Image Gallery: PlanetOne Tech Tour Year End Event — 8×8, ACC Business Win Big
Conference season came to a close last week for PlanetOne Communications.
PlanetOne hosted the Year-End Event for its Tech Tour Nov. 5-6 in Scottsdale, Arizona. The master agent dropped by seven cities during its 2019 Tech Tour to meet with partners and suppliers.
Attendees came to the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa to listen to several influential speakers, including a four-star general and PlanetOne Founder and CEO Ted Schuman. A quartet of vendor speakers spoke about the massive growth of UCaaS and CCaaS.
“Those are big, big deals, and they’re sticky. It’s just been a great opportunity for all the channel partners in the room,” Schuman said. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been sending out these checks, and some guys are cashing some monster checks because of those UCaaS and hosted opportunities.”
Read our recap from the event and check out the gallery below that Marie Rourke helped us assemble.
Attendees hit the links Tuesday afternoon. The Westin Kierland Golf Club features 27 holes and a beautiful sampling of the Arizona landscape.
(Photo courtesy of Marie Rourke)
PlanetOne partners, employees and suppliers started Wednesday with a morning meal in the expo hall.
Stanley McChrystal (left), a retired four-star general of the U.S. army, spoke to the audience about how flexible leadership and technology led to the death of the famous terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Ted Schuman interviewed him about his time in the military and career advice.
RingCentral (left), T-Mobile (center) and Mitel (right) hosted booths at the show. All three companies are members of PlanetOne's preferred provider program.
Schuman moderated a panel with Mitel's Daniel Farrar, RingCentral's Zane Long and Masergy's James Parker. Everyone on stage agreed that the unified communications as-a-service market is extremely hot and still wide open for the taking.
"UCaaS is a $75 billion global market. It's about 9% penetrated. There's really no other market or product like that out there today," Long said. "My advice to the partner community is: Focus right now on the land-grab; if there was ever [an] opportunity to really cash in, this is the time to do it."
8x8 Channel Chief John DeLozier (second from left) and his team accepted PlanetOne's award for rookie provider of the year. The vendor and master agent announced their alliance last September. PlanetOne subagents sell the 8×8 X Series unified communications platform.
ACC Business Channel Manager Debbie Clavadetscher (center) accepts PlanetOne's Provider of the Year award. The master agent is a member of ACC's million-dollar club.
John DeLozier celebrated with Ted Schuman Wednesday night. DeLozier represented 8x8 on the main stage earlier in the day. He spoke about the increasing importance of creating a positive customer experience.
"We [customers] are not a forgiving crew. We call them, they don't take care of our problem,and chances are, there's 5,000 suppliers behind [them] waiting to take care of it," he said.
PlanetOne hosted a drawing for a Mercedes or $10,000 at its closing party Wednesday night. Mike Flippo, principal at CloudWest, won the award and took home the $10,000.
(Photo courtesy of Marie Rourke)
