Zoom: UCCaaS Partner Opportunities

Partner and product strategies for building a Zoom-based UCCaaS practice.

Zoom is naturally a key partner to consider for developing a UCCaaS market strategy, and partnerships are central to their growth strategy, describing that they are the rocket fuel for Growth.

Zoom can be extended through a marketplace of plugin apps, and implemented and supported through a network of partners.

This is a multi-faceted program with multiple different partner scenarios and models, including sales channels such as Affiliate and Referral Marketing, Service Providers, Distributors and Resellers, and technology partners, including Hardware, ISV and Platform Developer.

Zoom has obviously enjoyed massive end-user adoption success, and as they mature are increasingly investing more into developing partners as key to their future growth.

In this interview Shane Speakman, Telarus VP of UCaaS, meets with Mike Hayes, Head of Americas Channels at Zoom, to explore more of the details of this strategy, and in this one Rob Scott from UC Today is joined by Mark Bunnell, COO, Nuwave and Colby Nish, Head of Zoom Phone and Contact Center Sales at Zoom, to explain what one example of these partnerships looks like.

Platform Ecosystems

With such a vast customer footprint and such an extensive partner structure, there is a rich spectrum of opportunities for entrepreneurs as well as channel sales teams.

Zoom offers an exemplar blueprint for a Platform Ecosystem approach to building partner networks, where not only can partners be part of the sales channel delivery but also an integral part of the product itself, as well as leveraging it to create new solution offerings.

For example Zoom has over 1,000 apps in their marketplace that enhance meeting functionality, such as Calendaring and Scheduling, Collaboration, Transcription and EdTech, integrated into the video conferencing service by utilizing the core enabling mechanic of the app marketplace, the SDK.

As just one example is Faye, who enables the ability to schedule and launch a Zoom meeting from within Zendesk and also save and access meeting recordings within Zendesk. Animaker provides a list of the Top 10 Zoom apps for Startups.

Partners like Prezi, GLG and Let’s Talk have leveraged the platform to develop innovative new solutions for industries like Healthcare and use cases such as B2b Marketplaces and Presentation software.

This dynamic is extremely powerful for both parties. It greatly enhances the core product and in turn offers developers a massively accelerated route to an already-qualified market. Twine for Zoom Events is a compelling example – Zoom is the building block of virtual meetings, with networking being the natural progression for this experience, and the startup is plugged into exactly their target market via instantaneous procurement of their app.

It’s an irresistible sales model, such a clearly defined and accessible channel and is thus ideal for startups who don’t need to invent these from scratch. Back in 2020 TechCrunch asked if Zoom was going to be the next hot platform highlighting how these marketplaces are ideal for startup ecosystems.