Images: Avant Special Forces Wrap — Up-Market Growth, Microsoft Opportunity
Enterprises are more and more interested in doing business with agents.
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Wednesday started with a dynamic speech from speaker and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler, who shared crazy stories of running a 100-mile race, selling fractional jet ownership to Jennifer Lopez and living with Seal.
8×8 CEO David Sipes appeared on stage to talk about the UCaaS vendor’s channel play. Sipes said 85% percent of 8×8’s enterprise business has been channel-led.
“It’s a core element of success. I think of it as super-gravity. You have a gravity with your customers, and we have gravity with our software. It’s crucial for us to be joined at the hip,” Sipes said.
A group of security vendors came onstage to discuss trends with Drew Lydecker. Lydecker encouraged partners to move away from conversations that focus on scaring the customer into buying security.
“It really isn’t about scaring. Because that’s not cool to the CISO. The CISO has moved up to the C-Suite. They are no longer sitting on the bench with the CIO and CTO … They want to hear about things that they don’t know,” Lydecker said.
Steve Baer, Trustwave‘s vice president of systems engineering, agreed.
“It’s not about fear. It’s about educating the customer about the business of cybercrime,” Baer said.
Nord Security recently launched a partnership with Avant as it moves into the agent channel. The company tapped David Nuti, formerly channel chief at Open Systems, as its senior vice president of North America. Nuti said he evaluated the opportunity at Nord based on the opportunities it made available to agents.
Moreover, he said partners will easily integrate Nord’s solutions in to their portfolios.
“If they’re familiar with UCaaS, and I know that they are, then they should already be familiar with the sales motion when it comes to Nord Security,” Nuti said.
Attendees gathered in the lobby outside the keynote rooms in between sessions. Approximately 850 attended the events in-person, and as many as 900 attended the virtual version.
Zoom CRO Ryan Azus appeared virtually on stage for an interview with Kieninger. Azus detailed a host of changes Zoom has made to make the partner experience more flexible. That includes introducing spiffs for Zoom Phone and changing the commissions schedule. He also said Zoom has worked to grow its partner personnel.
“For Zoom, channel isn’t part of the future. It is the future. We don’t have the resources to do a direct-only model,” Azus said.
Panelists from Equinix, Evolve IP, Expedient, Ntirety and RapidScale talked about the opportunites facing partners in colocation and cloud.
Colo was Avant’s third highest source of revenue in 2020.
D.R. Carlson, senior manager of global channel messaging at Equinix, talked about how COVID-19 changed the meaning “digital transformation.”
“Pre-pandemic, everyone in meetings would say, ‘I think that term’s overused.’ I think people mistake digital novelty – increased performance and reduced costs – for digital transformation. Then the pandemic hit, and everyone said, ‘Oh, that’s what you meant by digital transformation,'” he said.
Shane McNamara, Avant’s executive vice president of engineering and operations, talked about how Avant has regionalized its support system for partners.
Avant honored members of its Pinnacle loyalty program.
Kieninger shared data about how Avant’s technology portfolio is evolving in terms of revenue. Last year, UCaaS took over connectivity as its top revenue stream.
“I still want your telco business. Bring it on; we can do that. But I’m really excited that we’re selling advanced services,” he said.
Avant gave its first recognition to $1 million partners.
Kieninger said many of those partners reached the milestone in previous years and that some will be eligible for the $5 million club next year.
Avant hosted a silent auction in honor of the Xposure Business Diversity Council.
Xposure has made huge strides in opening up mentorship opportunities and diversity education resources for people and companies in the channel.
Partners gathered at Bangers in Austin for a night of networking, mechanical bullriding, music and sausages.
If you’ve seen an Applebee’s commercial, you’ve heard Walker Hayes’ single “Fancy Like.” The country/pop star and his band gave a rousing performance of his songs to the Special Forces audience.
Attendees partied long into the night. For many, it was their first time in two years attending a live event.
Attendees partied long into the night. For many, it was their first time in two years attending a live event.
Channel partners are landing a larger and larger piece of the enterprise pie.
So says Avant co-founder and CEO Ian Kieninger, who encouraged agents and VARs to move up market. In 2019, 23% of Avant’s top 50 agents had sold a deal to a $1 billion company. This year, 45% of the top 50 have sold to a $1 billion company.
“There’s an absolute trend that larger customers are now willing to buy from and work with smaller, laser-focused trusted advisers,” Kieninger told Channel Futures. “As we continue to move forward in the evolution of this channel and the evolution of technology, we’re seeing that our trusted advisers are getting engaged in larger deals than they ever have been.”
Avant’s Ian Kieninger
And a new customer demographic may lead to a different engagement model. For example, Kieninger said partners should consider charging for their time. That’s due to a couple of reasons. One is the increased risks that come with selling to larger customers.
“There’s more time being spent working on deals [and more] investment of resources. And if those deals don’t come to fruition, it could be a long time for the next one to come around, or to get paid,” he said.
In addition, charging for time helps brokers earn upfront cash flow as they build residual revenue. Kieninger also said enterprise buyers will appreciate partners charging for their time. It shows the customer that the partner is motivate to maintain a relationship beyond a one-time transaction.
“I think the enterprise account absolutely wants to see that,” Kieninger said. “Small business maybe not so much, but as you go up market there’s an expectation that you need to put a value on your time so they put a value on you as well.”
The Microsoft Question
Kieninger and fellow Avant executives frequently asked vendor keynote speakers and panelists about how they are dealing with Microsoft. Evolve IP, 8×8 and Zoom, in particular, fielded questions about whether they will partner or compete against Microsoft.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘Wow, they’re so large, and they’re everywhere, and everybody has some version of their software. Do they have an advantage to go own the UCaaS space?’ I probed that question to the UCaaS providers to see if they’re afraid of that. The audience wants to know too, because if it all went in that direction, [the UCaaS opportunities] would dry up, because there could be a monopoly,” Kieninger told Channel Futures.
However, Kieninger noted that Microsoft specializes in software, not services
“Companies like Evolve IP, RingCentral and 8×8 are all plugging into their platform and providing an enterprise end-user customer experience that Microsoft’s not doing at this time,” he said. “That gives them a window of opportunity to go capitalize where Microsoft’s not focusing.”
Opkalla’s Jim Campbell
Jim Campbell, founder and managing partner of Opkalla, said his firm has aligned with Microsoft. Opkalla is a Microsoft gold CSP that supports about 60,000 Microsoft licenses.
“It’s part of our business and will continue to be, because Microsoft’s not going anywhere,” Campbell told Channel Futures.
In addition, Opkalla teams with Avant vendors that integrate with Teams. As a result, Microsoft represents an opportunity – not a threat – for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm.
“When we talk about COVID-19 and moving people to cloud telephony, Microsoft Teams has been our largest area of cloud communications. I’d say two out of three customers wanted to talk about Teams since they had such a large Microsoft investment,” Campbell said.
See pictures of the final day at Avant Special Forces Summit in the gallery above.
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