Batteries-As-A-Service: Power Your Way Into Unique, Mobile Managed Services

Problems with mobile device batteries can be a huge, and often hidden, detriment to retail operations. But, a unique new program — Batteries-as-a-Service (BaaS) — offers a comprehensive solution to battery problems while bolstering your client’s bottom line and positioning your company as an innovator.

Whether it’s a bar code scanner or a Wi-Fi phone, mobile devices rely on lithium batteries. However, lithium batteries have around only 500 cycles before losing their ability to hold a practical charge, as well as encountering other issues. And when mobile device batteries go bad, a list of problems begins, including:

• End User Safety Risks – As owners of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will attest, lithium batteries can present serious dangers to end users. As batteries age, they become more dangerous, not less. Large organizations with boxes or shelves filled with old batteries are sitting on a ticking time bomb that could erupt into flames at any time.
• Inability to Identify Bad Batteries – Knowing that a bad battery can become a fire hazard, it’s important to identify bad batteries and remove them from the battery population. However, identifying bad batteries cannot be done quickly and efficiently simply by looking at them. Take, for instance, a kitchen’s “junk” drawer. There may be several batteries in it, some of them fully charged, others nearly fully discharged. But, a simple visual inspection offers no insight into which batteries are good and which should be removed from the population. Now, apply the junk drawer analogy to a retail operation. Any retail distribution facility could have hundreds or even thousands of batteries, each of them virtually identical on the surface, to choose from. How can a retail employee know the good batteries from the bad?