Zoom Rolls Out New Channel Partner Program

Conferencing and collaboration giant Zoom, as promised, has formally launched a new program dubbed the "Zoom Up 2.0 Partner Program."

Set to roll out this month, the effort will happen gradually throughout the year. Zoom has a new channel leader to run it as well — Mark Jenkins.

Jenkins follows former Zoom leader Todd Surdey, who was head of global channels and business development. Surdey has since landed as vice president of North American sales with cybersecurity business CrowdStrike. 

Zoom's Mark Jenkins

Jenkins, a Palo Alto Networks alum, has been with Zoom for more than a year, one time acting as head of strategic alliances and chair of systems-integration partners for the unified communications and collaboration company.

Zoom Channel to Target Existing Markets

Jenkins calls the Zoom channel program launch "the next step in the evolution of Zoom." 

As the company looks to engage more partner types and rebrand itself as a "larger platform company," Jenkins said there are now "more addressable markets" for partners to go after. Zoom's contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) offering, he says, is giving its competitors a run for their money, and partners more potential earning power.

A full two years have passed since Zoom launched the CCaaS tool. Jenkins says more than one-half of the company's CCaaS deals come from channel sales.  

With new reseller rebates slated to become a part of Zoom's partner enticement play, Jenkins told Channel Futures that the company wants partners to extend their services and support contracts under the new Zoom channel program.

All in all, Zoom wants to move away from the one-time revenue model and head toward a model Jenkins said would enable higher profit margins, and more importantly, recurring revenue prospects. 

"In a SaaS model, the ability to earn additional revenue beyond transactional license selling is where we're going," Jenkins said.

And toward the latter half of the year, Jenkins said Zoom will dip its toes into the managed services market for partners, another way the company wants to shift more revenue to the channel.

Zoom Channel 2024 and Beyond

Moving toward a channel-first mindset, Jenkins said Zoom is aligning its resources to ensure the channel comes first, demonstrating the firm is increasingly serious about the channel.

With a renewed channel-first mindset, Jenkins said, over 50% of the top 100 deals the company closed during the first half of the fiscal year 2024 were partner-driven. 

The same quantity of effort is going into total cost of ownership (TCO), with a push for MSPs to grab more considerable profits with new and existing Zoom customers. 

Platform consolidation and IT are too "big focuses" for Zoom this year and beyond, Jenkins remarked, noting that contemporary partner portals are likewise slated for release this year.

With a keen eye on vertical markets, hiring "the right" talent, and alignment, Jenkins said scale and automation are increasingly vital to Zoom.

"We want to make it easier for partners to deal with quoting and listening," he said.