprom software through containerization. And now we're closely with AppCudo's enterprise customers to ensure the success of their asset recovery programs.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: That's interesting. Thanks Mariel. It's good to hear about your background and what you're doing today for App Kudo. Speaking of how you help customers, there's a particular customer that we want to talk about today that you're working with. It's a Fortune 100 technology company in the payments industry and they've got some unique needs. I know you've been engaged with this customer from essentially the start of our relationship with them. Can you describe this customer a little bit and share what their enterprise mobility management looked like before working with AppGudo?
[00:02:04] Speaker A: So they have about 35,000 employees with around 19,000 mobile devices deployed globally. And these are mostly iOS devices with some Androids mixed in as well. They're on a two year refresh cycle to help maintain their security posture and they also use Omnisa's Workspace one Unified Endpoint Management or UEM to maintain their data security. And we were actually connected to this customer through our existing partnership with Omnisa. So prior to working with us, like many companies, they had an overflowing supply of outdated devices. They were no longer in use and just taking up storage space. And then they also had a lack of visibility into how many older devices were still in the hands of users. So it's so common for employees to receive an upgraded device and they get it activated, set up, and they just put their old phone in their desk drawer and they forget about it. It's out of sight, out of mind, and they forget to return it. So Omnisa recognized that this customer would benefit from automated end of life functionality and the ability to sell these devices on the secondary market and further contribute to their sustainability goals.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Now, that's a lot of devices, and it sounds like a pretty familiar setup for our enterprise mobility customers where they have all these devices spread out to their employees all over the place and they've lost track of them and. Or they have devices piling up in a location where employees have returned them, and so they're looking to solve multiple problems at once, seeking this kind of long term solution to manage those assets for their entire life cycle. So for this particular customer, what special considerations or priorities did they have?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: So this company is focused on automation, integration and sustainability. So since they are using Workspace One, the ideal solution for them would plug into their current mobile device processes and tools. And since Okudo offers integration with Workspace one already, it was actually an easy choice for them. And the Recover platform enhances their processes using tools they were already familiar with and was a natural extension to the employee experience. And our platform also introduced new visibility into the rate of recovery of their old devices and sustainability metrics. So that achieves both of their key priorities.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah, and prior to that they had none of that. Right?
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: So it sounds like this was going to be an easy situation, but was it as easy as it sounded?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So every customer has complexity to work around. Right. So with each deployment that we do, we can discover new opportunities for product enhancement, which is exactly what happened with this implementation. So we worked closely with them to make product improvements that not only address their challenges, but also had positive impacts on all of our customers using the Recover software. So our ability to hold scoping sessions with our product and development teams and to implement improvements to existing features or even add new functionality into the software has strengthened our relationship with this customer and has also embedded us into their device recovery process.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I've witnessed this in the past and particularly with this customer. The sort of collaborative nature at the beginning of a relationship really sets it up for success, both for the customer and for kind of the broader portfolio. Of customers for Map Kudo, because of that ability to benefit future customers and existing customers. Can you share a little bit more about how these product enhancements for this customer customer had that kind of effect and benefit for current and future customers?
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. So this customer's desire to automate as much as possible required us to expand on our existing Workspace One integration. So before, we just had a notifications integration which allowed for employees to receive notifications through the Workspace One Hub regarding returning their assets rather than relying on email communications.
