Order-to-cash billing services company Cycle 30 is changing the way one of the top electronics distributors does business.
Arrow Electronics has 150,000 customers in more than 50 countries and traditionally it has sold products to these companies on an order-by-order basis. The customers have bought chips or other components and then would not make contact again till the next order.
But with more electronics going into M2M style applications, Arrow has found that its customers want increased functionality built into the chips, including air time deals and billing provisions, and that is where Cycle 30 comes in.
“Arrow showed us a model of a deal they had done with a company making parking meters,” said Cycle 30 president Jim Dunlap (pictured) in an exclusive interview with M2M Now. “These are solar powered, can take credit card transactions and even have sensors that tell when the car has left so they can zero the meter.”
A similar deal under development is from a company supplying intelligent sprinkler systems for golf courses. These will check the weather forecast so they know when it is going to rain, check the moisture levels in the soil and even check the chemical makeup of the soil so they know what fertiliser is needed.
Cycle 30 will now provide Arrow with billing and rating services for cloud services and M2M applications such as these. Under the agreement, Arrow customers in the Americas will have access to Cycle 30’s hosted order-to-cash platform for ordering, mediation, rating and billing services.
“We look forward to serving Arrow Electronics and its customers in this rapidly expanding M2M and cloud services space,” said Dunlap. “The flexibility and scalability of the Cycle 30 platform will enable Arrow to create billing services for M2M and cloud applications and deploy them worldwide.”
The first customers in the new arrangement are likely to come to fruition towards the end of this year
“With the Cycle 30 platform, Arrow can enhance our M2M and cloud services market business with new products and flexible service models by providing billing solutions for our clients,” said David West, vice president of supplier marketing and asset for Arrow Electronics.
Cycle 30 provides order-to-cash and meter-to-cash billing services, hosted in the cloud, for cable, telecoms, utility and M2M service operators. The platform includes customer management, service fulfilment, billing and revenue management, service assurance, integrations, and business intelligence.
“Arrow is a great company,” said Dunlap. “Their traditional model was selling electronics but they want to add more value. They want to bring other components of the ecosystem to the table. They want to provide a bundle rather than the customer then having to go and find an airtime provider, a portal, a billing partner and so on.”
