Sprint to offer wireless consulting

Sprint is venturing into wireless consulting, announcing today the formation of its Mobile Business Assessment unit in an effort to bring more of its business and enterprise customers under the wireless data umbrella.

While Sprint’s overall goal is to get businesses using more of its wireless voice and data services, Sprint said that the consulting business will be user agnostic and it will promote other operators’ and manufacturers’ equipment and services in developing overall wireless business roadmaps for its clients. A typical customer engagement will be four-to-six weeks, in which Sprint experts will help a business collect data on how mobility would benefit the business, analyze what processes and applications can be taken wirelessly and develop a blueprint for implementing those services.

Sprint Mobile Business Solutions general manager Scott Boehmer said that while there are numerous systems integrators and consulting firms out there, business customers have come to trust Sprint on matters mobile, giving Sprint an edge over the larger more general integrators. Furthermore, Sprint is eyeing the business as a way of supporting its wireless operations, meaning it can undercut integrators and other consultants in price. Sprint officials said a typical consulting engagement would run a business $60,000 to $80,000, a sum too small for many of the major consulting firms to consider.

While Sprint will obviously push its own network services over its competitors, Boehmer said it understands business customers will likely seek out multiple carriers for its wireless services--something Sprint is willing to embrace so long as the overall market for wireless services grows. Sprint would rather have a smaller piece of a large pie than a large piece of small pie, he said.