Channel Partners Key to Ambitious European Expansion, Says Five9

Five9 said channel partners are integral to hitting its target of $1 million+ customer wins in Europe in 2023.

The contact center specialist is undertaking a push across the region. This includes a rapid scaling up of staff and opening a new European Research and Development Hub in Porto, Portugal. This is to provide the scale needed for Five9’s growing international footprint, said the firm’s vice president EMEA channel, Thomas John.

Five9's Thomas John

“The office will serve as our European engineering headquarters, with work spanning artificial intelligence, software engineering, and cloud operations. Currently, it hosts more than 100 new and existing employees, and we plan to expand it to 300 employees within the next few years.”

Porto is a well-connected technology hub with a large base of engineering talent, said John. “When we looked at options for our EMEA engineering headquarters, Porto was the clear choice,” he said.

Additionally, in May Five9 announced the expansion of two data centers in Amsterdam and Frankfurt. This is to provide greater availability for customers in Europe, as well as comply with local regulatory requirements.

“We believe this investment in local infrastructure will enable Five9 to support increasing demand from our global enterprise customers,” said John.

In 2022, 89% of Five9’s sales went through channel partners. It then introduced an incentive program for its sales team that encourages them to sell through EMEA partners. As such, 93% of all deals in EMEA are now influenced by a channel partner, said John. For example, Five9 offers up to 40% commission incentive to its field sales when passing on a lead and working with a partner in specific a program who is CNP, CIMP certified.

Channel Partner Opportunity: AI Within the Call Center

In terms of channel partner opportunity, conversations with partners over the past six months have, unsurprisingly, been dominated by talk of ChatGPT’s role within CCaaS, said John.

“While generative AI offers immense value for contact centres in terms of automating high-volume and low-value calls and tasks, we’re working closely with our partner network to provide consultancy to end-user organisations on the value of such investments,” he explained.

“From our perspective, there’s no need for companies to reinvent the wheel by harnessing standalone AI solutions on top of their current tech investments. Instead, there is an opportunity in the second half of 2023 for CCaaS service providers to educate their customers on the innovative CX solutions that already have advanced AI embedded within them.”