Channel partners have always existed as the middle layer of the telecoms industry, in between the big vendors and the businesses who were actually using the kit. Their job, more or less, was to know both sides well enough to make the right introductions and keep things ticking over after the deal was done.
But nowadays, “the kit” isn’t really kit anymore. It’s subscriptions, APIs, admin portals and dozens of platforms stitched together to take into consideration, something that wouldn’t have been bothered with ten or fifteen years ago.
It’s been a gradual but noticeable shift from asking how many handsets were needed to now needing to understand workflows first and what tools the business may already have. As a result, customers expect that their partners understand their business rather than just quoting them a decent price on a phone system.
As a result, margins on hardware have thinned out and recurring revenue has become the thing worth chasing instead. Some partners have leaned right into it, while others are still trying to figure out where exactly they fit.
Our Experts
- Courtenay Mills: Head of Voice & Data at EfficiencyIT
- Devin Hornick: Co-Founder & Partner at KORE1
- Srinivas Chippagiri: Senior Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce
- Abi Hill: Founder & CEO of Just Starting Out
- Tommi Ellis: Director of Channel Development at IntraTEM
- David Fischer: Chief Revenue Officer at Luware
- Sinan Isoglu: Associate Director, Commercial Strategy & Growth at NP Digital GmbH
- Kevin Hallmark: Head of Global Distribution at Huntress
- Justin Wilmas: EVP North America at Acre Security
- Thomas John: VP Partners – International at RingCentral
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Muhammet Mustafa Dincer: Managed IT & Cloud Consultant at Leon-X
Courtenay Mills, Head of Voice & Data at EfficiencyIT
“Over the last five years, we’ve seen the role of the channel partner fundamentally change. Historically, much of the conversation centred on replacing legacy, on premises telephony with cloud communications platforms. Today, that’s only the starting point.
The real value comes after the migration. Once organisations consolidate communications onto a single cloud platform, they gain access to something far more powerful than dial tone: data. We’re increasingly helping customers use UCaaS and CCaaS data to improve customer experience, operational efficiency and business performance.
In one recent deployment, introducing cloud contact centre technology into key customer touchpoints helped reduce average call abandonment rates from around 16% to below 5%. In practical terms, that means fewer missed opportunities, better customer outcomes and more revenue retained within the business.
The next stage of evolution is AI Channel partners are uniquely positioned because we understand both the communications platforms and the wider business processes they support. By combining communications data with AI driven analytics and automation, organisations can make faster decisions, uncover trends that were previously hidden and return valuable time to employees through intelligent automation.
The modern channel partner is no longer simply a technology supplier. We are becoming strategic advisors, helping businesses turn communications, customer interactions and operational data into measurable business outcomes.”
Devin Hornick, Co-Founder & Partner at KORE1
“Cloud communications have minimised the need for all employees to be in the same building, which means companies can partner with channel organisations in any location. But to co-sell effectively, particularly with UCC, you must possess a solid understanding of not only the product but what the customer is trying to accomplish. How will your solution help its employees be successful in their roles?
Technology is changing and growing so rapidly; what you think is a solution today might be outdated in six months. It’s imperative that the partner has the problem-solving, rapid adaptation skills, and clear communication lines needed when the customer’s business changes.
With all of the technology and tools that we have at our disposal today, communication is easier than ever. But, is it really? I’m not sure anyone really knows. The amount of videos, newsletters, emails, voicemails, texts, etc. are endless. Who has time to listen to or read it all?
In the end, technology should make your day more efficient, not your communication less efficient. The partners who are solutions builders and invest the time in understanding the customer’s needs will be better poised to develop those long-term relationships, as opposed to the ones just throwing out videos and literature.”
Srinivas Chippagiri, Senior Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce
“Cloud communications has quietly rewritten the job description of a channel partner. When communications ran on hardware and fixed connectivity, the partner’s value was procurement and installation: sell the box, wire it up, maintain it. That margin is largely gone. In an API-first, cloud-delivered world, connectivity is a commodity a customer can buy in minutes, so a partner who only resells it is being disintermediated in slow motion.
