Stratix Finding ‘Huge Growth’ With Samsung Devices Amid B2B Push

The mobility solution provider has been seeing increased interest from customers in Samsung phones, tablets and laptops for work usage, Gina Daniel-Lee, Stratix’s vice president of strategic alliances and partnerships, tells CRN.

Mobility solution provider Stratix has seen strong and growing demand for Samsung products as the device maker has expanded its push to win new business customers with the help of channel partners, a Stratix executive said.

Samsung’s expanded emphasis on B2B in recent years is clearly “resonating” with customers in the market, said Gina Daniel-Lee, vice president of strategic alliances and partnerships at Peachtree Corners, Ga.-based Stratix, in an interview with CRN.

[Related: Review: 5 Top Features On Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Active3]

“We’ve seen an increased interest in the Samsung products—not just with our existing customers, but it’s also helped to be a point of entry with new logo customers as well,” Daniel-Lee said.

Key reasons behind the growing demand include Samsung’s “very compelling products”—such as the Galaxy Tab Active2 tablet, which offers a mix of ruggedness with a consumer look and feel—as well as the company’s investments in working with partners and taking a more verticalized approach in the market, she said.

“Samsung has done a good job at trying to listen to the enterprise and make adjustments where they can to address the needs of the ever-changing enterprise landscape,” Daniel-Lee said.

In January, Samsung launched its successor to the popular Tab Active2 in the U.S., the Galaxy Tab Active3, with a number of updates including enhanced services for IT administrators.

Other rugged mobile devices for business in the Samsung portfolio include the Galaxy Tab Active Pro tablet and the Galaxy XCover Pro smartphone. Meanwhile, Samsung has also outfitted its mainstream smartphones and tablets—such as the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Note 20 smartphones—with a growing number of business-friendly features in recent years.

Stratix—which also partners with other mobile device makers including Apple, Zebra and Honeywell—is “uniquely positioned” within the Samsung channel as a leading partner of the company, Daniel-Lee said.

For Stratix, crucial moves during the market upheaval of 2020 included expanding from offering mainly Samsung smartphones and tablets into providing customers with Samsung Chromebooks and laptops as well, she said.

“That has significantly impacted the pipeline that we’ve built together in 2021 in a really positive way and has positioned us for huge growth in this new year,” Daniel-Lee said.

Recent years have seen Samsung invest heavily into helping partners to align with its vertical strategy, including with bringing a greater focus on customer segments such as health care, education and manufacturing, she said. Stratix “aggressively” went after those verticals in 2020 and “deliberately aligned with Samsung in these markets,” Daniel-Lee said.

“We took a solution approach and we offered not just the device but the device with the appropriate application and our full suite of services,” she said. “I would say that this has really been a game- changer for us and another differentiator for us.”

Along with standard services such as staging and provisioning, Stratix stands out by offering life-cycle management, a “mobile operations center” help desk, mobile device management services and endpoint management, she said.

“I think this full service offering is really a key differentiator and has helped us win very large enterprise customers together [with Samsung],” Daniel-Lee said. “Anyone can resell hardware, but where Stratix really shines is with large complex deals.”

Overall, in a “very challenging year, Stratix was able to have a tremendous amount of growth and growth in ways that we’ve never been able to experience in new markets, new verticals, new use cases,” Daniel-Lee said.

Daniel-Lee added that she’s “excited” about the recent appointment of John Curtis as the new mobility channel chief at Samsung Electronics America. Curtis, who has been with the company for five years, has been serving as vice president of sales for the Samsung Business division and has now added responsibilities for the company’s mobility channel.

Curtis has “been really successful over the last few years driving growth for Samsung with the direct teams,” Daniel-Lee said. “I think strategically combining responsibility for the channel under one single leader in John is a great move because it allows the direct teams and the channel teams to work together internally more tightly and to be more collaborative.”

Ultimately, “this synergistic approach is also being driven into the channel, which really benefits partners like Stratix and really helps to mitigate channel conflict,” she said. “This new strategic alignment, I think, will really allow both of us to win more together.”