Five9 channel boss on why it turned down Zoom's $14.7bn offer

Five9 has given further reasons why the deal never went through

Five9 considered it a "wiser option" to turn down Zoom's $14.7bn takeover bid remain agnostic from the UC space, according to its VP of partner sales, who told CRN about what's next for the vendor after the acquisition fell apart.

Zoom's planned acquisition of Five9 for $14.7bn fell through in October last year after Five9 did not obtain the requisite stockholder support for the merger agreement.

Thomas John, VP of partner sales at Five9, has now given further insight as to why the deal was terminated.

Speaking to CRN, he said Zoom gave the cloud-based call centre operator "14 billion reasons" to mull over being bought.

But he said that Five9 ultimately decided it would have a better future if it remained "agnostic" in the UC space.

He said: "Zoom is a UC player. But there are of course others like Microsoft Teams. In fact, in Europe, Microsoft Teams hold approximately 80 per cent of the market.

"So it was considered a wiser option to remain agnostic of the UC environment.

"But we're very close partners with Zoom. If an enterprise wants to have Zoom in the back office, then Five9 will integrate into that. Conversely, if an enterprise has Microsoft Teams, we also have integration into Microsoft Teams."

Asked what the plan is going forward following Zoom's failed acquisition, John said Five9 aims to "stay in its lane" of contact centre technology.

He added: "I think it's essential we stick to exactly what we're good at, which is contact centre and be agnostic and integrated into a UC or into a workforce management tool or into a CRM.

"So the plan is to embed AI into our core, make sure the market understand how AI can really augment the agent experience and continue to be a leader in this industry."

John also spoke about growth plans for Five9, which is now approaching 200 employees in Europe - 50 per cent of which were hired in the last year.

He explained that there is "tremendous" room in the market for Five9 to grow, with contact centre having around six million seats in Europe - 33 per cent of those being in the UK.

John said: "To cope with this demand, we're going to have to increase our infrastructure. And it's not just to cope with it, we want to maintain that level of service because that's what we want for our customers - to provide a customer centric service and experience."

John also spoke about the partner programme, saying that there are "plenty of places for our partners to play".

He said: "It's a $20bn market just for contact centre. And now when you add in our acquisition of Inference, which we now have badged as Five9 IVA, essentially, the AI technology, that market has grown from 20bn to 58bn.

"The cake is a large one and there's plenty of places for our partners to play in and where they can really focus on."