Digital services licensing and subscriptions management for electric equipment manufacturers

Do device manufacturers need custom service licensing solutions — or will third-party solutions suffice. We’re experts at helping you make that decision.

One of the most visible signs of the evolution of digital services is the way software licensing has changed. Many of us remember the times when software was shipped on floppy disks or CD-ROMs, with a paper label containing a license key. In more complex scenarios, software licenses were protected with hardware license dongles to be plugged in the machines where the applications were running. With Cloud services and Web platform solutions taking the lead in digital services technology, software licensing has moved more and more to online account-based license verification.

As companies expand their value offering with the introduction of web-based customer-oriented digital services, doors are open to new business models, like subscription-based licensing, that gives benefits to both the seller and the customer. 

At Proekspert, customer-oriented digital services are part of our core business, and good design and implementation practices for licensing and subscription mechanisms have always been part of our skillset. 

For smart device manufacturers, digital services are typically add-on offers to their core business, which is selling devices. This means that, in many cases, most of our customer’s needs are satisfied by a simple licensing portal, where administrators can enable, disable, and manage licenses and subscriptions for their digital services.

In many situations the client has the right to a specific license or subscription depending on the type of contract they have for the devices they are buying from you. Or the financial transaction is handled by a B2B invoicing process already in place for the core business, and a dedicated invoice is issued for digital services. 

If you’d like to eliminate the complexity of implementing and managing multiple payment methods across a variety of markets, currencies, and tax jurisdictions, then Proekspert can tell you whether custom solutions are required, or if existing, third-party services can do the job.

Proekspert can help shape your licensing and subscriptions business model with a setup that allows you to: 

• Define your portfolio of digital services and features. 
• Define licenses and subscription package offers. Identify what services and features of your portfolio are available under a specific license. 
• Generate and handle licenses and subscription keys. Example: you offer desktop software applications to your clients that require a license key. 
• Create a customer portal, where customers can verify their license- and subscription status. 
• Integrate APIs that allows developers of your digital services to enable/disable features depending on user licenses. 

Solutions may be extended with ad-hoc customization and integration with other backend systems, for example, to turn customer portals into self-service portals, enabling customers to purchase licenses and subscriptions.

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