Pincince said the ability to distribute light over a digital network allows it to easily integrate with other technologies and allows for additional functionality in the world of IoT. Digital Lumen’s networked lighting solution includes a hybrid on-premises LightRules server, an off-premises management servers coupled with a cloud management console.

“I think this is where the models look the same and technology looks similar,” Pincince said. And that’s why he sees huge potential for solution providers to add incremental sales to their business. With all the talk about IoT, where are the traditional IT players, he said.

“It was the same thing with VoiP. There was a lot of missed opportunity as resellers thought that voice was completely divorced from their core business,” Pincince said.

But for all the parallels between VoiP and IoT technology such as intelligent lighting, similarities begin to end in the go-to-market strategy and the way the market is currently constructed. IoT sales require new sets of relationships with new players. Where solution providers are used to talking to CIOs and the back office, Digital Lumens needs to be talking with facilities managers.

“The buyer on the other side of the table is not your traditional buyer,” Pincince said. “For some reason the facilities is seen as almost even more foreign than the voice network was. I think that is more of a disservice to the opportunities for VARs interested in delivering a fully integrated solution.”

Pincince said while traditional solution providers are adept at selling business solutions to the back office they need to rejigger their pitch in the world of IoT to sell tangible business benefits such as cuts in energy costs to the front office facilities manager.

“Digital Lumens needs the channel. IoT needs the channel. Every day we are getting better at collaborating with an expert driven channel who are the trusted advisors of the business world that will be transformed by these new technologies,” Pincince said.