Vonage’s channel partners are “key” to the company’s success, CEO Rory Read told UC Today.

Vonage recently reported another quarter of growth, with sales growing 13 percent year-on-year to $351.5m for its Q2, with revenue from its unified comms (UC) and contact centre (CC) operations up seven percent, and API sales jumping 40 percent to $144m.

Read – who joined the vendor in June 2020 – said that he has spent his first year at the help, speaking with and listening to partners and their customers to ensure Vonage is providing them with what they require.

“There’s no question that the channel is key [to our success],” he declared during a video interview with UC Today.

“The channel always plays an amazing role because you can only have so many direct sellers. But when you leverage the channel, you get a multiplying effect of that. I believe in the channel – I’ve always believed in the channel – and I believe that it gives the reach and scope and creates a value with so many more customers than you could do just by yourself”

Earlier this year Vonage launched its Accelerate initiative, which is aimed at amplifying focus, investments, and efforts into its channel. It also revamped its Channel Partner Program, as part of the initiative.

“We create a customer-first culture advantage by listening to our partners and our customers, who will tell us what we need to know, and if we take care of them better than anyone else then we leave no room for our competition,” Read continued.

“I’ll spend a lot of time over the next 30 to 45 days just doing a checking to make sure I’m getting the latest feedback on what makes the channel successful, and how Vonage can do more of that to help them expand [their customer] base. [This] is going to be a centrepiece to our strategy across 2022, 2023 and beyond.

“This is how you reach so many more customers, and we’re making really good progress. We’re halfway through our transformation and we have the next year to really execute on it. At the end of the day, when the partners see that we’re committed to their success and their customer success and that flows through our core, they’ll bring even more business”

Read also believes that the opportunity for partners going forward is in two areas: the move from “metal to cloud” and the UC and CC combined play.

“There’s a huge opportunity in this migration of metal to cloud – I think we’ve got 80 percent of that yet to go,” he said.

“There are opportunities where it creates better economics, better solutions, and better integration. Most importantly, it positions us for this next wave of communications: this engagement platform concept, this conversational concept where we’re going to see every workflow and every application begin to knit these experiences together.

“We see where the industry is going – look at the acquisition of Zoom and Five9. That reflects a lot about where the industry is going. We’ve already amassed those activities and we’re working with the channel.”

Watch out for the rest of UC Today‘s video interview with Rory Read, where he elaborates on the UCaaS and CCaaS play, Vonage’s growth plans, and how his first year at the helm of Vonage has gone

 

 



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