The PB&J of Modern Tech: Cybersecurity, Azure Optimization, and Mobility Expense with Dataprise/Wireless Watchdogs

Finding Money in Mobility: A Strategic Approach to Managed Services with Dataprise

In this special episode of the Wireless Way, the host welcomes guests Chaz from Dataprise and John Gonzalez. They discuss the expansion and growth of Dataprise, the importance of travel in business, and their roles at the company. The conversation includes an update on John’s personal achievements and travels, as well as Chaz's introduction of the 'PB&J pitch' for business resiliency, combining cybersecurity and disaster recovery as a service. The episode further delves into the 'trifecta' of solutions offered by Dataprise: savings in cybersecurity insurance, Azure optimization, and Managed Mobility services. The guests explain how these solutions can save companies money and optimize resources, emphasizing the importance of managing mobile devices better. They also highlight the benefits of asking additional questions to uncover potential savings in organizations. The episode encourages partners to explore these new opportunities for added revenue through Dataprise's comprehensive service offerings.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:19 John's Update and Personal Life
01:59 Chaz's Introduction and Role
03:26 The Peanut Butter and Jelly Pitch
04:55 Importance of Mobile Device Management
07:35 The Trifecta of Found Money
13:18 Managed Mobility Services Explained
16:31 Partner Success Stories and Final Thoughts
22:26 Conclusion and Farewell

More about John

More about Chaz

More on Dataprise

Transcript

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 0:00

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Wireless Way Special edition today. Got two guests here with me. And of course, as always, I'm glad you're checking out this episode. And I'm equally glad that Chaz from Data Prize and his counterpart, his partner in crime. John Gonzalez is with us. Welcome you guys. John, start with you a bit. Tell us, remind us you, you're a former guest. We talked a lot about expense management the last time you were on update us. What have you been up to? Tell us a little bit about your role today.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 0:29

Yeah. Since we last talked think we're now in our 11th acquisition. From a data price side of the house we've grown and expanded a lot of consolidation happening across the industry. Perfect fit for a lot of partners nowadays to land and expand, with not only the mobility model, but just in general, right? All of the IT services that are needed. Been doing that, been doing some travel with the family. Gotta do that, right?

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 0:55

Yeah. Oh yeah.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 0:56

My youngest graduating middle school, so going to high school. I have my son And then I have my eldest that had already gone through college, taking over the world in the coconut water industry. Hey, I'm good right now.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 1:10

So life is good.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 1:11

Yeah.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 1:13

What what was your last trip to.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 1:14

was to the main island, Hawaii the main island, Hawaii, which the day we got there, the volcano erupted, which we didn't get to see until the next day was amazing. I'd never been through Lava tubes. That's another, I felt like a Batman. So we're talking about the, his sidekick here, Chana. was really cool. And then we went swimming with Manta Rays which is. At night, is another experience you guys look like. You can relate like bombers, right? Just coming at you, right? Yeah.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 1:45

I know if I can, I know if I can.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 1:47

wow, they're pretty, it's really cool. A lot of that time refresh, reset and just bringing that good energy back with great solutions has been amazing.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 1:56

That's awesome, man. That's so important. Great point being made there. And Chaz, you're also a, an alumni of the of my former series Wireless Suite Wednesdays. And I wanna come back to that in a moment, but first, introduce yourself. Tell us a little about, you and your role and how you're living life these days.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 2:12

cha Shockley, VP of channel and partnerships with data prize. I've been with Data Prize for 20 years, which is crazy to say. But loving every minute of that minute of it. I gotta say this position is definitely one of my favorites where I. I'm leading our channel initiative and working closely with John on coming up with our strategy and how we're working with our trusted advisors and partners on the services that their customers need. And, as such, John and I are just focused on taking feedback from those trusted advisors where are their pain points? And we'll get into that a little bit later. What's it like navigating budgets? What's it like navigating all of the solutions that are out there within the channel ecosystem and how are we. Best identifying and solving the customer problems. Getting to to speak on panels. I'm out at a conference actually this week somewhat related to our pb and j conversation. Lots of travel, lots of interacting with our trusted advisors. But that's what I've been up to.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 3:04

No, that's awesome. And that I think, travel's important. I know a lot of companies sometimes struggle with the concept of the t and e expense and all, I tell people, there's no one in my office that wants to buy from that. You have to get out. You have to get out, make the relationships, network, see the people. Especially these conferences, you can learn so much sometimes even about your competition or just get feedback from people. So important. So yeah, you, you brought it up. I wanna go back to the peanut butter and jelly wireless food Wednesday that we did I think it was in Houston many years ago. Explain to to the listeners, what does PB and j and data have in common?

