RingCentral’s Long: Customers Demand Partners Provide UCaaS

Hundreds of partners are coming to RingCentral every month looking to make the switch from on premises, to the cloud and unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

That’s according to Zane Long, RingCentral’s senior vice president of global channel sales. During this month’s Channel Partners Evolution in Philadelphia, he spoke with Channel Partners about his company’s partner recruitment efforts.

RingCentral unifies voice, video, team messaging and collaboration, conferencing, online meetings and integrated contact-center offerings.

RingCentral has partnered with AGC Networks, a global technology integrator, to bring cloud services to enterprises globally. AGC has more than 3,000 customers, including Fortune 500 companies in nine countries.

RingCentral’s Zane Long

“As trusted advisers to our customers, we’re committed to identifying the best-in-technology solutions to help them drive greater business outcomes,” said Scott Davis, AGC’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “RingCentral’s cloud communications and collaboration solutions enable enterprises to keep their workforces more connected, driving optimal productivity and deeper engagement.”

RingCentral works with distributors, master agents, channel partners and carrier partners to deliver cloud communications to businesses globally.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Long gives an update on the growth of RingCentral’s channel business and how more partners are coming to his company looking for help in transitioning their customers to UCaaS.

Channel Partners: What sort of channel growth has RingCentral been experiencing this year?

Zane Long: The growth has been extraordinary. In our [second quarter] earnings call, we talked about [how] the channel business grew over 100 percent year over year. That is extraordinary in any industry, but clearly here at RingCentral … and what’s happening in the UCaaS market, it’s giving us an opportunity to see those kinds of results. Of course, obviously the partner contribution that we have in our partner community also has been extraordinary in helping us achieve those kind of numbers and that growth. Quite frankly without the partner contribution, we simply would not have this kind of growth.

CP: What’s driving that growth? Does it have to do with how hot UCaaS is?

ZL: UCaaS is growing at roughly 40 percent year over year and I think [that percentage] might continue to climb as more customers become aware of UCaaS and the benefits they can receive from purchasing UCaaS …  There’s a value proposition that everybody looks at as a customer, and in UCaaS, there’s typically a 30-40 percent savings, but there [are] also …