ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
It’ s quite the mindshift to see that with modern products and AI, a small business with 10 people can have more or less identical tools to a multinational with hundreds of staff.
The impact extends beyond customerfacing services. Partners are also beginning to use AI internally to automate elements of sales, quoting and service delivery.
Masterton believes that can free up resources for higher-value activities and accelerate a wider transition in the role of the partner.
“ The partners getting ahead of this are using AI to automate their own sales, quoting and service delivery, freeing up time to move from being a reseller to being a trusted advisor, someone helping a customer design the right workflow, not just supplying the software behind it. That shift, from selling tools to selling outcomes and expertise, is where I think the real long-term value sits for partners in this next phase.”
Becoming the vendor partners choose Supporting partners through these changes is central to Masterton’ s channel priorities.
Her ambition is straightforward: for 8x8 to become the vendor that partners actively choose to work with.
Achieving that, she believes, requires more than providing technology spanning
UC, CC, CPaaS and AI. The wider partner experience – from deal registration and rules of engagement to portals, enablement and commercial support – is also critical.
“ I want to be the vendor that partners choose to work with. That’ s my main aim, and I believe we get there through a few core focus areas.”
Ease of doing business is one of those priorities, alongside partner programmes tailored to different partner types and sales, technical and competitive enablement.
Masterton also highlights joint business success planning, co-branded marketing and demand generation as important components of the relationship.
“ We also have to enable our partners for success. That means partner programmes tailored to their partner type, alongside real sales, technical and competitive enablement. It means joint business success planning, cobranded marketing, and demand generation that actually moves pipeline.”
Trust is another important part of that equation. Masterton wants partners to see 8x8 as an organisation that works alongside them, honours commitments and provides predictable policies.
That philosophy extends beyond winning new customers.“ And support doesn’ t stop once a deal is signed. We’ re just as focused on helping partners expand into their existing base and retain what they’ ve already won as we are on net new. Partners can tell the difference between a vendor that talks about partnership and one that actually operates that way. That’ s what we’ re trying to be every single day.”
As subscription and consumption models converge and Artificial Intelligence changes both customer expectations and the economics of service delivery, the role of the channel is evolving with them.
For Masterton, the opportunity lies in helping partners make that transition rather than expecting them to navigate it alone. Those able to combine flexible commercial models with effective adoption, business-outcome selling and AI-enabled services have the opportunity to become more deeply embedded in their customers’ businesses.
“ Partners are core to how 8x8 goes to market. They’ re not a channel we sell through, they’ re a channel we grow with.” •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS 17