We are facing into a revolution in the industry. And that revolution is being formed by the coming together of 5G and edge compute. The power of 5G and real-time AI will unlock new and advanced services for organizations across the world as they evolve and adopt diverse new business models. The partnerships created by operators, managed solution providers (MSPs), and cloud solution providers (CSPs) will be at the center of this transformation.

A few key use cases for this are network, security and devices at the edge — the industry is seeing everything proliferate. Every second hundreds of new devices come online. In that world, partners are facing a true shift in how they’re going to go to market. Partners now need to focus on the conversations with their customers about 5G and edge use cases. How are they going to change their business model? 

The Changing Business Model

JS Group’s Janet Schijns

“Harken back to the phone closet,” said Janet Schijns, CEO and co-founder of JS Group. “Then we went to PBX and then we went to UCaaS. Each time, partners had to change their vendor mix, their business model and their business plan or go to market their sales. We used to have all of our data sitting on servers in our building. Then we went to data centers, then we went to the cloud. Now, we’ve arrived at edge compute. And so this next step, this next evolution, 5G and edge compute are going to be the fastest technology rollout we’ve ever seen.”

The pace of change, historically somewhat glacial, was accelerated by the pandemic. So how do you, as a partner, change your business model? Which vendors do you select? Who is ahead? Who’s behind? What devices, what cloud partners do you consider? What do you do when all of the data begins to move to the edge and response times become not seconds but nanoseconds? People anticipate and expect data at their fingertips for decision-making, as opposed to ‘You’ll get that tomorrow or later after we run this report.’”

So this is the problem at hand. The solution?

JS Group and 7 Figure MSP have partnered to launch a 5G and edge compute program for MSPs.

The Solution

“The idea is that we’re going to take some meaningful partnerships, go to the market and educate partners and help them change their business plan to capture this so that they’re ahead of the curve,” says Schijns. “And we’re going to be offering that service to the partners free of charge. We’ll also have some very meaningful vendor sponsors that will be partnering with us to put together the right education, stories, scenarios and toolkits.”

7 Figure MSP’s Chris Wiser

The program is launching with 7 Figure MSP, which will be acting as the second provider firm, led by founder and CEO Chris Wiser. 

Several vendors will also be supporting the program and providing content and support. One of these is real estate investment trust company American Tower. The company is an owner and operator of wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure.

“American Tower has made huge strides in this area, having launched an edge data center and edge cloud strategy,” said Schijns. “We are working with them to build out a program that’s fair, equitable and rewarding for partners. But more importantly, they are going to revolutionize an industry — they’re going to put your data in your local community. We are very excited to be partnering with them for this initiative.”

The Vendor Element

Also stepping in to partner on the initiative is B2B IT services provider TD Synnex. They will be working with new vendors in this arena to make sure partners have access to the right vendors. 

“First is just base-level education,” Schijns said. “What’s coming, what you are supposed to talk to your customers about right now and how you make sure your customers know what’s being offered. My least favorite saying is when a customer says…
…to a partner, ‘I didn’t know you did that.’ I want to make sure that that doesn’t happen. We don’t want them to miss this evolution. So, how do they begin to have those conversations with their customers? We’ll be providing conversation starters, such as ‘What are your initial use cases? What are your initial pathways?’” 

From there, real toolkits will help address the question “how do you move that first set of data from either a public or private cloud that is distant to an edge strategy?” This of course begins with edge security and network at the edge. 

“We’re partnering with Chris — he’s done a phenomenal job,” said Schijns. “7 Figure has done a phenomenal job bringing security to market, JS Group has done a great job bringing vendors and partner marketing to market. So between the two of us, this is going to be an incredible and hopefully wide-reaching initiative.”