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 3:37

so first off, I have to give credit to my now 10-year-old son for coming up with a PB and j pitch. But peanut butter and jelly, right? Peanut butter and jelly just go together, right? So when we first started entering into the channel, we were trying to come up with things that would stick, pun intended to, to in people's brains, right? When we were trying to deliver a complete solution. One of our main solutions is a business resiliency package, which is cybersecurity plus disaster recovery as a service. So Cyber Plus DRA go together like peanut butter and jelly. I was working it out, spitballing it with my son. I was like, what's something that can just be familiar to people so that they're gonna remember when they think business resiliency or helping CEOs sleep at night? He is it's kinda like peanut butter and jelly. It's it, that's what we're going with. so we're going with peanut butter and jelly. Apropos time for me right now I'm at Veeam on in San Diego. Veeam is one of our strategic partners and we're a platinum VCSP. That Draz solution, disaster Recovery as a ser as a service solution is powered by Veeam Software that we're managing, we're delivering. APO timing to bring back the PB and j pitch.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 4:44

Fantastic. I love it. He's gonna be writing commercial jingles. Before you know it, man, you might be onto something. And, I was sharing that story with John. John, of course, saw the video we did a couple years ago. And I said, man, not only does that make so much sense, as a wireless guy, fellow wireless warrior with John, mobile devices, they need security. So many, I've seen numerous reports in different stats. Most of them indicate at least I. 55, 60% of cyber threats, can originate on a mobile device. And they got me thinking about, the importance of mobile device management. You know how many companies just don't have a strategy or they think they check the box and they have, unees'cause it comes with their Microsoft license, but no one manages it. So John, we were talking, I said, man, maybe it's peanut butter, jelly, and banana. I don't know if one's ever done that before. I've had peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Never put jelly with it, but, hey, maybe we could start something new here. John, what's your take on the value of MDM and, maybe kind of state of the industry report on what are you seeing in, in the market in terms of mid to enterprise companies and their either adoption rate with MDMs?

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 5:49

Sure. So what studies are showing now that a lot of companies investments in MMS and MDM are paying off, like with 90% of it reporting positive ROI. Outta those respondents, 15% say reduction in it costs came from leveraging full lifecycle and manage mobility and management MDM solutions. then there was another statistic that said 90% credit manage mobility services for improved business uptime in enhanced productivity. So overall the results revealed that estimated 52% of IT operations time could be saved from outsourcing mobile device management. So one of the biggest things and challenges that we're seeing nowadays is being able to secure those mobile devices through MDM. what it's calling out in cyber insurance for cyber insurance companies is that mobile device, it's not centrally managed through MDM, locked down through MFA, and that is an entry point for a cyber incident, you better believe those claims are probably gonna be known and void. it's really making sure that these overstretched IT departments have the tool sets and expertise to make sure that those devices are secure from onboarding, right? All the way from onboarding the devices to when they're offboarding the devices. And that's the biggest challenge we see is the offboarding of the devices for those. So it's growing, everybody's being asked to do more with less. Cut cost, be more efficient. We can come and do this, pretty quickly. And that's one of, I know we're gonna we're gonna be jumping into a trifecta here, but that's one of the tries of the trifecta is really, coming in, saving companies time, money, frustration. And we're just seeing it just start to skyrocket.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 7:35

So you mentioned the trifecta. Who wants to take that one? Who can unpack that for me? So is it that, is the peanut butter, jelly and banana, or is there more to it?

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:42

So for the Kentucky Derby, I want you to pick number two, Jimmy. Two times. Two times, right? Number seven, right? Chaz, you wanna jump in? You wanna jump in? Rif?

