PGi Invests More in Its Partner Channel

**Editor’s Note: Click here for a list of recent important channel-program changes you should know.**

PGi, the collaboration software and services provider, has made several internal changes to better support partners, and is focused on key business collaboration trends in the coming years.

Last week, PGi released its 2017 Future of Business Collaboration report, identifying five key trends, including: smart meetings, smart presentations, the Internet of things (IoT), intelligent workplace design and virtual reality.

In late 2015, Siris Capital Group completed its acquisition of PGi, taking the company from public to private. PGi’s unified communication and collaboration (UCC) services are used by about 50,000 customers globally.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Leo Tucker, PGi’s senior vice president of global marketing, talks about what carriers, resellers and agents can expect this year, and how smart-meetings technology will be added to its products in the coming years.

Channel Partners: Can you give an update on your channel partner program, changes, etc.?

Leo Tucker: PGi is investing heavily in our partner channel, particularly since we were taken private by Siris Capital. So in 2016, we started putting a bit more emphasis on the channel, but as we go into 2017, we’re really accelerating the emphasis on the investment that we’re putting into the channel.

On the carrier side specifically, we have named Kevin Moran as our senior vice president in charge of our carrier business. Ralph Hawkins, of course, has run our partner business for a long time and he is going to be focusing exclusively on resellers and agents, but we thought by having two senior-level leaders we would be able to give better coverage and better support to each of those important channels. So dedicated leadership is one example.{ad}

We also have hired a couple of longtime carrier salespeople and carrier experts in Europe to help us expand our ability to go after carriers. We do think that there’s significant growth opportunity outside of the United States, so we’re actually investing in additional salespeople and additional knowledge to make sure that we’re going after that carrier space more effectively. And on the agent side as well, we are really doubling down on our support to a couple of our most important agents initially as a pilot. What we’re doing is aligning some of our field sales folks with some of our key agents to provide better agent support than what they’ve had in the past.

CP: Did partner feedback play a role in these organizational changes taking place?

LT: Always. It wasn’t necessarily that we had negative feedback with what we were doing, but what we tried to do was chat with some of our key partners and make sure that they knew what we were doing. We solicited some feedback from them about how they would feel if we made some of these changes, particularly, as you can imagine, on the agent side, with some of the …

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… programmatic changes we were looking at there, to make sure there was an interest in that. So we have been walking arm in arm with our partners since we made some of these organizational moves.

CP: Of the five key trends identified in the report, which ones are most relevant to PGi?

LT: Smart meetings is the one that I have the most to say about given our business. PGi has been looking into this concept of smart meetings … for several years in the sense that we have a strong belief that the technologies that we use for meetings can be used in a way that makes us as people more effective, and automation – particularly of some of the more routine tasks associated with a meeting – before, during and after a meeting.

Some of the things we believe quite strongly are that we can evolve technology to the point where things like sending out invitations, finding the right time to meet, [and] making sure everyone has an agenda in advance, are things that you might be able to automate. Think for a second about how long it might take and how many times you might go back and forth just trying to find a time to meet. So by automating that, we can save folks quite a bit of time. So that’s an example of before the meeting. During the meeting … we believe there’s an opportunity to advance beyond transcription to look at much more specific topics. For instance, what are the key action items, what are the key takeaways, who owns those. For those people who weren’t in the meeting, for instance, let’s identify who’s not there and then we can talk about what we do with the post-meeting pieces. But there [are] some things that happen during the meeting that we believe can be automated. It takes the burden away from the person and shifts it onto the technology. If you think about it in terms of business benefit, it means the attendees have been able to focus all of their time and energies on trying to drive the benefit that the meeting was called to provide, as opposed to taking notes, for example.{ad}

Virtual reality in the workplace — this one is really interesting, specifically how you might use virtual reality in the context of collaboration and meetings … (also) HR and training. So think about how one might train, whether it’s employees or even customers on how to use products in a more effective and efficient way by actually immersing them in the product experience. That’s probably the most obvious.

Near and dear to my heart as the head of marketing at PGi is the ability to engage others from far away to get feedback, whether it’s product feedback, website feedback, feedback on a particular positioning concept or whatever it may be. So using virtual reality to pull together a virtual focus group.

CP: With these trends in mind, are changes taking place in PGi’s channel and business strategies?

LT: Our view on this at the highest level – and this cuts across our channel piece and our direct piece – is that we need to make sure that we understand what our IT buyer is thinking about, and not just what that IT buyer is thinking about today, but what that IT buyer might be thinking about tomorrow and the next day. And so we feel like our role here when we start talking about our channel is to make sure that our channel partners are …

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… as educated as they can be about the buyers who might ultimately consume their products, or our products sold through them. So as an example, this future of business collaboration piece, this isn’t about taking any immediate action. It is about making sure that our channel partners have a copy of the way we’re thinking about this, and then as we evolve our own plans from a product perspective, continuing to communicate and educate them so they can be more effective at selling to their end customer.

From a perspective of entering it into our technologies, we have been working within our web conferencing products – specifically on the foundational elements for several of these – such as more advanced capabilities around note taking, as an example. It’s not automated yet, so I don’t want to imply that we’ve covered things that are here, but by thinking about what would make a meeting smarter in the context of technologies that we have today, it lays a groundwork both for technology improvements in the future, as well as ensures that we continue thinking about it. It stays top of mind.

As we look into road maps in subsequent years, you will start to see these things appear on our road maps. Not all of them; certainly we can’t do it all at once, but you’ll start to see smart meetings in coming quarters and years because it’s been a focus for several years and will continue to be.{ad}

CP: With the competitive landscape, is there a race to see who can meet these key trends first?

LT: I think realistically that all competitors are looking to some of these same trends. So we certainly don’t think that we have a monopoly on thinking about this. I don’t know if I would characterize it as a race, perhaps. Obviously I’m not sitting in on their strategy sessions so I can’t comment on it to a great degree. But what I would tell you is PGi’s perspective is less about being first to market with something that may or may not add value. We would prefer to make sure that we take the time to do this right and ensure that whatever we put into our products in the future with respect to these technologies is actually driving productivity for the individual at the end of the day. And whether we get there first, or second or third, and learn from the people who stubbed their toe getting there first, I couldn’t tell you, but I will tell you that I don’t see us trying to be in a race. I see us as trying to get it right in whatever amount of time that takes.    

CP: What’s the year ahead look like for PGi and its partners?

LT: In my mind, in the several years that I’ve been here, this shapes up to be perhaps the most exciting year in the channel for a long time. And the reason I would say that is, whether you’re a carrier partner of PGi or reseller partner, or agent partner, or some type of partner that we haven’t worked with in the past, the level of support and attention, and forward thinking that you’re going to get from this company this year is beyond what you’ve ever gotten in the past. And so I think just at the highest level, technology trends aside, that it’s an exceptionally exciting year for PGi partners.

Getting back to the future of business collaboration trends, I do think as we continue to look at smart meetings … as we do things that make meetings more productive, regardless if it’s all automated or not at the outset, I think you’ll start to see partners embrace that. If people are more productive using one tool over another, it gives that tool an advantage in the marketplace. And so hopefully as we continue to improve upon the core products that we have, you’ll start to see some of that come to fruition. That’s the way I’m thinking about 2017.