Ericsson Expands Channel Go-to-Market for Wireless Office

Ericsson is going to market with more than just traditional communication service providers (CSPs) under the leadership of Dan Foster, head of global sales for the company’s Wireless Office unit.

Foster previously was StratusWorX‘s chief revenue officer. He joined Ericsson when it acquired StratusWorx last summer.

In this role, he’s responsible for Wireless Office revenue overall, both domestically and internationally. That’s through all paths to market, leveraging both existing Ericsson channels and building new ones.

Ericsson’s Dan Foster

“I had spent the last several years rebuilding MegaPath after some divestitures, until it was acquired by Fusion Connect,” he said. “An opportunity presented itself to build a team at StratusWorX and take a compelling new cloud workspace technology to market. The channel was shifting to the cloud, so I leaned into it. One thing led to another, and Ericsson came along and picked up the team, technology and market direction we built.”

Ericsson says Wireless Office delivers “easy, secure access” to virtual desktops from any location, on any device and operating system.

Driving New Channels

Foster says Ericsson’s lineup of 5G, cloud and IoT services makes it ideal for expand into new channels.

“We are currently working with Ericsson partners both domestically and internationally. That includes ecosystem partners and their largest market presence, communication service providers (CSPs),” he said. “That said, we expect to drive new channels for rapid adoption of our products and services, enabling technology advisers, resellers and other cloud-first players to participate.”

Ericsson’s channel strategy is centered around CSPs, Foster said.

“However, with the addition of Wireless Office to its portfolio, they realized the need to expand the go-to-market approach with technology distributors, which led us to the master agents and other technology platform resellers like MSPs and ISVs,” he said. “If you look across the emerging technology businesses in Ericsson, we see IoT and other growth products leveraging various channels both domestically and across the globe. From the agent channel perspective, the good news is that it’s classic channel integration, enabling customers to buy how they want to buy, either through a CSP, a reseller or a trusted technology adviser.”

Previous Channel Experience

Foster’s experience over the last 20 years seems to suit him well for this job. He has built teams, managed channels and driven the convergence of new technology into established channels.

“This role leverages that understanding,” he said. “Working with partners – the large technology distributors, the actual sellers and various ecosystems – has equipped my team to bring depth of knowledge, co-selling and channel enablement as core competencies. Ericsson provides the team with a bigger venue to play this out both domestically and internationally. And most importantly, I’ve built teams in different channels over the years, and this is no different. So that’s short code for — we are hiring.”

This will be an exciting year for Ericsson in the channel, Foster said. The company is signing up channel partners to sell Wireless Office in North America. It’s also growing through its traditional CSP channel internationally.

“We have a very compelling solution that uniquely addresses a critical business need today’s businesses are facing,” he said. “And partners really get it, so we expect big things to come. We will take a multichannel model into the cloud space to enable partners to sell this solution and bundle with a broad range of products.”