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:54

I was waiting to see where we were going

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:55

Yeah. Yeah.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:56

But

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:56

Kentucky Derby, the trifecta is gonna be seven, two, and five.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 7:59

That's right. There's the parlay. So I'll give credit to John for coming up with the name. He always described his his managed mobility kind of solution as found money, right? So in, I'll say John, probably what, Q3 of last year. Beginning of Q3 of last year.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 8:17

Yeah.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 8:17

and I as we were going through strategy on what our approach within the channel community should be. And we saw that a lot of deals weren't, or opportunities weren't closing. They weren't dying, but they weren't closing because we're running into this budget issue at customers, right? Where they love the solutions, they love the pitch, but all of a sudden their budgets started getting slashed because of. Market insecurities, right? And what's gonna happen with the election. And you name the excuse, right? The budget. It impacted the budget conversation and we're still there. By the way this budget conversation. So John and I shifted from what data prize's core services are in, in managed security manage cybersecurity and your managed IT services, which are monthly recurring commits, right? Net new spends for customers. We pivoted to what the channel partners were asking for, which is gimme a quick win help me free up a spend within our customers organization. So John came up with a pitch of trifecta, of found money. I'll lead with the two that at least relate to some of the core data price side and then really the most impactful one that, that John speaks of. And it's the greatest foot in the door. For any seller is the managed mobility pitch that John has. But the first two aspects of it I'll start with cybersecurity insurance, right? It was a pet project of mine and some of our cybersecurity leadership, we found, several cybersecurity insurance companies were willing to vet out data prizes, cybersecurity solution set right? Think E-D-R-M-D-R are the common terms that we're hearing XDR. So data prize delivers those services. cybersecurity insurance companies vetted out our solution to ensure that we match and meet all of the controls that are required for a cybersecurity insurance company to guarantee a certain coverage, and and premium. So they validated that with data prize, and as such, they'll say that with any customer that has data prize's, cybersecurity plan in place. Bonus points for having your backup and DRA solution in place with data prize. gonna offer 30% off of premiums if you have data prizes, solutions for a large enough organization that can help fund the cybersecurity initiative in and of itself, right? So that, that quick win. One of the, one of the the spears of the trifecta, right? Is this cybersecurity insurance, right? We can hopefully free up 30% of their premium spend on cybersecurity. The second aspect of it, another quick win in budget creating event. Is the Azure optimization. data, price is a managed Microsoft partner, and that's a technical term, right? That doesn't just mean we're tight with Microsoft. That means that we are in the top 2% of Microsoft partners where because of our competencies, our certifications, and'cause of the volume of business we do with Microsoft, we get to use that moniker as part of our relationship, a managed Microsoft partner. such, we have a deep expertise within the Azure ecosystem. Aspect of freeing up found money, right? Is optimizing a customer's Azure spend. found that a lot of organizations moved into Azure they just forklifted, right? They just took their on-prem stuff or their stuff that was in a data center and moved it into Azure and that was a big move in COVID, right when everybody started working remotely. But they didn't optimize their ecosystem. To really allow for spending and in some cases efficient processing power within the Azure ecosystem. So we'll come in and help assess the Azure ecosystem so that their spend is optimized, right? Sometimes that means moving VMs virtual machines into just platform as a service or code as a serv infrastructure as code, sorry. So you're optimizing the configuration within that ecosystem so that they're saving money. In one case, we had one customer that was saved that was spending about$20,000 a month their Azure ecosystem. We came in for a$10,000 project. two months, we freed up 12,000 of that$20,000 a month spend. So we freed up$144,000 a year. That channel partner could then go sell into that found money, So that's one example of how we're saving money. So again, the first two aspects of the trifecta found money are the cybersecurity insurance and helping optimize maybe 30% off of their premiums, while getting a robust cybersecurity solution. second is the Azure optimization. Freeing up some of the spend that they're allocating into Azure by optimizing the Azure consumption. third John will get into here, and I wholeheartedly suggest that channel partners use this as a foot in the door manage services. I used to call it the gateway Drug into Managed Services. Is this managed mobility service, right? Let's go ahead and push that. We wanna see them do that. John, go ahead and explain what Managed Mobility is and how it can free up the spend.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 13:22

