The Alliance Showcases the Changing Channel Landscape at 2018 Board Meeting

The Alliance Showcases the Changing Channel Landscape at 2018 Board Meeting

RICHMOND, Va. – June 6, 2018 – The Alliance Partners‘annual Board meeting showcased a raft of emergent opportunities for its members and their channel partners, with highlighted presentations from Evolve IP, Rackspace, Sky Data Vault and Vonage.

Unique in the channel partner landscape, the Alliance brings together 17 of the country’s most successful telecom-technology master agencies and channel producers under one umbrella, which generate more than $4.5 million per month in combined technology and telecom sales.

Its Board met on May 15 – 17 at the McLean, Va., offices of Alliance member ARG. Conversations focused in on the changing industry landscape, which is being driven not only by M&A activity but also by the emergence of new technologies and opportunities, in areas such as SD-WAN, cloud and cybersecurity.

“The channel partner side of the tech and communications industry is rapidly shifting, pushed ahead by emerging and combined companies and next-gen technologies, along with rapidly evolving customer requirements,” said Bill Power, CEO at the Alliance Partners. “Our Board members have decades of expertise in everything from traditional communications to IT, cloud, storage and virtualization, mobility, digital transformation and converged IP services, and we remain dedicated to enabling the best business outcomes for the channel ecosystem and its providers. To that end, fostering continuous growth and improvement through the sharing of ideas and perspectives at our Board meetings is critical to best serving our members and our providers alike.”

As part of the discussion, Vonage CEO Alan Masarak briefed the Board on Vonage’s channel strategy. The business cloud specialist recently unveiled a new comprehensive channel partnership program, dubbed the Vonage Partner Network, which focuses on a combination of unified communications solutions and embedded communications APIs. Under the new configuration, the company works with partners to uncover customer needs and recommend tailored software solutions.

Vonage has been an Alliance Preferred ProviderSM since 2015, meaning it has negotiated one contract to gain an instant channel presence across Alliance members, including the deep benefits of focused marketing efforts.

“Vonage’s relationship with the Alliance has been integral to our continued growth in the channel,” Masarek said. “We appreciate our long-term partnership with the Alliance, and we are grateful to work directly with the Alliance’s network of industry influencers, thought leaders and distributors. This partnership has expanded the reach of Vonage’s portfolio of cloud communications services to an ever-wider range of businesses.”

Meanwhile, Evolve IP CEO Guy Fardone briefed the Board on his perspective on industry M&A Evolve has been an Alliance Preferred ProviderSM since 2012. M&A has been an ongoing feature of the telecom and communications landscape for several quarters, with everything from smaller deals to megamergers affecting channel partner programs and opportunities.

“While the market continues to undergo rapid change, one thing has remained consistent over the last several years; that is the unique value that Evolve IP and The Alliance bring to enterprises moving services to the cloud,” said Guy Fardone, CEO and founding partner of Evolve IP. “The combination of Evolve IP’s best-of-breed cloud communications and computing services, coupled with the expertise and relationships of The Alliance, has led to significant growth opportunities for both organizations. We’re looking forward to our continued momentum as we open markets and develop new services for Alliance channel partners.”

As part of the discussion, he also presented David Gardner, President and CEO of Alliance member Advantage Communications Group, with two bonus checks totaling more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Gardner added: “Our clients and partners have enthusiastically embraced Evolve IP’s innovative cloud computing and cloud communications solutions. We’ve been impressed with the knowledge and professionalism displayed by the entire Evolve IP team, and are excited to see their relationship with the Alliance Partners become more strategic.”

Rackspace’s Director of Indirect Channels, Michael Stephens also briefed the Board on Rackspace’s future focus; Rackspace is in negotiations to become an Alliance Preferred ProviderSM later this year. Rackspace is focused on delivering true transformation as a service across applications, data, security and infrastructure. The company was named to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, Worldwide 2018. It works closely with channel partners to go beyond simple migration assistance and infrastructure management with multi-cloud managed services, professional services and managed application services to enable true digital transformation.

“Rackspace recently launched a new Fanatical ChannelTM partner program to the indirect channel and we are excited to announce that the Alliance Partners are one of the first partners to align efforts with us around a joint go-to-market plan,” said Michael Stephens, director of indirect channels at Rackspace. “Having the Alliance Partners as part of our program will give them full access to one of the industry’s broadest portfolio of managed IT services and expertise that Rackspace has to offer, across the leading private and public clouds, application services, along with managed hosting, colocation and managed security. Additionally, Rackspace will benefit greatly by having a strategic agreement with some of the most talented and tenured organizations in the industry.”

Also, Sky Data Vault Vice President of Sales and Strategy, Michael Thompson, joined the Board for discussions over a group dinner. The company has been an Alliance Preferred ProviderSM since last year, won Best in Show at the inaugural Tech+Connect last year, as voted by channel partner attendees. The company has a motto of “protect everything, recover anything,” and provides a cloud-native portfolio of state-of-the-art disaster recovery solutions that ditch the traditional capital expense and overhead associated with DR.

“Getting together with the leadership of these organizations in this type of environment speaks to the type of relationship that Alliance Partners is looking to build with their solution providers,” Thompson said. “We are able to share ideas and knowledge in an open forum, with the common goal of both organizations seeing success. It is truly a unique model for partnerships in the channel.”

Speaking of the Tech+Connect event, the Alliance Board also continued planning its second-annual gathering, scheduled to take place Nov. 5-7 at the Scott Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Alliance will once again host an exclusive group of channel sellers and a roster of top providers in emerging technology segments, for three days of unique channel sales empowerment for next-generation solutions.

The show is devoted to bringing together experienced channel sales professionals with providers of advanced technology solutions in a dynamic and intimate setting, for sales training around the hottest emerging technology segments. It is a forum for unexpected ideas, unconventional speakers and uncommon learning, with the goal of providing deep provider-partner engagement, unparalleled empowerment and extraordinary business impact. For more information, please visit www.techconnectevent.com.

For more information, please contact:

Bill Power
CEO, The Alliance Partners
T: 703.597.4839 F: 866.341.9939
Bill.Power@TheAlliancePartners.com

ABOUT THE ALLIANCE
Since 1997, the Alliance Partners, originally the Agent Alliance, has been a powerful voice for the channel. This diverse industry consortium of shareholders represents all industry sectors, from traditional communications to IT, cloud, storage and virtualization, mobility and converged IP services. The Alliance is dedicated to fostering best business practices nationwide for the channel ecosystem. It is an important forum for education, collaboration and information-sharing, aimed at helping channel partners evolve their practices to remain competitive. The Alliance is able to leverage the unique and diverse expertise of its formidable member roster to put knowledge into practice in highly pragmatic ways to create an environment of continuous growth and improvement, which benefits partners, suppliers and clients alike.