Beyond the Device: OuterFactor

10 years ago Conor Macfarlane founded 3Eye Technologies.  As a specialty distributor focused on mobility, identity and security, Conor identified an unmet market need in that mobile device protection has always been focused as a B2C play.  So if you're a corporate purchaser, if you're in healthcare technology procurement, if you are a government buyer deploying mobile devices and you're looking for affordable and reliable device protection, you've got two options today. The first is really expensive consumer brands that you might know from your experience as a consumer. Because let's face it, everybody's got a device with a case. Or you are taking a chance on something that you find online somewhere that you've never heard of and maybe it's hitting a price point that's more attractive. That is the ethos of OuterFactor. OuterFactor was born to solve an unmet market need.  The need for reliable, rugged, B2B first device protection at a price point that makes sense.  

President/CEO at 3Eye, Founder of OuterFactor, Conor Macfarlane joins the Beyond the Device Podcast with host, Reid Estreicher to share how OuterFactor is delivering reliable, rugged, B2B first device protection at a price point that makes sense.

Transcript

Reid Estreicher:  Three, two, one. We are live, and by live I mean we're pre-recording this in case we make any mistakes, we can edit them down for you. But of course we're not going to do that because we're joined today with the fantastic CEO from OuterFactor, Conor McFarlane, as well as the practice lead for mobility for 3Eye Technologies, also known as 3Eye. Mr. Ambrose Bregg, we lovingly call AB. Now I work with both you guys. This is actually going to be a quick podcast. We're going to be talking about OuterFactor's case company. I want to be so reductive about it. But before we get into it, let's do a round of intros. I work with AB and Conor on a regular basis, but you guys listening or watching might not know these gentlemen. So Conor, over to you first sir, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do for OuterFactor and then we'll pass it over to AB and we'll get this thing kicked off. Okay?

Conor Macfarlane:  Absolutely. Thank you Reid. It's good to see you today and thanks for letting me join this prestigious event here. I'm excited to just tell you a little bit about OuterFactor, but myself first. I founded 3Eye about 10 years ago and an OuterFactor was born out of that right where we saw an explicit need for a better solution for mobile device accessories. So we won't spoil all the fun, but that's a little teaser on OuterFactor.

Reid Estreicher:  Awesome, thank you very much. And Mr. Ambrose Bregg over to you sir.

Ambrose Bregg:  I am Ambrose Bregg, practice lead for mobility at 3Eye Technologies. I work with the channel to develop multi-vendor solutions in-house, produce videos and speak to the channel about industry trends. Great to be here.

Reid Estreicher:  Thank you very much. All around Jack of Trades for I think mobility. Let's get right into it. Conor, over to you first sir, why OuterFactor? You talked a little bit about it at the very top. You created it for a very specific reason and I think it's an unmet market need, but I'll let you tell us a bit more about that because it's a pretty awesome thing that you've done.

Conor Macfarlane:  Well, thanks. Yeah, so I think the first thing is the value equation is broken. If you're a corporate customer, if you're a healthcare customer, if you are a government customer deploying mobile devices and you're looking for affordable and reliable device protection, you've got two options today. You've got really expensive consumer brands on one hand that you might know from your experience as a consumer. Because right, let's face it, everybody's got a device with a case. Or you are taking a chance on something that you find online somewhere that you've never heard of and maybe it's hitting a price point that's more attractive. So that's really the ethos of OuterFactor. We were born to solve that problem, delivering reliable, rugged, B2B first device protection at a price point that makes sense.

Reid Estreicher:  And one of the things, warranty always comes up in this and I want to make sure we hit out on the top, especially for a case company. Can you talk a little bit about some of the line in the sand that you put in around the warranty for these things?

Conor Macfarlane:  Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at inexpensive cases, you're going to find no warranty, 90 day warranty, maybe a year warranty. The fact of the matter is for us and in my career in business, if someone has a problem with our product, with our service, it's a problem for me. Whether that's 90 days after the sale, a year after the sale, three years after the sale, whatever that is. So we want customers to know that we're going to stand behind everything that we do which is why we back all of our products with a lifetime warranty and something certainly that you won't find at this price point in the market.

