https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
    • MSP 501 Information Center
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
    • MSP 501 Information Center
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

Vertical Markets


Shutterstock

Q&A

RingCentral’s New CRO to Drive Channel ‘Enablement and Readiness’

  • Written by Jeff Schwartz
  • May 22, 2020
Phil Sorgen, the former Microsoft exec, is excited for "a lot of growth opportunities" in UCaaS.

RingCentral earlier this month named former Microsoft channel chief Phil Sorgen as its chief revenue officer.

In addition to leading Microsoft’s worldwide partner program, Sorgen held various management roles during two decades at the company. At Microsoft, he led its SMB organization, U.S. commercial enterprise business, and was president of Microsoft Canada.

RingCentral's Phil Sorgen

RingCentral’s Phil Sorgen

Channel Partners interviewed Sorgen last week about why he UCaaS provider joined RingCentral. Here is an edited (for clarity) excerpt.

Channel Partners: What made you decide to leave Microsoft after 24 years to join RingCentral?

Phil Sorgen: If I was going to leave [Microsoft], it would be to join an organization that is innovative at the core. One that constantly pushes the envelope in its pipeline to be incredibly strong in its market, but also with a vision for the future. It had to have a product at the center of how companies are digitally transforming as a first-party creator of cloud-oriented products. I was interested in an opportunity to build plans and go-to-market approaches that take the best of [different] scale models, grounded on a very strong channel ecosystem. RingCentral clearly checked all of those boxes.

CP: Do you have an example of how their offerings enable digital transformation?

Phil Sorgen: UCaaS, as an example, is at an early stage of a rapidly growing opportunity. Now, some of that has been accelerated by this horrible place the world finds itself in [COVID-19]. But it’s actually an early stage market. I was very excited about the fact that RingCentral is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant in that upper right position. But it’s also a market that has a lot of growth opportunities. Every company is trying to be more collaborative, more connected, more mobile and more data-driven. And RingCentral products are at the sweet spot of that.”

We recently compiled a list of 20 top UCaaS providers offering products and services via channel partners.

CP: What are your thoughts about coming from a company that had a very wide and broad product portfolio, to one that has a more narrowly focused set of offerings?

PS: Actually, the way I view it is slightly different, because the breadth of our offering, which I’ll call capabilities, may be more narrow. But what isn’t different is with every customer, you have to start with the business outcomes they’re trying to accomplish. Then you can learn how they measure success against those outcomes, understand the business drivers and apply the capabilities. When you think of the business outcomes that companies are trying to achieve, especially in terms of digital transformation, there are more narrow set plays in many of the customers scenarios.

So I always try to orient around the customer first. Now sometimes, obviously, in the scale part of the business, you’re doing it through more marketing and broader outreach. And on the enterprise side, you’re doing it more through a direct engagement with the customer. But the bottom line is, our ability to solve the business outcomes that companies are trying to achieve against digital transformation, is really comprehensive. I don’t look at that part as narrow.

CP: As you know, the telephony industry has a different kind of partner model. How would you describe the nuances?

PS: There’s certainly a fair amount of overlap in the partner ecosystem. So, the channel that I knew really well for many years, there’s a group of channels that if you drew the concentric circles, would overlap. As the capabilities around meetings, video and phone converge; you start embracing an open platform. And then you start thinking about some of the vertical applications. And then you start thinking about ISVs that play a role in that and how they extend your platform. All of a sudden, the concentric circles of partners just keep growing even more. I think that will be a big component of our growth in the overall ecosystem over time.

CP: What is your plan in terms of bolstering the partner ecosystem at RingCentral?

PS: I will continue to drive …

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
Tags: Agents Cloud Mobility & Wireless Telephony/UC/Collaboration Vertical Markets

Most Recent


  • Making Waves
    7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Datto, New Relic, Kyndryl, More
    Our No.1 story was a video segment highlighting IBM.
  • Fireworks
    Cybersecurity Experts: July 4th Weekend Ripe for Ransomware, Other Attacks
    Russia definitely has motivation to exploit the July 4th holiday in some way.
  • Unemployed, laid off
    Qumulo Confirms Layoffs, Citing Economic Conditions, Reaching Profitability
    Qumulo has raised $351 million in funding at a valuation of more than $1.2 billion.
  • how to make embracing change part of your company culture
    How to Make Embracing Change Part of Your Company Culture
    When we anticipate, understand, model, and celebrate change in company culture, we create a foundation that opens doors and sets us up for growth and success.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Conflict Boxing Gloves
    Channel Conflict, Controversy: SolarWinds Hack, Racism, Layoffs, Zoom-RingCentral
  • PlanetOne Gainey Golf Event Feature
    PlanetOne Golf Event: In-Person Channel Networking Makes Big Comeback
  • Deep Learning, AI
    From T1s to 'Human Experience': TBI's Bryan Reynolds Is Witnessing a Channel Revolution
  • Lawsuit
    FTC Lawsuit: Frontier Communications Misled Customers About DSL Speeds

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Galleries

View all

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Datto, New Relic, Kyndryl, More

July 1, 2022

Cybersecurity Experts: July 4th Weekend Ripe for Ransomware, Other Attacks

July 1, 2022

Images: HPE Discover 2022 Expo Hall Featuring Microsoft, Ingram Micro, VMware

July 1, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

How to Make Embracing Change Part of Your Company Culture

July 1, 2022

How to Differentiate to Leverage 5G’s Revenue Opportunity

June 28, 2022

Why MSPs are Attractive Cyberattack Targets

June 24, 2022

Webinars

View all

VEP Platform for Delivery of uCPE, SD-WAN and SASE

June 29, 2022

The Digital Worker: How to Empower Customers with a Flexible, Scalable VDI Solution to Enable Remote Work

June 30, 2022

Growing Partner Revenue and Customer Satisfaction with Power Management Services

June 23, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

Vonage a ‘Single Communications Stack Provider’ for Partners, Customers

IBM, Partners and the $1 Trillion Hybrid Cloud Opportunity

June 26, 2022

Agents Share ‘Secrets,’ Industry Opportunity

May 11, 2022

AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, ThreatLocker on Unlocking Partner Potential

May 6, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Channel people making waves this week include: @jpdepa3rd, @RiyaShanmugam, @sandyhogan dlvr.it/STCM6S https://t.co/oVB86ztTtP

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

#Cybersecurity experts say July 4th weekend ripe for #ransomware, other attacks. @blumirasec @Netenrich @Vectra_AI… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

New @PureStorage #ITchannel leader details jump from Veritas. dlvr.it/STBsLB https://t.co/BFSmZ5ubff

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

New Pure Storage EMEA Channel Leader Details Jump from Veritas dlvr.it/STBrPQ https://t.co/LjFXo6FbVF

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@qumulo latest channel business to confirm layoffs impacting 80 workers. #storage dlvr.it/STBh1L https://t.co/hE10wBA3ka

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

Ranking on the #MSP501 isn't just an industry accolade... it brings pride to each company and their team. Congratu… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

Company culture is ever changing in today's society - here are ways to embrace that change with @coxbusiness… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

July 1, 2022
ChannelFutures

#HPEDiscover expo hall images. Featuring @IngramMicroInc @msPartner @Veeam @Commvault and more.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

July 1, 2022

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X