A Pioneer in IoT Lifecycle Management Unifying Cellular IoT and Edge Devices across Networks: Simetric

Simetric offers an industry-first, IoT lifecycle platform that enables the discovery and management of all cellular IoT and edge devices, split across carrier and satellite networks, in one unified workflow management pane. Simetric was founded by technology industry veterans who all chose to step up and solve a problem they saw as relevant to companies across the world. That problem was the fragmentation and lack of IoT standards that create compounded complexity in managing IoT devices. Simetric rose to this challenge, launching in the height of the pandemic in 2020, which proved to help companies survive and even thrive during global uncertainty. Since that time Simetric has grown rapidly and has 2,300 companies on the platform.

Waking enterprises, carriers, technology companies and managed service providers to the legacy operational debt around IoT connectivity was another challenge, but it was both a necessity and an opportunity. The adaptiveness and flexibility of Simetric’s team and technology was a key to being able to overcome those original hurdles and continue to be factors in its success. Through several strategies, including continual innovation of the platform, building strategic partnerships, having strong financial controls and plans along with a having a strong company culture and team, Simetric has been able to build a resilient business model that has weathered storms and is well-positioned for growth.

In conversation with Allen Boone, CEO of Simetric

Q. Scaling a business can be complex. What strategies does Simetric employ to manage growth effectively without compromising on quality?

Simetric brought our large enterprise technology company experience to bear in terms of how we scale service and support our customers. Simetric has built a scalable, horizontal platform that is as ubiquitous as the public cloud. The Simetric platform is also designed to not only provide immediate time to value, routinely 5–10:1 for every dollar spent on average (with some larger, global customers realizing a 25:1 return) on Simetric but also is sustainable for predictable monthly management. With devices under management up 92% and 2,300 customers registered on the platform, continuing to satisfy that performance across every customer is our benchmark for success.

Additionally, our focus on measured execution is first and foremost as an internal success gate. Scaling is not about innovation alone. Our operations team is the first testing ground for platform functionality That experience defines our support and on-boarding efforts, it shapes our methods for communicating new features and most importantly for listening to our customers as design partners as we implement changes and continually innovate.

Q. Innovation is essential in the tech sector. How does Simetric foster a culture of innovation within the organization, and how do you encourage employees to contribute their ideas?

Our leadership team all joined from companies like AT&T, Cisco, and Microsoft. We are not your typical early-stage executive team; and at the core of those years of experience was a value for talent and innovation. At Simetric we have culture of commitment and accountability, trust, and integrity. We work with a purpose-built commitment to drive value with every customer and to one another. Simetric’s innovation is also closely aligned to direct customer input surrounded by their legacy impediments which holds true for our CSP, MVNO and enterprise customers alike. The input Simetric is uniquely able to garner from our users allows normalization of all these discrepancies on the side of CSP systems and then applies it to customer empowered workflow within the Simetric platform.

Customer input from the beginning days of the company has been a catalyst for Simetric platform development. The difference for Simetric, however, is input comes from direct customers and our tech partners, global carriers, system integrators, WAN networking companies, and leading software companies. This diversity of types of companies either uses our platform directly or consumes from it to enrich their IoT and edge solutions. To our customers or partners, enriched, unified workflow is what we enable around the world.

Q. Data security and privacy are paramount in today’s digital age. How does Simetric ensure the protection of sensitive information and maintain compliance with relevant regulations?

Sadly, the world is full of active adversaries when it comes to cyber security. As we commented, IoT is very fragmented. Although there are some phenomenal endpoint and IoT security companies, we knew Simetric could be an additive layer of protective value with our workflow and platform architecture. Simetric approaches security provided by the platform as well as how we protect the data we manage.

The Simetric platform delivers enhanced visibility into wireless network utilization. Increased awareness of network activity and the ability to establish customized device protocols contributes to the unique ability of enterprise customers to identify and address individual device anomalies. Simetric process automation rules can not only alert device administrators but also can execute actions by temporarily disabling cellular network access of the affected device. In mass, utilizing group policies on automation rules allows the enterprise customer to protect large groups of devices.

Q. Partnerships and collaborations can be essential for growth. Can you share any notable partnerships that have been instrumental in expanding Simetric’s reach or offerings?

Simetric has established partnerships that empower much more robust solutions and customer sustainability in collaboration with our strong partnerships including AT&T, ServiceNow, TATA Communications, Soracom and Cradlepoint. As companies confront the demands of their businesses evolving faster from intelligent edge devices and generative AI, Simetric will continue to entertain industry leading partnerships that will bring industry firsts to benefit customers. A recent collaboration example is Simetric forged a technology partnership with Cradlepoint, a leading WAN networking company. Cradlepoint announced an industry-first feature called SIM Management within their Cellular Intelligence portfolio where customers can activate Simetric directly within their NetCloud Manager subscriptions to add SIM usage and enhanced analytical capabilities in a unified manner across hundreds of carriers.

We continue to work on partnerships where the innovations behind Simetric can enrich other leading technical solutions. Simetric has addressed the lack of workflow for IoT devices and platforms. We are now extending our workflow into ServiceNow to expand their leading IT Asset Management solution to include IoT devices covering both asset and issue escalation workflow use cases.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

Simetric is looking towards services that are aligned with what we are now seeing take hold in the market. The promise of eSIM is finally starting to resonate but the issue is the same as with connectivity management, fragmented platforms.So, we are looking at a unified RSP management pane. The ability to have a robust way to bill end customers for usage and device actions requires a new way to create invoices so we have a rating engine being launched. Finally, customers want control and security around data transmissions, so you will see us integrating a programmable virtual network to put that control in customer’s hands.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

In the first wave of the IoT, it was all about automation. In today’s world, as IoT devices scale in deployment across numerous operators’ wireless networks, the need to complement device control with analytics and actionable insights becomes critical to executing IoT successfully.

Simetric continues to lead the industry and continually innovate by collaborating and working with enterprises and partners across the globe. This is represented in having 250+ carrier platforms and over 1,000+ APIs that the platform supports. In addition to continually adding more platforms, APIs and customers, the market will learn of new, strategic partnerships with industry leading companies in the months to come.

“As companies confront the demands of their businesses evolving faster from intelligent edge devices and generative AI, Simetric will continue to entertain industry leading partnerships that will bring industry firsts to benefit customers.”