30 01732 759725 8x8 Small Business One of these new products, introduced some time ago but only just officially launched, is 8x8 Small Business. Currently available in the UK, Republic of Ireland, France, and Australia, this is a portal designed for direct resale partners serving UC-only customers with 100 users and below. “We sat in front of our partners, and in front of different teams within our partners, their deal desk, their order processing, their provisioning teams, their salespeople, to get feedback on how they want to work with 8x8 and how they want to support their customers. And that is how 8x8 Small Business was born,” explains Masterton. It’s based on day-to-day consumption, with no set contracts. There’s no minimum seat count. Customers can choose exactly the features they need. It’s competitively priced. The self-serve portal allows partners to go from customer order to active system within 48 hours. And, for partners, it is very easy to use and flexible. “It’s built for our resellers. If they want it on a consumption basis for themselves, but they still want to do contracts with their customers, they can. Or if they want to pass on the consumption, they can do that too. Our resale partners can decide how they want to deliver it to their customers. It gives them true flexibility and removes risk.” Partner enablement Before 8x8 announced its new partner programme, Technology Reseller spoke to Emily Masterton about her priorities as Global Head of Channel and the trends shaping 8x8’s channel strategy Technology Reseller (TR): 8x8 is aiming to generate more than 80% of its business through the channel by the end of this financial year, and as much as 90% in EMEA. How do you plan to achieve that goal? Emily Masterton (EM): There are four key areas I’m really looking at. Ease of doing business for our partners. My channel team, the sales team, the enablement team, the support team all have to show up in the right way; the tools we give partners, the portals they use must be easy to use; and the processes must make sense. Last year partners based on how much we bill them, on a monthly average, for subscription licences across their entire base, not just on how much new business they bring us. The tiers also have different requirements around certifications and things like QBRs and joint success plans.” Masterton adds that there are support levers throughout the programme to help partners grow their 8x8 base, retain their base and accelerate new sales. These include financial incentives such as rebates and market development funds, as well as partner enablement initiatives like Sales Development Representative (SDR) coaching and SDR-as-a-service. “If a partner wants to work with us to grow their pipeline, we have a team of SDRs to support our partners prospecting into their base or prospect list or they can help them more directly, for example by putting their account data through and looking at their intent,” explains Masterton. Another area where 8x8 provides valuable assistance is helping partners achieve the certifications required for each tier. “We provide a full enablement journey to take partners through sales, build, deploy and support certifications. This includes self-paced enablement, allowing partners to go through the process at their own speed, and blitz days and in-person enablement workshops when partners come into our offices in person. They can get through their full certification track, from sales through to build, deploy and support, in a matter of days.” As part of its channel-first ethos, 8x8 has developed a centre of excellence to engage more strategically with partners through initiatives like its Innovation Council and Partners Care. “We get our VPs of product to come into a room with our partners and talk about what’s coming down the line, what’s on the roadmap, what we are bringing to market, to get input from partners and to make sure we bring products to market in a way that’s right for them. We’re introducing a lot of AI and consumption-based products, and we’re getting a lot of feedback from partners on how we need to support them in rolling those out.” Over the last six months, business communications platform provider 8x8 has introduced a slew of new AI and consumption-based products (see box). Now, to help partners maximise the commercial opportunities presented by this surge of innovation, it is introducing a series of tailored partner programmes for each of its distinct partner types – direct resale partners, agent partners, distributors and technology services distributors. The first to be launched is a tiered programme – authorised, silver, gold, platinum – for direct resale partners. “What’s really important about this program,” says Emily Masterton, the recently promoted Global Head of Channel at 8x8, “is that it supports and rewards our partners not just for net new logos but for their full base. Net new logos are obviously extremely important, but, in addition to that, we are supporting and rewarding our partners for how they expand into their existing base, driving multi-product adoption, and how they retain that base with us. “Historically, our programmes and tiering have been focused on new orders – new logos and add-on orders. We’re now tiering Q&A With Emily Masterton, Global Head of Channel at 8x8 Q&A Emily Masterton
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