So while the hub notifications have a positive impact on the rate of returnable assets, this customer wanted to go a step even further to try to get all of their devices back from their employees. So to automate this, we've added a UEM tagging feature. So this allows for customizable restrictions to be placed on an employee's device to encourage them to return their old asset. So what the tag does is it is determined by what profiles the customer decides to apply to the tag. So it could impact things like device compliance or use of the device's biometric features like Face id, so it could disable that on their device. And this tag is added automatically when a return request is generated and is removed when they've returned their old device. So the tag doesn't prevent the employee from using an upgraded device or anything like that. It just simply can nudge them to complete the return of their old asset. So this new feature is compelling because it is fully customizable by the customer, so they can decide what, you know, whatever they want to do with that profile. And it will enhance the recovery compliance and improve sustainability metrics due to the positive impact that it will have on the rate of recovery of those old assets.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And anytime you are improving the compliance, you are increasing the opportunity for greater sustainability impact.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. So the other problem this customer was looking to solve was a way to give their employees the option to return old assets internally while also being able to track that return and account for those devices that are dropped off in this manner. So previously, an employee would return their old device to their IT help desk in their office and simply report back via email if at all, that they return that device, which relied on manual emails back and forth and didn't really have a trackable data point. So to automate this, we added an option to our existing recode notifications for an IT drop off option. So this is now an available option for employee returns in addition to our previous return methods, which included Return Label, Return Kit, Retail Return, and Employee purchase. So now employees also have the option to select the IT drop off option, return their device internally, and then the return request is closed when the device is received. So this new feature is especially useful for customers whose employees are working in an office or hybrid workforce. It allows for internal returns to be tracked with accuracy within our Recover software. And it's already being explored by other customers for additional use cases like returning of devices that need to be sent in for warranty repairs or for device collection for separated employees.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah, and prior to using AMP Kudo, several customers have had that system where they can an employee can physically go take their device to a physical location. So the continuity of being able to continue that practice probably enhances the customer experience and being able to say this what you're used to, but more in terms of options now it's trackable. Exactly. Visibility always a big plus. What did Abcuda learn in the process of helping this customer address their unique pain points that can inform the process of asset recovery for future customers or have wider implications in other ways?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: So product innovation often comes from specific customer use cases, but there are thousands of companies that are having very similar problems. So they ship a new asset to an employee to help them be more effective in their job, have access to lightest tech and keep their company secure. But that final step of returning that old asset resides with the employee. So these new features are expected to increase the recovery rates by ensuring that employee doesn't forget to return their old asset and is also giving them the additional return option to make the return process even easier for them. So the close collaboration with our customer really fueled these improvements and highlighted the importance of listening to customer feedback. And anytime that we can solve for one customer's challenges and apply that solution to others, that's the best case scenario. So the customer feels heard, helps our product improve, helps us grow, and helps us further improve sustainability by working together with the customer.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, this situation was really an ideal scenario in terms of maximizing the benefits and capitalizing on the improvement investments that they were making for this process for employees and for those in the IT mobility management space. You mentioned earlier that one of the things that drove this customer to app Kudo was the alignment between their corporate sustainability and environmental goals to appcuto's focus on the circular economy for connected mobile devices. How has that come up and how has that become evident in your conversations with their team?
[00:10:55] Speaker A: They recently talked to them about their 2025 company objectives, one of which is improving sustainability. So before working with us, they were shipping their devices back to a telecom company for recycling, which gave them really limited access into the visibility of their sustainability data. And because they were only recycling, they're missing out on the opportunity to resell the devices to further reduce their environmental impact, not to mention bringing in additional funds. So now they have visibility into their sustainability data with the RECOVER software and are seeing the impact of not just recycling, but also consolidated processing and the reselling of those old assets. And they're really excited about the sustainability report improvements that we are currently working on that are coming later this year.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah, and my sustainability team is excited about that as well, because we've got the opportunity to utilize some improvements we've made with a customer who's really excited about using them. So besides sustainability and just, you know, this broader visibility and higher rates of compliance with their employees and turning in devices, what is next for this customer? What are their plans for maybe expanding into other regions or device types?
[00:12:08] Speaker A: The mobility refresh program I was highlighting is focused on us only, but we do have pilot projects underway for laptop recovery both in the US and Canada, and we're also working towards supporting their mobile device returns in both Canada and the UK in the near future.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, it sounds like this is a customer that seen the investment in this process improvement and the collaboration with Hakudo's team really come to fruition and they're expanding that and that's exactly the kind of customer relationship that you want.
Yeah. So I appreciate you explaining how this customer benefited and how your team has been able to help them make these strides in the way they manage their connected mobile devices. And thanks for joining us on the podcast today. It was great to get your perspective on your work with RECOVER customers and their specific concerns. So I hope to have you on in the future and we can talk more about, you know, this customer and how they've continued to reap the benefits of this relationship with Avkudo.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Well, thanks to our listeners for tuning in to today's podcast session. If you have any feedback or ideas for future topics, happy to receive that feedback. Have a great day and we will see you at the next one.
