Zoom Rolls Out New Partner Initiatives to Grow Sales

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

Zoom Video Communications has developed a new channel charter as a focal point of its partner program to expand its global reach, grow into new customer segments and increase product sales for Zoom Rooms.

The charter includes initiatives designed to “make the experience of working with Zoom even easier and more profitable for reseller and referral partners.” Zoom Rooms, the software-based conference room offering, is a key to Zoom’s “aggressive overall growth strategy,” the company said.

In the past year, Zoom Rooms sales grew by more than 250 percent.

Zoom’s Laura Padilla

Laura Padilla, Zoom‘s head of business development and channel, tells Channel Partners that Zoom has been growing at an “incredible pace and we see our channel at an important next phase of growth for us, especially internationally.”

“It means a stronger focus on partners as an important stream of leads and growth,” she said.

The charter includes the following initiatives for partners:

“We have been talking with partners over the last several months and taken input on what was working – and not – to further improve the sales experience and how to grow our partner business,” Padilla said.

The charter eliminates barriers partners have been facing by aligning Zoom sellers with partner sellers to improve collaboration, establishing a deal-registration process so all partners benefit from price protection, and improving the reseller price list to introduce new product bundles, she said. It also increases enablement to partners so they are “quicker to be self-sufficient in selling Zoom,” she said.

“This charter is a core piece of the overall channel strategy to enable our partners to reach new customers, enhance profitability and drive additional growth,” Padilla said.

“Working with Zoom extends our channel choice,” said Jon Sidwick, global vice president of Maverick AV Solutions, a Tech Data business. “We are excited to team up to provide our customers with world-class video communications and a complete partner set of solutions. We look forward to more Zoom innovations in the future. We’re eager to see these new initiatives roll out and to know that the channel is a true priority for Zoom.”

In March, Zoom announced its new Zoom Rooms Technology Ecosystem Program and Certified Integrator Program. It also announced that IBM will embed and resell Zoom as the video meetings component of Watson Workspace.