INTERVIEW: ZOOM
we have started to do now is take Powered By Zoom offerings out into the market for those partners that want to build their own offerings around the Zoom platform.” Growing pains I’m sure you’ll have picked up that the theme of my conversation with Dion was around how Zoom is maturing. In the short lifetime of the video conferencing provider, they managed to break the $1 billion revenue mark within a decade of inception, and have continued to grow from there. But, as with all teenagers, there have been growing pains along the way. A simple example of that is, although the brand was synonymous with parties and quizzes throughout 2020, a year later the brand was fighting fatigue; in more ways than one. With the appointment of Smith, there is a recognition that the channel represents the best path to growth over the next decade, something they might have done well to pick up on when the businesses first told them that in 2014! “I’ve been in the industry now just shy of 30 years,” said Smith, “I started back with Hewlett Packard in the mid 90s and, to be candid, my focus over the last 30 years has been around building channels, building ecosystems. “During that time, I’ve been involved in every specialism on those partner journeys. I’ve been involved in partner ecosystems for some of the world’s largest technology companies, whether that’s building distribution, reseller, GSI, or specialist channels, on a country, regional, or worldwide scale” Getting to 100 Applying that experience to Zoom, the tiered partner programme in place is being used as a foundation for the future growth of the company. Addressing the future, Smith pointed to Zoom IQ as a clear indicator as to where the next wave of innovation in the industry is coming from. Adding functionality like speech analytics into the platform has naturally opened up markets in customer service, and has made Zoom Phone a more appealing solution. “Zoom IQ is where we are really now moving completely into AI around the platform,” said Smith. “Analysing speech, analysing content, analysing calls, providing readouts,
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and coaching to individuals based on the content of what that call was. “Now were knitting that together so, as a salesperson, I could be doing a sales call and at the end of that call I would get an automated feedback from the platform dictating what was said, pointing out where there were buying signals, and the next steps to progress to the next stage of the sale.” As for Zoom, the target is simple: grow the channel. “I came into the company with a very clear mandate: to pivot the organisation to be channel first,” said Smith, “and a lot of what we’ve been doing over these last 12 months is building the foundations of what we need to be able to achieve that mandate. “If I reflect on the last 12 months, I’m excited that we have doubled the channel contribution that we were making in one year. When I joined, only around 18% of total sales in EMEA were contributed by our channel, as we just exited our last financial year, we’re now at 40%. “There are some countries within EMEA where we’re already greater than 80% channel contribution. Those are countries that we’ve already placed bets in, if you like, that we want to be channel-led only from a futures perspective. “The goal is very clear. Inside the next three years, Zoom’s total sales from EMEA will have a greater than 80% channel contribution. But in order for us to achieve that, we need to continue on the path we’ve started, continue to mature that ecosystem, continue to build out that capability, and to make sure these products are all available for our channel to be able to sell.”
Zoom IQ is where we are really now moving completely into AI around the platform
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