ZOOM
Zooming ahead in the channel
Zoom has recently invested in the channel, and this now forms a key part of its go to market strategy in EMEA – and there are opportunities for resellers to get involved in what is a growing sector of the communications market.
When managers at Zoom decided the company was going to utilise the channel more to help grow the business, it signalled a fundamental shift in the company’s selling strategy. It also meant they needed an experienced hand to lead this in the EMEA region – and they turned to Joe McStravick. Joe joined Zoom on March 1 with the brief to lead the company’s engagement with the channel. Previously, he was managing director of Blue Jeans by Verizon for two and a half years, predominantly leading the business outside of the US and driving sales growth. Prior to that, Joe was with BT, where latterly he was head of professional services for some years, working with large consulting houses such as Deloitte and KPMG on things like digital workplaces. Before that, he worked in various other leadership and specialist roles at the company. The pull of Zoom was strong, says Joe. “The leadership team said Zoom was truly investing in the channel and wanted someone to come into the organisation in
EMEA and transform their go to market,” he says. “Channel was at the centre of that and so here I am. The management at Zoom did a great job of convincing me. I’m delighted to take that mantle on and drive that forward. “I have many years of leading large teams and leading globally owned companies with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of revenue and P&L. I’ve worked in the service provider industry, I’ve worked with the consulting industry, I’ve worked in the UCaaS so it gives me a unique perspective of value that I can bring to Zoom to enable that engagement with the channel.” Shift to channel Now, Joe is focused on driving Zoom’s engagement with the channel – but it is not an easy task to change the company’s focus. “Zoom has been a very successful organisation over the years growing to circa $5 billion dollars annual revenue, but everything has been built for direct, whether it’s marketing, sales, ops, the systems, the tooling,” he says. “Now to say we’re going to shift that all to the channel you can imagine the cultural and the operational challenges that we have there. But we are absolutely committed to making that happen, and that’s why I’m here at the helm to drive that. “At the beginning, everything at Zoom was built to be direct. We were building against the channel as our messaging was plug and play, it was a service that didn’t require management. “Likewise, resellers aren’t interested in just selling and just getting a referral fee, they want to provide value and service around our platform to drive ultimate value. So that was the messaging around our video platform. But if you now look at telephony and
Joe McStravick Head of Channel & Strategic Alliances, EMEA
www.zoom.us
41640
Powered by FlippingBook