CoreDial Max Allows Partners to Sell CoreNexa for Commissions

CoreDial has launched a new program for partners who want to sell CoreNexa without being responsible for back-office processes.

CoreDial Max complements CoreDial’s private-label partner program. That program includes more than 850 MSP and channel partners across North America and around the globe. .

With CoreDial Max, CoreDial partners can tap into the company’s business model without registering as a provider with regulatory entities. They also don’t perform day-to-day administrative tasks such as invoicing, collection, taxation and remittance (ICTR).

With CoreDial Max, partners can sell all or some of the CoreDial’s CoreNexa UCaaS and CCaaS portfolio. That includes voice, video, collaboration and contact center solutions.

CoreDial partners can earn commissions near or more than double what competing agent programs offer. And that’s without doing any more work than required by alternative agent programs. In addition, CoreDial Max partners maintain ownership of their customer relationships and standards of service.

CoreDial Max also offers a device as a service (DaaS) program. Partners can bundle hardware products into their cloud communications offering. The DaaS program includes brands such as Cisco, Poly, Grandstream, Yealink and others.

CoreDial’s Alan Rihm

In a Q&A with Channel Futures, Alan Rihm, CoreDial’s CEO, provides more details about the program. He also talks about his company’s evolving channel strategy.

Channel Futures: Did partner input come into play when formulating CoreDial Max?

Alan Rihm: Generally the best and easiest way for us to create our programs or roadmap items is to listen to the partners, whether they’ve already joined our program or we listen to them during the sales process. The feedback has been hey, we love the program, we’d love to do this, but we don’t want to do those other things. We don’t want to be the billing entity. We don’t want to become regulated. Historically, the way most other companies deal with those types of prospects or channel partners is they make them agents and they pay them a commission, and the relationship is convenient right up until the point where it’s not convenient.

With us, we are all in on the channel. Our program is extremely margin rich for the channel. They make as much as 50% to 65% gross profit margin on our services. So these CoreDial Max partners will make a little bit less, but a lot more than they would if they were just an agent. The feedback was we want to join the program, but we don’t want to do those things. So we adjusted and launched a program where we take on those responsibilities.

CF: To clarify, this isn’t for agents and it’s not an agent program?

AR: It’s not an agent program. It’s for companies who want to go quote to cash. They are the trusted advisor, they want to solution the deal and they want to propose the deal. They want to implement it. And they want to support the customers, but they want our assistance with billing, tax and regulatory requirements. And then sometimes, they might want to lean on us to make sure that they’re solutioning the deal appropriately. So we’ll have a deal desk that they can call and talk to a subject matter expert who can help make sure they’re proposing the best solution possible.

CF: Is CoreDial Max geared toward specific partner types?

AR: CoreDial Max now includes MSPs, VARs, IT solution providers and office equipment resellers. It’s all that same profile of channel partners.

CF: Is CoreDial Max in response to any trends taking place in UCaaS and CCaaS?

AR: The COVID-19 outbreak and the pandemic over the last year and a half plus has really elevated the need for remote working capabilities, and UCaaS and CCaaS capabilities, and then, of course, video collaboration. We acquired a company last year, eZuce, to get deeper into video collaboration. We recently announced CoreNexa 7.0, which has voice, video, messaging, collaboration, all those capabilities via desktop app, a browser companion app and a mobile app. Because there’s so much demand for the services out there, we thought this is an ideal time for us to expand the definition of a channel partner for us and really engage in an area where we generally would qualify them out of our…

…program. So now we qualify them into our program. And we’re really excited about getting more of our services to more customers through a broader audience of channel partners.

CF: Does CoreDial Max signal a shift or evolution in CoreDial’s overall channel strategy?

AR: Definitely there’s a shift. There’s always been a solid division of labor, our role and responsibility in the sale and the channel partners role and responsibility in the sale. So our program since our existence has been about the channel partner taking a sale from quote to cash without even having to call us. So we’ve invested heavily in our CoreNexa automation manager, which is our web application that allows partners to go from quote to cash without calling us.

But now we feel prepared to do more for the channel, to be able to offer our assistance with well over 425,000 seats and well over 32,000 businesses on the platform, and customers and partners in virtually every state throughout the United States. We feel like we’ve got tremendous experience that we can bring to the table. All the tax automation stuff is fully integrated with our platform. And we feel very capable of helping with all the regulatory stuff.

CF: What kinds of challenges and opportunities are CoreDial and its partners facing with the new normal and hybrid workforce that’s here to stay?

AR: There’s so many challenges that we all face. First and foremost is making sure everybody’s happy and healthy and, you know, COVID-19 free and all of that, getting their vaccines if they’re comfortable with that. But obviously we believe they should.

I think that there’s a number of over-the-top providers that would prefer to just deal directly with the customer. And they’ll disintermediate the channel. So we’re here to help make sure that doesn’t happen. We’re arming the channel with the proper capabilities so they can kind of box out the competition, deliver the value to the customer and really keep some of those over-the-top providers out of that customer’s environment. And then the other thing is with the ever-changing tax and regulatory things that come up, it sometimes can be daunting for the smaller partners or partners who just don’t want to take that on. So that’s where we think we can help in both those situations.