sure. So we live in a mobile first world. We know that we all rely on mobile devices, right? They're like the DNA. to what we're doing from productivity. But they can also become a very big expense. So every company has mobile devices. say most would have corporate devices. Some have BYOD, some have a mix. But if partners have any, any clients, it's one of the, oh, by the way, questions. Oh, by the way, do you guys have any mobile devices? Oh, we do. How many you got? Oh, we got about a thousand. Gotcha. What care are you guys with? At t, Verizon. Gotcha. Hey, what if I showed you a way. you throw out the objections without switching your carrier, without disrupting your service, without spending any additional money. A better way to come in and cut costs by 15 to 35%. Okay? Give you a better mousetrap for managing cradle to the grade, right? How many people are doing this for you guys? Do you like doing this? You're six figure Microsoft engineer in your resetting voicemails, taking support calls. Get that off your plate, and let us show you how we can actually come in and create a revenue stream out of a current expense. So without them displacing their carrier, we come in by their next billing cycle, right? And start to drive costs down. But more importantly, that's the hook, the efficiency, the accountability, the control, the processes, the policies that we're implementing are huge, right? For an overstretch IT department. This is a living and breath device. Usage goes up, you have new devices, new features, device purchasing programs. It just, it's overwhelming. And from a security standpoint right now. A lot of clients have MDM mobile device management. They use it to push out apps, right? Ease of deployment, maybe a remote wipe here and there, not knowing how much more that software can do for them from a HIPAA compliance standpoint, from a FINRA compliance standpoint. Hey. Geofencing, disabling cameras, Hey, do you only want to go to one website? Hey, from eight to five, I want corporate information at 5 0 1. Make sure that's off. There's so much that needs to be done and streamlined that we come in and we're able to take that entire life cycle to save them time, money, and frustration and lead them. And this happens by their next billing cycle. So we put a lot of processes in and then the partner right immediately. 15 to 35% and it, if you round it like 10 to 20 bucks a line, if they have a thousand lines, that's 10 to$20,000 a month or 120 to$240,000 of found money, okay? You're not ripping and replacing circuits, you're just gonna happen right away. Partners get, start getting paid by month two, right? And it's a foot in the door because. Like I said, it's very simple. They have the devices. It's a challenge. It's a four letter word for IT departments, believe me. And it's a free look for them. At least they, they can do a free check and balance and see where they stand. So that's the

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 16:09

the what's the win percentage if we do an assessment?

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 16:12

87%.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 16:15

87%.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 16:16

87%. That's amazing. It's very, numbers don't lie. They say, God, we trust, but all others must bring data. You guys are bringing the data. It's not a, it's not a pipe dream. You're selling. You're actually, you got real numbers to show. What, where are you seeing partners win? Is it, are there, is there a mixture of new logos for the partner? Are they going back to their existing base and selling into them? What, how are you seeing. Any kind. Is there any kind of trends or is it kind all over the place when it comes to.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 16:47

For us, it is all over the place. We're seeing. Repeat trusted advisors that we work closely with, right? The channel partners that know data price very well, know the wireless watchdog service very well, where they're bringing us in. They know that if they have a new prospect and they wanna free up a spend, they want to build that trusted advisor relationship. They know that they can do that with a dataverse data prize, wireless watchdogs combo, right? So for the new prospects, it's more of getting the foot in the door by showing them that we're freeing up a spend. delivering a quality service for for the existing customer base. It's, that's where we're seeing more of the managed services come into play, right? Because the channel partner already has that trusted advisor status. They're already recommending the right solutions and they really know what the customer's budget is. There's more maturity in the relationship, so we're seeing more of the managed services on that side. But for new prospects it really is all about this trifecta motion.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 17:44

Yeah, and I can speak to that too. So we have a lot of like group trusted advisor groups that are, that have hundreds of thousands of clients that when I speak, I'm like, look, everybody has this issue. Everybody's having it. You gotta go back to the clients that you have and just ask to go. By the way, oh by the way, you guys having this issue. Are you guys having this, Hey, did you know HIPAA compliance fines? Are this and that? Have you seen the statistics? It's what's happening out there. Patients, nurses, filming patients, putting it on Instagram. This is, it's not a joke, right? This is about really securely maintaining those devices and it's a problem. It's a problem. Every audit, you probably, you know this too, Chris, every assessment we do unused devices, right? Devices sitting on the