The partners who are thriving have moved up the stack. They are becoming integrators and solution builders, embedding communications into a customer’s actual workflows, connecting it to CRM and business systems, layering in AI capabilities like real-time transcription, routing, and agent assist, and taking responsibility for security, compliance, and governance of the data flowing through those channels.
The decisive shift is from selling a product to owning an outcome. Vertical expertise now matters more than volume. A partner who deeply understands healthcare or financial services communications, and can handle the regulatory weight that comes with them, is far harder to replace than one competing on price.
The uncomfortable truth is that cloud lowered the barrier to entry, so partners can no longer coast on access. They have to add engineering and trust.”
Abi Hill, Founder & CEO of Just Starting Out
“Cloud technology has changed what businesses need from a channel partner.
Access is no longer the difficult bit. A small business can find, trial and buy an extraordinary amount of technology directly. The value of a good partner therefore has to move beyond simply being the route to the product.
I think the strongest channel partners are increasingly becoming translators. There is so much technology, so many platforms and now so much AI being thrown at businesses that the problem can actually become having too much choice.
For SMEs in particular, they don’t necessarily need somebody to sell them another piece of software. They need somebody who understands their business well enough to say: this is what you actually need, this is how it fits with what you already use, and this is what you can safely ignore.
We’re seeing something similar with partnerships at Just Starting Out. The relationships that carry the most value aren’t simply transactional referral arrangements. They’re the ones where both organisations understand the customer, complement each other’s expertise and make that customer’s life easier.
Cloud communications may have removed many of the technical barriers, but it hasn’t removed the need for trust. If anything, it has made trusted human guidance more valuable.”
Tommi Ellis, Director of Channel Development at IntraTEM
“Channel partners are changing and adapting to cloud by moving well beyond the traditional voice and data services. They sell much, much more now that cloud has entered the picture. As cloud changes technology environments, channel partners and sales have had to change right there along with it.
If you go back, partners were selling circuits, POTS lines and voice services into a location. Now their customers are operating in AWS and Azure, buying SaaS applications, moving communications to UCaaS and adding AI into the mix. Cloud has basically expanded the entire conversation.
Channel partners are not just selling a circuit anymore. They’re helping customers figure out which cloud services make sense, how they all work together and, increasingly, what happens after they buy them. That last part is becoming really important – helping clients after the sale. Cloud makes it incredibly easy to add another service, license or subscription, but somebody still has to keep track of it all.
How many licenses are we paying for? What are we actually using? Who bought what? Are different departments buying the same thing?
To me, that’s one of the biggest ways cloud is changing the channel. The opportunity for partners has gotten much bigger, but so has the responsibility. You can’t just sell the technology anymore. You have to understand how your customer is actually using and managing it.”
David Fischer, Chief Revenue Officer at Luware
“From reseller to transformation partner
The rise of cloud communications is changing the role of the channel. As enterprises move away from legacy on-premises infrastructure towards scalable cloud environments, channel partners are increasingly expected to do more than simply migrate technology. They need to understand how communications fit into the wider organisation and help customers consolidate fragmented systems, integrate platforms and improve customer and employee interactions.
Turning cloud capability into business value
This becomes even more important as AI is embedded within cloud infrastructure. Intelligent platforms are increasingly able to analyse demand, automate processes and identify opportunities for optimisation. But access to those capabilities does not automatically translate into value.
For channel partners, this changes the value proposition again: it is no longer enough to configure a platform, they need domain expertise to select, tune and validate the right vertical AI application for a customer’s specific regulatory environment, workflow, and risk profile. Partners who combine cloud infrastructure knowledge with vertical-market fluency are best placed to turn this next wave of embedded intelligence into measurable business outcomes, rather than another layer of unused capability.
An ongoing optimisation role
Cloud communications are turning the channel relationship from a transaction into an ongoing service-relationship. Channel partners that can combine technical expertise with integration, adoption and continuous optimisation will be increasingly valuable as communications infrastructure becomes more intelligent, interconnected and adaptable.”
Sinan Isoglu, Associate Director, Commercial Strategy & Growth at NP Digital GmbH
“The traditional channel partner model was built on margin reselling: moving PBX hardware, provisioning SIP channels, and capturing recurring commissions on seat licences. In the age of cloud communications, that commodity model is obsolete. Basic voice and messaging connectivity have been commoditised to fractions of a cent, eroding legacy partner margins.