Reid Estreicher:  Awesome. And then one of the other things that I think was pretty smart from a design perspective was you went pretty hard at customization and figuring out ways to do that in a timeline that is not going to crush people trying to do anything with customization. Because typically you get into that and you're looking at some pretty lengthy timelines, but you've been able to figure this thing out. So it's kind of like your background within distribution of just being in this world for as long as you've been in this world. Can you talk a little bit about the customization from a branding perspective? Because I know the impression that you make first is usually the most important and I think you had some wise words of wisdom around that.

Conor Macfarlane:  Yeah, our phones are a pretty noticeable thing in a business environment. We've got them all the time, we're setting them down at tables whether we're out to eat or in a meeting. So the opportunities for branding and brand awareness are pretty strong around the mobile device. And one of the things I think that we underestimated, in fact when we started this, it was an initiative for custom logo, custom color. What we found was customers were a lot more interested in that than we expected. So we've been actively working and in fact have just deployed some new equipment in the United States here where we have lowered our minimum order quantities for custom logo and custom branding just because of the popularity of having a custom branded solution. So yeah, anyone who's concerned about their brand or is interested in ways to promote their brand, there's a lot of creative things you can do just beyond the logo on a case. We've seen healthcare customers label devices for different use cases, be it maybe patient infotainment or an Epic Rover device, something like that. So you can help make workflow easier too with things that you can do that we can print on the back of the case beyond just the logo.

Reid Estreicher:  Yeah. That gets into the custom Pantone stuff that you were doing as well. Because I know that we were talking about if the specific IBM Blue or Intel Blue, I think Intel's blue, right? And then... My memory. Qatar Airlines is purple or Cutter Airlines. But yeah, I think getting into that level of granularity for customization is important. Ambrose over to you sir. One of the things that we've been doing with OuterFactor is around the customization piece and how it fits into organizations like RAM, which is one of our biggest partners. So I know that you've been doing a ton of work with them for multi-vendor solutions. Can you tell us a little bit about OuterFactor in RAM?

Ambrose Bregg:  Sure. So it's great to see that OuterFactor has designed these cases to fit in with a number of universal mounting systems, especially from RAM. RAM is a big partner of ours. So it's important that we have accessories that can accommodate the mounting needs of our customers, whether it be a vehicle or manufacturing. So that's been really great to see that they fit really well. The other thing I wanted to point out, and I have one here is this, the logos on these cases that the custom printing, it's not some sort of stamp that gets stamped on after the fact. This is a very durable, you can't scratch this off, it's impressive, it's high quality. So I just wanted to point that out that it's well made and like Conor was saying we can get minimums out just for samples just to test them out to see how they look and then we could work with our customers to find out if it's a clear case or whatever custom logo that you want on here, if it's clear or a solid color or whatever you need.

Reid Estreicher:  Awesome!  And one of the other things that we talk about a lot here at the old 3Eye is workflows and how these devices are actually being used in the field and something that gets dropped a lot where we have a mobile device and really nobody digs into the start to finish of the day. How is it being accessed in the beginning of a shift? What happens to it throughout the day? What kind of protection does it need around the device, how are you managing the software, are you managing the cybersecurity, connecting it to data, because if not it's a sweet paper weight, it doesn't do anything. So there's a whole workflow conversation here that I think you do a really good job Ambrose going through for most people looking to deploy a solution like this. But can you talk a little bit about workflows?

I think you have a tablet there around you specifically with some of how these things get used in the field because if you have a large tablet, just trying to hold it is not probably conducive throughout the day, especially if you're moving around a lot. And again, to Conor's comment to the top of this. The number one case being sold right now is just a two piece. It's a two piece design clam shell that's very awkward to hold and heavy. So there's a better way to do it and I'd love to just flash that up and we can show more of this at the end of podcast as well. So you guys can actually just see a demo of these things live or pre-recorded rather.

Ambrose Bregg:  Yeah, sure. We have this A7 case here and as you can see it has the hand strap built in. It does also have a kickstand. So this is all in one piece in the back here. The big thing about workflow is, well you touched on earlier is what does this look like from start to finish in the day-to-day? Is it a shared device that someone needs to badge in the back of. These will work with NFC readers very well? Is this outdoors? If it's being mounted into a vehicle, are we looking at anti glare screen protection? Is this being used outdoors with the sun? Do we need anti-glare on it just to be able to read and do invoicing and signing outdoors? So I think the conversation is a lot of times is the cases an after the fact? Like "Yeah, we got everything now we need to buy cases." When this needs to be a discussion early on within the opportunities of a refresh or a brand new deployment.