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 18:26

Ugh.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 18:26

for months. People have gone, right? They're lost. They're not in a drawer somewhere, right? You have a, it just going I can't believe this. I just ordered another 600 devices and you're telling me I have a thousand sitting. What's, so this is

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 18:40

Yeah.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 18:40

company and it's not their fault, it's just that they don't have the tools, the expertise, or the time really to. Get a hold of this whole thing here. So there's massive savings, not only from the hard dollar, but from this soft dollar savings. So yes, going forward, the trifecta perfect for getting in, but you also gotta think about going back on all three, three of those as well to all your clients and seeing that those

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 19:02

Yeah. As you were talking, I was just thinking another little catchy scene that I think I came up with or heard from somebody. Most of the things I say, I come up, I probably heard from someone, but but anyway if you don't know, you stay with status quo. And partners don't. If customers don't know, partners don't know. And if you don't know, then you're just sitting there with all these unused devices. And my other favorite, John, I love to ask the question. Hey, how do you guys deal with overage fees? Oh, we don't have overage fees. We have everybody on that unlimited data plan. Come on, man. Us, we wouldn't do that. We're smarter than that. I'm like, oh, are you really? So I got my answer. But when you do your assessments what percentage of most a hundred plus companies are not even using Five gig.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 19:49

I would say at least 70%. Like we see a lot

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 19:52

Yeah.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 19:52

'em on unlimited, right? Oh, we're good. My, my rep says We're, we get a better deal than Walmart. Oh we know we're good. And then, but that's great. I'm sure you have good rate plans, but hey. Like you have unlimited plan, like which unlimited plan are you on? 30, 35, 45, 65, which one are you on? And by the way, this person's barely turning their phone on and you're paying, 40, 50 bucks for that device when you can probably buy it a different way. Oh, are you a part of A-G-P-O-A group purchase your organization to where you get extra discounts in special credits. So it's really about that inside baseball knowledge that overstretched IT department that's trying to secure the company, trying to innovate has all these projects that are overdue, it's just Ah the bill was 30 grand. Yeah. You know what? It was 30 grand last month. Status quo. Yeah.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 20:36

Yeah, man. When you, something else I like about what we're talking about here. So many partners have built great agencies selling connectivity and dial tone. And that's all they've sold truthfully. Over half of the channel is probably out there going, oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I've talked to partners all the time and that's, that's their shtick, would be coax fiber or some flavor of dial. This is branching out and you got cloud, you got cybersecurity, and you got mobility covered. These are three other parts of the tech stack that are revenue opportunities. So well done. I love the trifecta. I love the peanut butter jelly and the banana. Any last words? We gonna, again, this is a special quick fire edition. Any last words, Chaz? Anything you wanna leave us with?

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 21:18

John.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 21:18

we didn't cover?

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 21:19

said it, you're right. And John says it all the time, right? It's that, oh, by the way, conversation, don't be afraid to ask that last question one more thing, right? Oh, by the way, are you managing your mobile devices? Or, oh, by the way, when is your cybersecurity insurance policy up? Or, oh, by the way, when did you migrate into Azure? Asking these one questions, even as you're going out the door, I guarantee some of those are gonna give you another 15 minutes conversation with the customer.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 21:46

Absolutely. John, anything to add to that? A dad joke. A favorite quote? What? What's the last piece of advice you gave your kids? Anything you can share?

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 21:57

you miss a hundred percent of the shots. You don't take.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 22:01

There you go, man. There you go. Simple man. We've all heard it, but it is so true. But guys, thanks so much for this kind of hurry up offense, man. I love it. Short and sweet, impactful. Three parts of the tech stack bundled into one, finding money, repurposing money. Man. What's, I think you guys need to go hire some more order processing people.'cause after this episode it's gonna rain buddy. It's gonna rain.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 22:25

I love it.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 22:26

Alright guys, thanks so much. I appreciate you guys joining me today.

chaz---dataprise_1_04-23-2025_123113: 22:29

Chris.

squadcaster-2h9c_1_04-23-2025_123113: 22:30

Thanks.

chris_1_04-23-2025_153113: 22:31

Yep. And then, and there you go folks. Another episode of The Wireless Way. Check us out online@thewirelessway.net. Use the contact us button and send any suggestions or feedback. Love to hear from you and we'll see you next time the wireless way.