Vonage Turns Heads with New Partner Program

Vonage has launched a new VAR and distribution partner program under the leadership of Matt Alexander as its director of national distributors.

Alexander joined Vonage after serving as regional sales director at Cato Networks, and before that he was CoreSite‘s director of channels for the East. He built channel programs at vXchnge and CoreSite.

Vonage’s Matt Alexander

“Matt will work on building strong partnerships with the top national VARs, enabling them to sell all aspects of Vonage’s cloud communications platform, creating solutions for unified communications, contact center and API use cases,” said Greg Franzen, Vonage’s regional vice president of strategic partners.

Last fall, Vonage unveiled its new logo and brand revitalization as a B2B SaaS company with 60% of its revenue coming via business — compared to all of it coming from consumers just six years ago.

The VAR program launched Jan. 1.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Alexander talks about why he wanted to join Vonage and what he plans to accomplish in the coming months.

Channel Partners: Why did you want to take this role with Vonage?

Matt Alexander: I think it’s a great opportunity to build a VAR and distribution program at a dynamic company that is redefining communications within the channel. Vonage has a huge competitive advantage in the market by owning its own technology stacks from UC, CC and communications APIs. As the only provider in the space to offer this fully integrated communications offering, Vonage not only meets the various needs of these partners’ customers as a one-stop shop, but can innovate at a pace that others can’t.

CP: What are your responsibilities in this role?

MA: In this role, I will be overseeing the launch of Vonage’s national distribution program. We will be focused on educating national VAR partners on the Vonage offering and how we are making communications more flexible, intelligent and personal. Through our unique and powerful combination of UC, CC and programmable communications APIs, we’ve built the world’s most flexible cloud communications platform.

CP: Will this be an expansion of Vonage’s partnership with VARs?

MA: We have always had strong partnerships with these VARs through our master-agent partners. With our channel program, the Vonage Partner Network, we are placing a huge focus on strengthening those relationships. My primary focus is education with these partners. Educating them where Vonage was, where Vonage is today and our vision of what Vonage will be tomorrow.

CP: What prompted the need for this new program?

MA: What prompted it is how VARs are transforming their business to support their customers through this digital transformation. VARs are adding the next generations of IT solutions to keep up with evolving technology and their customers’ needs.

CP: How do you plan on building out this program?

MA: VARs today are transforming how they sell and support their customers. Not only are they helping their customers with the life-cycle management of their technology stacks, but also …

… putting together a road map for their cloud strategy in all aspects for their customers’ businesses. These VARs become trusted advisers, recommending to their customers which cloud technologies will help transform their businesses. It is our goal to align with these like-minded partners, to take the approach of an ongoing consultant with them and, in turn with their customers. Right now, we have the foundation set in place to allow these strategic VARs to sell with our sales teams. We are currently adding more dedicated resources to our channel team to support pre- and post-sales to help with growth of the program. The next phase of the program will be the “sell through,” which will allow certified VAR partners to resell our next generation of cloud communication solutions to their customers.

CP: Have you received feedback from VARs?

Yes, all positive feedback. Also a lot of excitement about the types of cloud communications we can offer to their customers. Our VARs are asking us how they can position our communications APIs and AI to help their customers create better engagement with their own customers. Also how they can leverage our CC solution and our partnership with Salesforce.

CP: What do you hope to have accomplished in this role by the end of the year?

MA: My goal by the end of the year is to have a successful launch of our VAR partner program, with clear goals defined for each VAR partner to ensure their success.