US cloud communications giant 8x8, which has doubled its turnover in the UK since acquiring Herts-based Voicenet Solutions just under two years ago, is now on the hunt for ambitious resellers keen to offer cloud-based contact solutions to enterprise clients.
The company says it will help channel partners address disruptive cloud-based contact centre opportunities with the consultative approach championed by Kevin Scott-Cowell's UK team, especially in the health sector which it is targeting as a prime market.
Speaking exclusively to Comms Dealer at Call Centre Expo, Chief Marketing Officer Enzo Signore said his company has the portfolio and global power to energise resellers looking to upgrade customers from on premise solutions and claims 8x8 can get them ready for market with some products 'within days'.
"When I joined 8x8 10 months ago we were looking at the channel strategy, and most of the channel partners we had, particularly in the US, were from the traditional telecoms side.
"We did not have a strong presence with partners that had a system integration approach and it was counter intuitive. Most of the partners tended to support on-premises solutions because it was more profitable for them with installation, implementation, integration and so on.
"Now we're now looking for partners keen to widen their footprint and go for a different type of customer and get a faster time to revenue which the cloud enables."
Signore said system integrators like Insight, IntelliSys and Arrow are now setting up different divisions in their companies to go after cloud opportunities as 'net new' business.
"They have customers with on-prem solutions at the end of life or coming to the end of a maintenance contract ready to upgrade to the next thing, and cloud becomes a natural opportunity for them.
"These channels are bringing to us enterprise grade 1,000 to 10,000 seat opportunities that are exciting and shaping the market now."
Signore believes enterprise customers are looking for integrated solutions in the cloud in a search for simplicity.
"They want to simplify their life, simplify the network, and get rid of all the complexity forced on them by PBXs and ACDs in the past," he said.
"They want a company that can support them with telephony, with UC, with collaboration, and contact centre analytics all in one package. We can help resellers be that type of company.
Signore is convinced his company can get a reseller selling 8x8's cloud based contact centre solutions within days.
"For a partner, every hour on the phone is an hour's less of revenue. So in the US, we are trialling training slots that fit into an hour. We are doing 'lunch and learn' online education, and short videos to ensure that resellers are as efficiently trained as they can be.
"The less time they spend on training the more time they can spend talking to customers.
"For other customers, a few days in our Academy, such as we have established in the UK, works better. It all depends on the partner. We have a menu of options to get help get them up to pace."