RingCentral’s Zane Long

Zane Long
Senior Vice President Global Partner Sales
RingCentral

“We respect our partners’ reputation in their communities. They’ve worked tremendously hard to build a business from the ground up, so we make sure to always put their relationship with the customer first. It’s simply good business. Over time, with that respect comes rapport, which leads to trust. I’ve always been a fan of playing the long game, and the best partnerships are those that are built on a history of mutual success.”

Zane Long takes channel harmony seriously — so much so that RingCentral made it the centerpiece of its partner program. Long, who has served in leadership roles at Genband, Cbeyond and Level 3, oversees an organization that generates more than $500 million annually, making him one of the most influential channel leaders in the industry. The core of Zane’s channel strategy at the $1.5 billion UCaaS and CCaaS provider is to have partners and RingCentral’s internal sales force work collaboratively. “The partner (can) assume whatever size role they choose. All we ask is that they bring us qualified leads. We can take it from there, or the partner can consult throughout the sales process.” He is quick to point out that RingCentral’s strategic partnerships inked with Avaya, Atos, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and, most recently, Mitel give channel partners more paths to solutions for customers across a variety of platforms.