M2M provider looks for domestic expansion

Corporate wireless solutions provider Spring Wireless is hoping to make its services a household name in the wireless industry. With a presence in 16 countries, Spring Wireless CEO Marcelo Conde said it sells its M2M solution services to fortune 2,000 companies with a strong emphasis in the consumer goods, financial services, utilities and government industries. And the company is bringing those services to the States.
Conde started Spring Wireless in 2001, and since then the company claims tremendous growth.
“The company has grown very substantially,” Conde said. “[It has] basically been triple-digit annual growth rates every year since inception.”
Even though Conde said 2009 will be a more challenging time, he isn’t worried. Spring counts more than 700 employees, most who work in development and engineering, Conde said.
Spring provides software services that allow mobile workers to connect to corporate information, Conde said. These software services can include data collection and analysis, field sales, field services, logistics and delivery, and mobile customer retention management.
Once a company enlists these services, Spring said it can take over completely by providing the software, handsets and the airtime, or they can work with companies and their existing carriers or handsets.
“I won’t force my customers to replace their carriers or their handsets,” Conde said. “We do work with over 300 handsets. We work with any carrier. There’s a mix of situations where our customers ask us to provide the full end-to-end solution and obviously there are other cases where we partner with other carriers.”
Pricing for Spring’s service depends on whether the company is providing business-to-employee or business-to-customer services, but it’s usually right around $50 per month per user, Conde said. While providing employee management services for businesses is Spring’s bread and butter, Conde said over the years his company began to help its clients even more by providing telecommunications directly to its customers. One of the most popular business-to-consumer services Spring provides is mobile banking, Conde said.
“They come to us for a platform, for mobile CRM for employees,” Conde said. “And then we help the company develop mobile applications. Those are very typical examples.”
The move from business-to-consumer is much newer, Conde said, yet he’s seeing the transition happen more regularly in all five of Spring’s customer verticals: consumer goods; financial services; pharmaceuticals and healthcare; utilities and telecom; and government.
Spring offers both business-to-employee and business-to-consumer software services for the majority of their clients, Conde noted.
Spring is hoping to achieve the same goals now in the U.S., Conde said, and noted that executives will begin to look for new customers and clients publicly in about a month. The company has done work with U.S. companies already, just in different geographies, Conde said.