Exclusive Interview: Vishal Amin, Channel Head, Zoom Video Communications 

In an exclusive interview with DQ Channels, Vishal Amin, Channel Head - India & SAARC, Zoom Video Communications shared insights on the new redesigned Zoom Up Partner Program, Channel strategies and channel roadmaps and future plans.

How is Zoom supporting channel partners?

Today, Zoom helps people stay connected so they can get more done together. Teams around the world use the entire Zoom platform to enable new ways of working, learning, providing healthcare delivery, hosting events, and empowering a hybrid workforce. Thanks to our customers’ support, we’ve grown over the past decade from a video conferencing solution to a collaboration platform that encompasses unified communications, developer, and event solutions. All of these services provide a foundation upon which organizations can grow, innovate, and accomplish more — all while forging deep connections with the people they care about. We’re proud to play a fundamental role in how the world connects.

Each of our partner programs has had its own unique impact on the business, creating new opportunities for growth, partnerships, and expansion. Our Distribution Partner Program helps drive adoption of the Zoom platform and ensures customers get the best possible communications experience. We continue to onboard new distributors in key international markets. Our ISV partners are critical in helping Zoom further our platform offering by creating applications and products that leverage our API and SDK. Across the globe, more than 300+ leading software and SaaS providers power their applications with Zoom.  We will continue to see new industries and markets being developed on top of Zoom. Developers use solutions and tools made available by the Zoom Developer Platform to build apps and integrations either on top of Zoom’s industry-leading collaboration platform or by integrating core Zoom technology into their products and services.

What has the business growth been like via channel network?

Our partners have always been key to Zoom’s expansion and growth in APAC. As an advocate of joint success, Zoom is committed to empowering and growing its diverse ecosystem of partners across the region.  With the increased demand for cloud collaboration platforms in the past year due to the pandemic, our partner program saw significant expansion and increased momentum across the globe.  Over 2021, we welcomed more than 3,500 partners to our programs. In APAC we have 700+ active partners. We have continued to rapidly expand our partner ecosystem across go-to-market and geographies. As of September, our channel is now contributing more than 20% to our non-online bookings globally, and nearly 30% internationally. In India, we have partnered with Tata Teleservices and Savex Technologies.

How is Zoom driving innovation for channel partners?

Zoom today is a global engine of innovation and connection used by millions of people in nearly  200 countries and territories. Zoom has transcended into an integrated and robust communications platform encompassing meetings, chat, phone, events, and so much more. Our frictionless communications platform is the only one that started with video as its foundation, and we have set the standard for innovation ever since. We are continuously innovating and launching new features, updates and partnerships. Just this year, we launched hundreds of platform features and enhancements including Workspace Reservation, Zoom Whiteboard, Smart Gallery, Avatars, Video messaging for Zoom Chats; Workspace Reservation Desk Suggestion and Workspace Reservation Dashboard for Zoom Rooms.

We are constantly looking for opportunities to engage and collaborate with local partners in the markets we are present in to offer customers improved accessibility, engagement, and productivity to thrive in the hybrid world. We are continuing to forge partnerships and grow our partner ecosystem, allowing our customers to build with or on the Zoom platform. We have opened up Zoom’s SDKs, allowing developers from anywhere across the region to embed Zoom into their platforms for any industry - from education to healthcare. Our local networks of developers, partners and resellers make use of our robust APIs and SDKs to build applications on and with Zoom. Our rapidly expanding ecosystem includes more than 2,000 apps today, making it flexible and customisable to any vertical, team, workstream, or workplace culture.

What channel programs and schemes do Zoom offer for its partners?

Our partners are fundamental to our growth and success at Zoom, which is why we are constantly evaluating new ways to improve and offer additional benefits to our partner ecosystem. We recently launched the Zoom Up Partner Program, a unified, holistic, global partner framework that makes it simple for partners to transact and grow their business with Zoom. The enhanced Zoom Up program is designed to improve partners’ overall experience working with Zoom by offering a simplified architecture, one that today’s resellers, carriers, distributors, ISVs, and referral partners need as they navigate a fast-paced, competitive landscape. The Zoom Up Partner Program has started rolling out to select partners and will be fully implemented across the entire partner ecosystem later this year.

As we continue to invest in the expansion of Zoom’s diverse partner network, we announced the launch of our first-ever Zoom Partner Demand Center in December 2021. The Partner Demand Center provides members of the Zoom partner community with a leading marketing automation platform to expand their Zoom marketing practice. It offers a wide array of robust functionalities, including email campaigns, web content syndication, social media marketing, events marketing, webinar syndication, video marketing, digital ads and banners, and co-branding. The Zoom Partner Demand Center strives to provide our partners with the tools they need to be successful, including resources designed to help users upskill their existing team. These resources include online marketing support, training, and access to our partner marketing concierge service for help with every step of the marketing journey.

What is the future channel roadmap & plans?

Zoom is committed to investing in our partner community. We are continuing to focus on enhancing our partner programs. Our goal is to support our partners in their journey as they develop new competencies and grow their businesses with Zoom. As we continue to build our partner programs, we will remain focused on three key pillars: increasing sales alignment, ease of doing business, and partner profitability.

First, the number of Zoom employees dedicated to supporting our partner community will continue to grow across sales, operations, programs, marketing, and more. Our investments in our workforce are at the core of Zoom’s values as we remain focused on delivering customer and partner happiness. Next, we want to deliver a simple, seamless experience for our partner community to transact with Zoom. You will see improvements across operations as we hone in on driving system improvements and automation, enablement as we build additional training and qualification tracks, and programs as we deliver new methodologies for feedback, partner advocacy, and engagement.

Our end goal is to deliver a platform that partners can build a profitable business around. Whether that’s through our opportunities for app development with APIs and SDKs, software integration, or sales and delivery services, we’re dedicated to providing innovative programs, and you will continue to see our partner offerings grow in the coming year.