Partner events can be a bit drab. A full day of meetings and presentations followed by a complimentary drink, or two, to sweeten the deal, makes up the usual format. VanillaIP's May Partner Event did not follow the same template.
There was an ambitious target. A company that specialise in cloud communications, and its partners, discussing cloud concepts on day one and then reaching the clouds by summiting Britain's highest peak, outside of Scotland, on day two. UC Today caught up with VanillaIP’s Sales and Marketing Director, Iain Sinnott, to find out more.
"It was a cracking event and a brilliant day the next day up the mountain. We wanted to do something to bond with our partners and this perfectly summed up our focus on helping partners achieve peak performance."
A Real Incentive
As if the opportunity to summit a genuine mountain wasn't enough for VanillaIP's partner community to attend, the team had an altogether different type of incentive in the pipeline.
Day one of the event was spent locally in Snowdonia and provided VanillaIP with the perfect opportunity to update its partners on 2019, which has been a pretty busy year so far. A 2019 review covered off the positive reception from channel partners following the launch of its Unity Omni channel contact centre products, Akixi Call Centre Reporting and Stats applications, and its HPBX Education User package, earlier in the year.
One of VanillaIP's key goals is to ensure that partners are aware of the opportunities represented by adding supplementary services and this was another key message on the day. It appeared to be no co-incidence that a visualisation of this opportunity bore a striking resemblance to a local Snowdonia landmark! In contrast to many generic BroadSoft platform providers VanillaIP is trying to equip its partner base with layer of supplementary products which could allow them to realise massive growth in new technology areas such as mobility, contact centre and other 3rd party revenue services.
"The market is really gathering pace and that represents a challenge for our partners."
"This is why we talked a lot about the overlay of other products like mobility, like contact centre that can really help a partner increase their revenue and their margin whilst dealing with the competitive nature of the industry."
