Case Study: MDM Solution Helps Revel Systems Support Its Customers
Revel Systems wanted to find a way that they could remotely monitor, update and even fix their point-of-sale solutions in the event something goes wrong.
- Revel Systems, a global point-of-sale company with more than 20,000 customers, needed a scalable solution for their support needs. CanopyTM was the answer.
The background
Picture all the forward-thinking technology that restaurants are rapidly adopting these days: servers running around with tablet computers, patrons wanting to pay at the table, chefs and cooks looking at rows of orders on big screen monitors in the kitchens and receipts coming out of printers in several locations throughout the front and back of the house.
The upside of all this technology? There can be as many as 40 different tech devices deployed in a food service establishment at any given time, helping the restaurant run more efficiently and profitably. Sometimes, it’s even more than 40 devices.
Chris Lybeer, chief strategy officer at Revel Systems
As these technologies proliferate, restaurants have come to depend on them to operate. It goes without saying that there’s very little tolerance on the part of restaurant owners to have any of their devices stop working.
“Even if a couple of devices are not in good shape, it’s a major problem,” said Chris Lybeer, chief strategy officer at Revel Systems.
The challenge
Combine that with the fact that there’s normally no one on site at a restaurant who’s capable of fixing a technical issue and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. Sending a technician out to the site for repairs is becoming more and more expensive so that’s not the optimal solution.
Instead, Revel Systems wanted to find a way that they could remotely monitor, update and even fix their point-of-sale solutions in the event something goes wrong.
Enter Banyan Hills Technologies.
Revel Systems engaged Banyan Hills Technologies to build a Mobile Device Management, or MDM, module to be used inside Banyan’s Canopy IoT platform. The IoT platform with the MDM module could in turn be used to monitor and manage all of the devices operating within an organization. In the case of Revel’s restaurant customers, this software would be used to remotely monitor, manage and update Revel’s point-of-sale systems.
The solution
Of course, there were other MDM solutions in the marketplace already but most of them had been built for general-purpose consumer devices. Companies typically rely on MDM software to manage employee phones and laptops. And while the software works well for corporate IT needs, it would not fit the bill for managing credit card swipes or kitchen printers. Revel wanted something built for managing an organization’s devices, not an individual’s.
One of the baseline needs Revel had was just to be able to see the status of all the devices in the restaurant at a glance. With the MDM software, restaurant managers will be able instantly check on the health of their printers, point-of-sale terminals and kitchen displays before a dinner rush gets underway.
“Just knowing the status, getting everything up and fully-ready to run through that peak period is huge,” Lybeer said.
If anything does go wrong during live operations, the ability for Revel’s support personnel to be able to see the problem immediately, begin to diagnose it and fix it remotely will be very helpful to Revel’s customers, Lybeer said.
Updates at scale
Another need Revel had was to be able to allow an organization to conduct software updates at scale on remote devices. In other words, devices operating out in the field. For instance, if a restaurant had a fleet of tablets that required an iOS update, the MDM software could be used for that job.
“That’s a super efficiency thing for us,” Lybeer said. “Number one, it’s less time consuming. And, even more importantly, the customer doesn’t have to be involved and it can get done on time. … The ability to keep things up-to-date consistently, on a large scale, without the customer’s involvement is huge.”
In addition, Revel and its customers will be able to use the software to:
- Prevent unapproved third-party apps from being installed on iOS devices
- Remove apps that were installed without authorization
- Lock down an ioS device that’s been reported stolen or lost
- Install approved apps on a device that’s out in the field
- Clear a device passcode
- Review the action history on an iOS device
Why work with Banyan?
Lybeer said Revel chose to work with Banyan Hills Technologies because of the company’s background and expertise in deploying Internet-of-Things software in the retail space. Working with credit card readers, for instance, would not be new to Banyan.
“It’s a great company where you feel like you’re partnering with them and not buying from them,” he said. “It’s not a vendor relationship. It’s a partner relationship and that’s really important to us.”
Also, Lybeer points to the confidence he has in Banyan’s software expertise.
“They’ve got technical chops in terms of building and architecting scalable systems,” he said. “That’s not something that anybody and everybody can do well.”
Download a PDF version of this case study: Banyan Hills Technologies’ MDM Solution Helps Revel Systems Support Its Customers
Related: Why Mobile Device Management is a Critical Tool for Modern IT Operations
