8x8 recruiting partners for 'world domination' plans

Unified communications vendor is looking for partners to sell to 'real growth area' of contact centres

Unified communications vendor 8x8 is searching for resellers to help sell its products to the contact centres market, which it claims is a "real growth area" with "very attractive" revenues.

The vendor, which specialises in unified communications in the cloud, has been trading in the UK since 2013 when it acquired UK-based UC vendor Voicenet.

Charles Aylwin, director of channel and public sector at 8x8, said: "When you have a vertical that is experiencing change, what we do is absolutely ideal for that. We allow people to measure what they are doing really easily, reconfigure their estate really easily and to be more competitive."

Aylwin said the vendor will be recruiting selectively because it doesn't want to "boil the ocean".

"We will be looking for people who can make a difference to us, and to whom we can make a difference," he added. "We have spent an awful lot of time looking for and educating channel partners about contact centres.

"We have plans for world domination, and the only way to do that is through the channel."

Aylwin said the partners 8x8 is searching for will be mid-market resellers who already understand the importance of cloud in the workplace.

8x8 has between 80 and 100 active partners in the UK, and around 87 per cent of the vendor's sales are done though the channel.

"If we have an opportunity that the channel has registered, if that opportunity was also coming to us direct, we would pull our guys out," Aylwin said. "We will support the channel over and above, in preference to our own team. The channel are the be-all and end-all as far as we are concerned.

"There are certain types of customers who want to come to you direct, and you just have to be pragmatic with that. But where there is any crossover we always support the channel 100 per cent."