Family Zone extends cybersecurity market presence by partnering with retail giant JB Hi-Fi

Technology company Family Zone Cyber Safety (ASX: FZO) has unveiled a new strategic partnership with one of Australia’s leading education technology providers and renowned retail brands, JB Hi-Fi Solutions.

The tie-up between the two companies is a means of combatting and mitigating the effects of cyber-attacks, especially when involving children and adolescents in schools, according to Jordan Barry, head of practices at JB H-Fi Solutions.

“Today more than ever, the rapid adoption of mobile and cloud-based technologies is creating an environment open to cyberattack,” he explained.

“JB Hi-Fi Solutions believes that it is our role to guide our education clients to help protect against this threat. Our exciting partnership with Family Zone allows us to rapidly expand our capability and capacity, reaching more education clients than ever before,” he added.

Family Zone said it will partner with JB Hi-Fi as part of a non-exclusive agreement whereby JB HiFi and Family Zone will promote, offer and resell each other’s products and services.

The two companies have agreed to include the sale of Family Zone products and services to schools and as part of school device programs.

The deal supplements last year’s agreement with Woolworths and exemplifies its expansion strategy across Australia that involves leveraging retail vendors as both distributors and validators of its suite of products and services.

The partnership has been struck in order to offer Australian schools a comprehensive suite of products and services, as well as streamlined purchasing, deployment and administration capabilities.

For Family Zone, the strategic agreement is a direct means of generating an additional revenue stream and validating the growing market opportunity for cybersecurity, specifically amongst education providers such as schools.

However, Family Zone stopped short of publishing revenue forecasts or future expectations of financial materiality.

Family Zone solutions

Family Zone manufacturers and offers cyber safe consumer hardware, including the FZONE mobile phone and home networking product, otherwise known as the “FZBOX”.

As part of their new partnership, JB Hi-FI has agreed to distribute a range of Family Zone’s products, making them available to parents through JB-Hi’s existing network of schools and leveraging its existing market relationships.

Additionally, JB Hi-Fi will resell Family Zone’s entire suite of education solutions to schools including School Manager, Classroom and Family Zone’s “hotspotting” solution, SpotShield.

Another product that will be made available is “Family Zone Insights”, a monitoring and education tool for parents that allows schools the ability to enforce school policy during school time.

According to the terms of the deal, Family Zone will also make this available to all JB Hi-Fi schools and will offer it bundled and pre-loaded on learning devices purchased through the retail giant.

JB Hi-Fi’s market presence

Retailer JB Hi-Fi has established a strong market presence across Australia which includes over 300 retail stores but is also pushing hard to develop active commercial relationships within the education sector.

Supported by a Solutions team exceeding 150 nationally, JB Hi-Fi claims it has now become Australia’s leading provider of technology to the education sector and the largest supplier of computing equipment within school BYOD programmes.

Some of the services it provides include ICT strategic planning services, audio, visual and interactive solutions, as well as, infrastructure, security, connectivity and mobility products.

In order to make further headway in the sector, JB Hi-Fi said that its “success in education is the careful choice of products and strategic partners, supported by a national footprint and a commitment to service excellence.”

For Family Zone, partnering with JB Hi-Fi represents a strong commercial avenue which it can leverage to boost its own brand awareness and commercial bottom line.

“Our mission is to allow schools, parents, cybersafety experts and ultimately children to seamlessly collaborate; to set and agree boundaries, to test them, to learn and prepare for a world of technology,” said Tim Levy, managing director of Family Zone.

“Our exciting partnership with JB HiFi progresses us rapidly down this path, allowing us to expand our reach and streamline sales, deployment and management of our solutions,” he added.

This morning’s news helped Family Zone shares to tick up almost 3% up to $0.195 per share.