To survive and thrive, modern channel partners are pivoting from telecom brokers to full-stack systems integrators and RevOps architects. High-performing partners no longer sell unified communications as a standalone silo; they embed communication APIs directly into enterprise CRM pipelines, customer service ticketing platforms, and automated AI transcription workflows.
Clients do not want another telephony application; they demand automated workflows where client calls log structured CRM summaries, trigger automated follow-ups, and update pipeline analytics in real time. The modern channel partner earns trust not through carrier relationships, but through software engineering capability, data governance expertise, and deep knowledge of enterprise revenue architecture.”
Kevin Hallmark, Head of Global Distribution at Huntress
“Cloud computing has evolved rapidly over the past several decades, transforming how organisations operate and dramatically increasing the complexity of securing their systems, data, users and customers.
As workloads, identities, applications and connections have moved beyond the traditional perimeter, the attack surface has expanded with them. This shift has helped accelerate the adoption of approaches such as zero trust, identity-centric security, endpoint detection and response and continuous monitoring. Throughout this evolution, channel partners have remained trusted advisors, helping organisations select, implement and manage the technology they need to operate securely and reliably.
Today, that role is more important than ever. Partners must help customers adapt faster, reduce risk across an expanding attack surface, and turn security from a technology challenge into a business enabler.”
Justin Wilmas, EVP North America at Acre Security
“The shift cloud communications partners are living through is the same one playing out across every category that has moved to the cloud, including ours in physical security, and the lesson transfers directly. The channel partner’s old job was to sell a box and install it, a one-time transaction with a margin attached. That model is fading. When the product lives in the cloud, the value is no longer the installation, it is the migration and everything after it: moving a customer off legacy kit without breaking what works, then staying on as the advisor who manages, optimises and secures the service over its life.
The partners winning this transition have stopped thinking of themselves as resellers and started acting as guides. They lead with the customer’s existing estate rather than a rip-and-replace, because most customers cannot and will not switch everything at once. And they are increasingly selling across old boundaries: communications, IT and physical security are converging onto shared cloud platforms, and the partner who can handle more than one of those becomes much harder to replace. The recurring relationship, not the one-off sale, is the whole game now.”
Thomas John, VP Partners – International at RingCentral
“As cloud communications evolve, channel partners are becoming strategic advisors, not just technology providers. Businesses need partners who can turn communications technology into measurable gains across customer experience and everyday employee workflows.
AI is accelerating this motion. Channel partners can identify opportunities before customers ask, apply proven strategies, and help maximise ongoing technology ROI. They’re observing how teams use voice, chat and service tools, and then identifying where AI can remove friction and improve outcomes.
That guidance matters. Our research shows 33% of UK organisations are still researching or exploring AI, while another 21% are in the pilot stage. Only 16% have fully deployed digital workers.
Channel partners can help close that gap – guiding customers from experimentation to practical AI adoption, while helping them unify their communications tools and drive better outcomes.”
Muhammet Mustafa Dincer, Managed IT & Cloud Consultant at Leon-X
“Cloud communications are pushing channel partners beyond resale and toward accountability for the full operating model. Many customers can buy communications licenses directly; what they still struggle to assemble is a workable combination of architecture, migration, security, adoption, support and vendor coordination.
That changes the partner’s value. The strongest partners will not lead with a catalogue. They will translate business requirements into technical decisions, define who owns each part of the service, coordinate implementation and stay involved after launch. In multi-vendor environments, this orchestration matters because a communications issue may cross connectivity, identity, endpoint, application and provider boundaries.
Partners also need to become more disciplined about claims. Cloud does not automatically guarantee resilience, compliance, data residency or predictable cost. Those requirements must be identified, validated with the relevant provider, and reflected in the service scope. Clear boundaries build more trust than broad promises.
The commercial model will evolve with the work: less emphasis on one-off transactions and more on assessment, migration, managed operations, adoption and ongoing optimisation. In short, the channel partner of the cloud era is not simply a route to a product. Instead, it helps multiple products function within a coordinated, accountable service.”
