RingCentral, Masergy, Mitel Hype UCaaS at PlanetOne Event

Not all master agent-supplier agreements are created equal, according to PlanetOne Communications founder and CEO Ted Schuman.

Schuman, speaking on the last stop of the 2019 PlanetOne Communications Tech Tour in Scottsdale, Arizona, urged partners to review vendor contracts to see how PlanetOne’s deals differ from other masters.

PlanetOne’s Ted Schuman

“We generally do sign similar agreements, but guys — the devil’s in the details, and not paying attention to the little tiny details can really be catastrophic to your check,” Schuman said.

A poll conducted at the conference showed that 75% of partners have never reviewed their master agent’s provider contract. Schuman called contract negotiation one of PlanetOne’s biggest differentiators. The process lasts an average of six months, he said.

“Nine out of 10 times the very first comment out of a provider’s mouth – after exhausting negotiations or we’ve reached two or three business impasses and all are non-starters – they all go, ‘Well, Ted, everybody else has signed it.’ OK, so they jumped off the cliff. Their subagents and partners have no clue what problems await them should Armageddon strike or there’s a problem with that provider,” he said.

Another partner survey found that 90% see accurate and on-time payment as the most important factor for giving PlanetOne new business.

Schuman reported that his Arizona-based master agent is in its 28th year of double-digit year-over-year net growth and is nearing 50,000 commercial accounts. PlanetOne moved into another office earlier this year and will continue to hire employees.

Schuman said the master agent has onboarded more partners in the last year than it did in the previous three to four years combined. MSPs are also coming to the fore.

“So the whole well-kept secret about our back office, partner experience, customer experience and everything we’re doing — is clearly not a well-kept secret anymore, because the partners are coming to us in droves,” he said.

Schuman pointed out a trend that the greater agent community has been enjoying: massive UCaaS growth. TBI told us year-over-year UCaaS growth is in the 100s; Intelisys shared news of a gargantuan agent-led deal.

RingCentral’s Zane Long

“I don’t know how you get hotter. If there’s a hotter, vertical or product set in the industry right now, I’m not sure what it is,” Schuman said. “It is really taking most of the energy out of the room on some other products that used to be core services for master agents.”

Zane Long, RingCentral‘s senior vice president of global channel sales, added that we are nowhere close to the ceiling.

“UCaaS is a $75 billion global market. It’s about 9% penetrated. There’s really no …… other market or product like that out there today,” Long said. “My advice to the partner community is: Focus right now on the land grab; if there was ever [an] opportunity to really cash in, this is the time to do it.”

Schuman said contact center has fit nicely with UCaaS.

“Clearly, we’re having a lot of success. Those are big, big deals, and they’re sticky. It’s just been a great opportunity for all the channel partners in the room. Trust me, I know. I’ve been sending out these checks, and some guys are cashing some monster checks because of those UCaaS and hosted opportunities,” he said.

Masergy’s James Parker

Masergy CEO James Parker told Channel Partners that his company has seen a strong complement between UCaaS and SD-WAN. Parker said the underlying network becomes more critical as UCaaS causes workloads to increase and become more complex.

“We may start off at a UCaaS conversation that quickly pivots into the network,” Parker said. “And within that discussion, we’re talking about SD-WAN as an enabler to get better performance on the network to enable UCaaS at the edge, out in their branch offices.”

Parker and Long participated in a panel with Daniel Farrar, executive vice president and general manager of Mitel’s UCaaS business unit. 8×8 channel chief John DeLozier also spoke about the crucial importance of customer experience.