Conor Macfarlane:  And I would add-

Reid Estreicher: Oh yeah please.

Conor Macfarlane:    I would add on top of that a lot of customers spend a lot of time debating between maybe one device or the other. Should I do the iPad 10.2 Or the iPad Air or the iPad Pro and maybe don't think as much about the physical environment that the user's in and some of those workflow and ergonomic considerations. So we talked about this 15 years ago, ad nauseam in our offices, companies were hiring ergonomic specialists to make sure that work environments were as productive as can be and as comfortable as can be. And at the end of the day, it's worker productivity and worker comfort and safety. And when you look at some of the things that we've done with our cases, particularly on the tablet side where the devices are larger and a little more cumbersome to hold in the field, that ergonomic consideration is very often overlooked.

Yet it's very, very important as to the success of a mobile deployment. You want your users to be able to use the device easily throughout their day. That's why we feel really strongly about the importance of having a hand strap on the back of the tablet case, the ability to carry it with a shoulder strap, the ability to have a kickstand on there. It gives workers the flexibility to work with the device in a way that works for them. If you have field service technicians up on utility pole carrying the device, you want it to be easy to carry, you want it to be ergonomically friendly. Ambrose is showing a tab A7, that's a pretty small tablet. We're seeing a lot of customers moving towards very large tablets. Samsung has a 12.4 inch tablet. Holding it with one hand without a hand strap is very awkward, it's taxing on your hand, on your wrist. So that hand strap is really important, allows you to rotate the device and just keeps your work as productive as possible, as safe as possible and prevents any sort of repetitive stress injury.

Reid Estreicher:  Yeah. And also talking about taxing, it's also very taxing on the finance department to buy them over and over again because they're breaking. So there's that too.

Conor Macfarlane:  That's true.

Reid Estreicher:  So it's not just the actual user-

Conor Macfarlane:  Prevents drops. Absolutely. It's an easier, better end user experience.

Reid Estreicher:  So can you talk a little bit about, maybe this dovetails nicely into the customer journey and how OuterFactor's been solving problems because it wasn't just, "Hey we're just going to do another me too case and get it out there into the world." It's like you really, again had an intelligent design about how these things are being utilized on the day to day and then maybe get into some of the verticals that you've been playing with or are playing into. Because you've had some pretty good success within all Fortune 500 companies. I believe.

Conor Macfarlane:  Fortune 500 to Fortune 2000 so far has really been the bulk of where our customers are. And I think a lot of it is certainly the price points and the value equation resonate. So we're delivering our price points range from a MSRP of roughly $20 for a phone case to low thirties for a tablet case. Custom logo is additional fees, but that's very, very affordable for drop tested lifetime warranty cases that also include functionality that you will not see at this price point. And you usually don't see from the consumer brands that folks may know from the other side of their lives where they're using devices personally. So that has really resonated as well as our ability to help with, be it custom pantone or custom design. Many of those solutions have been custom screen protector solutions for large enterprises that either needed a specific screen protector application for a specific device or they needed a solution that, let's say food processing is an industry where we have to be careful about what kind of materials can be around a food processing environment from an FDA approval perspective. And glass is certainly something that can be dangerous if it breaks and it gets into food supply, you're looking at massive recalls. But we still need to use these tablets to enable more efficient work on the factory floor, on the production floor. So that's where we've developed non glass based screen protectors for solutions. So certainly I think a lot of the custom stuff has also resonated with the Fortune 2000 customers that need solutions that just aren't out there today in the consumer space.

Reid Estreicher:  Yeah and so I know we talked about the food space for example, but is there a specific-

Conor Macfarlane:  Vertical?

Reid Estreicher:  niche? Yeah, the verticals that the cases and the screen protectors are going to play really well, and I just want to make sure that we touch on those.

Conor Macfarlane:  Yeah, thanks for bringing that back up. Field service is definitely one that I think maybe if everyone defines it a little differently, I like to say white truck, white van and that maybe gets people thinking of anybody that's doing their work out of a truck, out of a van, technicians, that there's a huge... That's a 18 million workers in the US are in field services. That's a ripe opportunity for mobile workflow.

