INTERVIEW Adam Wilson - Vonage
“Without the ‘why’ and the ‘win’ there will never be a sale and commission payment!”
Adam Wilson, Regional Channel Manager - Vonage
Channel Update
In this interview Adam Wilson, Regional Channel Manager at Vonage, gave Comms Business an update on
Vonage activities and shares his current view in a market which is preparing to combat the Coronavirus
Comms Business Magazine
(CBM): Can you update us
on the Vonage Channel
strategy?
Adam Wilson (AW): At Vonage,
we have a simple philosophy
for our partners in the Channel
– the success of their business
is instrumental to our growth.
We are committed to working
with our partners to put our
collective customers at the
heart of everything we do –
from the development of our
products and solutions to our
sales, support and marketing
frameworks. Owning our
own tech stack from uni ed
communications, contact
centres and a communications
platform as a service, we are
uniquely situated to enable our
partners deliver communication
solutions that help businesses
improve digital engagement
with their customers, and
in doing so, enhance both
customer and employee
experience to create greater
satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Vonage is uniquely positioned
to enable partners in helping
their business customers
succeed in an increasingly
customer experience driven
economy.
CBM: Are you seeing any
impact as a result of the
Coronavirus?
AW: We have seen increased
interest and sales activity for
our products and solutions,
especially our UCaaS o ering,
Vonage Business Cloud (VBC).
While a natural disaster
may expedite the shift to
widespread remote work, the
movement toward a more
distributed workforce has been
growing organically for some
time. Research suggests that
remote work is e ective and
that workers can even be more
productive at home. Rather
than try to stop this inevitable
shift in the way we work,
business leaders can instead
embrace our ability to bring the
o ce anywhere. To help them
prepare for this new paradigm,
they can turn to technologies
that speci cally allow for
productive, e cient, and easy
remote work that can be a pillar
of business continuity.
We are well equipped to
keep our own business running
smoothly while we do the
same for our customers. We’ve
reached out to customers to
provide guidance on how they
can quickly and easily set up
a remote workforce to ensure
business continuity. By helping
them to best leverage their
Vonage service, our hope is that
they will be armed and ready
for their o ce to be anywhere
- even if only for a short period
of time.
CBM: What are we likely to
see from Vonage this year?
AW: Change is part of our
DNA. Our original business
brought the power of VoiP
to the familiar phones of
families and small businesses.
Since then we’ve built the
world’s most exible cloud
communications platform
for businesses, to help our
customers stay ahead. We
provide Communications
APIs, Contact Centres, and
Uni ed Communications.
We’re uniquely exible in how
you access our capabilities.
Customers can take their pick
of proven applications, all
ready to go or select from our
extensive portfolio of APIs to
create their own applications
and integrations. Or get the
best of both: choose the apps
they need and customise them
with our APIs.
is exibility can help
them in many ways. Hold
great conversations across the
channels of their choice. Create
new, personalised experiences
for customers and employees.
And unlock the power of
data and AI as never before
– making any conversation,
anywhere, more successful. All
through one uni ed cloudbased
platform, so they can
scale and ex securely and
reliably, with just one partner.
No one else can do this. We’re
reinventing communications
once again.
CBM: How are you
helping Channel
Partners win more
business?
AW: In the main
this comes down
to providing
an intimate
approach
to channel
development
and business
development with
our partners. Being
close to the channel
partners and
being
able
to
provide timely responses
when they have clients
engaged, providing clear value
propositions and di erentiators,
along with transparency in
terms of how and why we win
is more important than the
channel incentives on o er.
Without the ‘why’ and the
‘win’ there will never be a sale
and commission payment!
As mentioned previously in
this interview, the success
of the partner’s business is
instrumental to Vonage’s
growth. Incentivising our
sales teams to win with the
channel means our sales people
are glued to the partner (in
the best of ways!) ensuring
they receive the right support
during the sales cycle;
understanding the
business drivers,
how to engage
with di erent
lines of business
stakeholders and
how to counter
resistance. is
is particularly
useful if the
partner has
sold UCaaS for
example but not
CCaaS or APIs.
Adam Wilson, Regional Channel Manager at Vonage
46 | Comms Business Magazine | April 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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