With its mix of flexibility, predictable revenues, value-add attachment ‘sells’ and vendor support, the Master Agent model is proving a perfect fit for partners, and at Westcon we’re working with leading UCaaS vendors to deliver a model fit for the channel of tomorrow.
The Master Agent model addresses the increasing demand for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) while simplifying the process of onboarding, deploying and managing the end-customer’s communications. Channel partners, acting as agents, can offer industry-leading solutions to their end-customers, with support directly from our market-leading suppliers.
The Agent Referral approach is very common in the US, and it’s now becoming increasingly attractive and adopted in the UK and across EMEA. The idea is that channel partners get access as agents to new recurring-revenue-based and value-add sales opportunities by referring qualified leads.
With this commission-based model, the agents earn monthly recurring revenue for the lifetime of the contract. To complement this, agents may be eligible for upfront payments once an end-customer contract is signed. This can be used to overcome the barrier of paying commission to sales staff for a subscription service, rather than the more traditional financial reward of leased, on-premises deals. This is proving very attractive to business owners that want to build long-term, predictable revenue streams.
Market disruption
The UK channel moves quickly to embrace changing customer requirements and expectations, and agents are being forced to respond with new business models and go-to-market strategies.
Agents from all technology backgrounds are seeing the barriers to entry dropping and discovering hidden opportunities within their existing customer base. With the average UCaaS sales cycle only 35 days, they get a significantly shorter time to revenue.
Hand in hand
We only partner with leading UCaaS suppliers who can drive growth for our agent network. Born in the cloud, RingCentral is disrupting the market and winning regular deals of all sizes. Mitel uses its unmatched expertise in the voice market to offer regular incentives to help the channel identify new sales opportunities. Avaya is an undisputed leader, empowering our German and UK channel with fully packaged, end-to-end managed solutions. All three are UCaaS evangelists.
As the Master Agent, we connect new and existing agents with these suppliers. Westcon works hand in hand with them to define the potential in each opportunity and develop business plans together that help build profitable, long-term relationships.
Closer collaboration
In a traditional channel programme, agents earn accreditation and medal status based on spend levels or training commitment. Historically, only agents falling into the top bracket get side-by-side supplier support. With the Master Agent model, we can now say that agents will benefit from the supplier working alongside them from day one. What other go-to-market routes can offer that?
Opening opportunities
Working with Westcon, agents can leverage the extra capacity, expertise and technical skills they need, direct from ourselves and our suppliers.
We help agents gain the competency and comfort needed to sell these solutions, and we are more than happy to participate directly in the sales process too. It’s a quick, simplified route into a new market for agents unfamiliar with the technology.
Channel investment
We are pulling out all the stops on all routes to market by providing options for end-customers, channel partners and agents to easily buy, sell or deploy cloud solutions. The Master Agent model has all the elements needed for success – flexibility, predictable revenues, value-add attachment ‘sells’ and vendor support. Agents who sign up will be uniquely positioned in the marketplace to take full advantage of the growing UCaaS opportunity.