Conor Macfarlane:  Yeah, so there's field services, transportation, there's 15 million workers in the transportation sector in the US today. One of the things where we see our cases, one of the reasons our cases resonate is margins are razor thin in transportation. A lot of trucking companies are looking to drive efficiency and reduce costs and we have a very nice solution that works well to enable in vehicle technology at a price point that works.

 And that's been a big hit. Other sectors, energy, oil, gas, utilities, education is continuing to grow. Healthcare is a major segment for us in that our custom logo program really resonates there. And again, the price points and our phone cases where we see a lot of the traction in healthcare, they fit the sweet spot between bulky and slim. They're an in between case where we were purposeful about making sure the cases were ergonomically friendly, yet not too big and bulky to fit in your pocket. We do things from a design perspective like large tactile buttons that we call no snag buttons. So when you're taking your device in and out of your pocket, the buttons don't catch. We label the buttons, we put features in there around the ability to attach a lanyard for a neck strap or a wrist strap to just, again, make it easier to make sure you don't drop that device or easier to use it. And then options to add a ring holder to the back of the device that doubles as a kickstand or an additional way to hold the device. So again, we're really focused on providing customers with workflow options that meet the type of work that they do in the environments that they do the work.

Reid Estreicher:  Got it, got it.

Ambrose Bregg:  Reid, I've got a couple other examples with the verticals.

Reid Estreicher:  Yeah, please.

Ambrose Bregg:  So a few things that were trending from the 3Eye perspective that we were seeing would be, it was a great example of a team who needed a custom color, not necessarily their logo, but just an indicator on the case itself to show that this device was for a specific team. So when they were coming into their shift and there's a giant cabinet full of locked up devices, they know, "Oh, I'm on this team today, the green team, I'm going to take this device and it's a shared device and I can badge it and go." The other trends that we were seeing going back to transportation or service vehicles is government fleet vehicles. Those fleet technicians that are repairing government fleet or they're out servicing the city and then public safety, sheriff's departments, police departments that are migrating over to e-citation, those officers are wearing like a Galaxy device or an iPhone device and they're doing the citations right in front of the person that the vehicle that they pulled over. So that's just a couple more examples that we've been seeing from our perspective.

Reid Estreicher:  Okay, awesome. Well, and I was going to kick it to you for wrap up and closing comments. So I think that brings us just about to the end. Did we forget to mention anything else? I think that was it. I was going to wrap it up there. It's a pretty brief one. It's a cases and screen protectors. It's not super complicated, but I want to make sure we touched on the value of the organization. But yeah, Ambrose us over to you then Conor heading over your way and then we'll get out of your hair guys.

Ambrose Bregg:  Yeah, so we're going to have right after this a demo just to show some examples of the cases that we have in our studio here. So we've got some different Pantones, different sizes, models and logo examples. So again, my name is Ambrose with 3Eye Technologies. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk about multi-vendor solutions.

Reid Estreicher:  Awesome, thank you sir. Conor, over to you.

Conor Macfarlane:  Yeah, thanks Reid. Yeah, I'd leave you within closing a little bit of a recap of what I stated in the opening of why did we do this, why OuterFactor. We're here just to help with what we feel is a value proposition that's broken. We're offering very affordable, drop tested, rugged lifetime warranty cases, custom branding options available, custom solutions available to go beyond branding. We're purely focused on the business market. So that is where our customers are. And if that's your world, then I think you take a good look at OuterFactor. I think you'll like what you have to see.

Reid Estreicher:  Awesome. Thank you guys so much for making time to do this. It's an awesome, again, OuterFactor's, a fantastic organization and really intelligent design. It's specifically going after the enterprise space. So please, if you guys have any questions or if you want to see a demo or if you're interested in learning more, you can reach out to us at sales@3eyetech.com. That's sales at the number 3-E-Y-E-T-E-C-H.com. Please leave us a comment in the comments section and hit like and subscribe. It makes us very happy. But also, we do read the comments because this is how we bring these types of videos to you guys. Let us know what you like, let us know what you don't like. Thank you so much for tuning in and be sure to check us out for the next episode of Beyond The Device which will be airing next week with Scalefusion. Thanks guys. We'll see you on the internet. Cheers.