Slo Umicevic: Scaling Global Value Through AWS and ISV Collaboration

Chip Rodgers   0:00  
Chip, Hey everyone. Chip Rodgers, Chief partner officer, work span and we are here at day three. It's been fantastic. And just so much energy here in Las Vegas. How's it been going?

Slo Unicevic  0:12  
There's always energy in Vegas. By this conference, the buzz has been fantastic. We obviously standing from the RingCentral booth. We've had a great amount of traffic, but you know what I appreciate the most is the quality of the interactions that we've had. People are coming by, certainly grabbing some of the good swag, but really engaging with us to understand what is it that we do, how we work with AWS, and how they could benefit from that. So we've had some really good conversations with customers and partners. There's other partners here as well that I work with, and so it's great to connect with them and see how things are going and how we can continue to drive, you know, the overall, you know, partnership.

Chip Rodgers   0:48  
Yeah, that's great. That's what you want, right? That's what you want, yeah. So I'm excited to be joined by slow with slow, you majevic, very good. Yeah. And slow is RVP, of global technology partners for RingCentral, and it's great to Great to have you on,

Slo Unicevic  1:06  
great to finally meet you in person, you know, and to the audience here, thank you for listening to me. Hopefully I bring some value to you.

Chip Rodgers   1:14  
Yeah, yeah. So let's start with, with your role, you know, global technology partners. RingCentral is, you know, you guys are in the communication space. So you're connecting, you're always connecting technologies and people and platforms. And so there are so many opportunities for for partnerships. Talk a little bit about about that, and how you sort of think about partnerships for RingCentral, sure,

Slo Unicevic  1:38  
certainly. I mean, look, we've, we've had a very tremendous partnership ecosystem with our 20 plus 1000 channel partners, our dozen global service provider relationships that we work with. And then certainly, the, you know, the technology partners, the ISV relationships, what we've done is we've looked at these technology relationships and said, How can we deliver more to our customers, right? How can we drive more value to our customers. And then also, you know, how can we work with these partners to obviously drive, you know, strategic goals as well as, obviously goals when it comes to revenue and pipeline, etc, that these, these partnerships can bring. And so, you know, we've kind of looked at from a technology partnership standpoint. We've kind of broken it up into three kind of groups, Chip, you know, the first is these kind of enriched partnerships, ones with other SaaS software companies, a sales force, a HubSpot, et cetera, where we already have an integration. And so how can we work together to drive a best in class integration so that it benefits our collective customers, our prospective customers, where they get better outcomes, productivity gains, better internal communication and collaboration, better customer experiences, etc, for example, through our contact center platform and all of that, you know, I have to say, AI, right? All of that powered by AI, because all those interactions is data, right? And that data can be used to drive better insights, you know, better outcomes, etc. And so that helps both companies and obviously the end customer. So that's kind of the enriched partnership. The kind of enhanced partnerships are companies that are, you know, adjacent but complementary to our, you know, our core value of business, communication, contact, etc, etc. And so they'll provide functionality like a car wheel with marketing attribution or theta Lake, you know, when it comes to, you know, risk compliance, and certainly in the financial services sector, you know. So we built up those partnerships to help drive great, greater value and drive sales for both companies. And then last but not least is kind of where these hyper scalers, you know, where AWS, you know, fits in is these extend partnerships, where we're driving, you know, global scale we're driving value to, you know, to those customers. Being on AWS Marketplace certainly makes it easy for these customers to be able to procure our services. But obviously also drive, you know, workloads and consumption for AWS, because we are also a customer of AWS. So it really benefits the end customer, but it benefits us from a partnership standpoint.

Chip Rodgers   4:07  
Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. I love, I love the way that you sort of think about the three, the three categories of partners that helps sort of cement, you know, put, put, put it in, keep, keep in people's minds about how you're, what you're the value that you're trying to get out of each of the partnerships, yeah. And when we

Slo Unicevic  4:24  
engage with prospective new partners, like, you know, we also have an incubation kind of area of our business, right? And so there's all these other partners. They all that are driving value for us. And so how can we, when we look at the next, you know, cohort, if you want of partners, you know that insight, and then be able to say, Okay, what value are they bringing? Is it A, is it an integration and in that enrich aspect our customers? Or is it something that's more adjacent, or are they large enough, etc, that they're going to drive that scale and those type of commercial benefits? You know that a that an extend partner does by by, honestly, just. Purely categorizing it, but it also helps understand the go to market aspect of it, right? Obviously, you're going to fine tune it for every partner, as you should, et cetera, but at least it provides a framework, you know, that then builds repeatable success, right? That's,

Chip Rodgers   5:14  
that's awesome. Talk a little bit about the partnership with AWS. You're, you know, go to market together. How do you, how do you engage with, with AWS for, and you think about, sort of the CO bill, co market, co sell elements of the partnership.

Slo Unicevic  5:33  
Yeah. So I'll leave the CO build aspect of it, because that's something new that will evaluate. But certainly on the CO market piece of it. Look, we're, we're at, you know, we're here at an AWS event, but we're also at these industry events together, right? You know, whether it be Gartner or HIMS, from a healthcare standpoint, because we play in certain verticals as well, right? We have a very focused vertical strategy. So does AWS, right? So aligning, first of all, at a level as like, what are the customer sizes, what are those key verticals? What is the joint value from a vertical lens, and how can we communicate a better together message? And then, when we're at these events, as opposed to acting independently, we're now able to, you know, address the common set of customers and communicate enhanced value right through that, through that vertical lens, right? You know, from a co sell standpoint, certainly we have, you know, a common set of accounts, but also prospects of each other, and so being able to the triple eyes. Now, I mean, it's another set of triple es, and now triple eyes, right? But the, you know, I think Jared Fuller, you know, is the the info, the information, the things that you can't search, you know, etc, so that intelligence helps understand how to engage with those customers in the most effective way that benefits the end customer, because you're not just kind of throwing something at the wall hoping that it sticks. You understand the business priorities, right? And so AWS helps us understand the business priorities of these customers, how to bring value to these customers, individually and collectively, right? And then, you know, if we have a compelling value and there's interest in part of customer, then this is where we code. We truly, you know, are there working with AWS to meet the broader group of stakeholders. That's the introduction piece. And then at the very end of it, you know, is, is, is when the customer, if the customer, is making a decision, right? That influence piece, and then they understand that, oh, look, you're on AWS. Ring Central is on AWS Marketplace, and I can retire my they have a commitment. I can retire that commitment, 25% of it, you know, by procuring RingCentral marketplace, that drives a better outcome for the customer, but that also drives, obviously, you know, great things for AWS and RingCentral,

Chip Rodgers   7:40  
yeah, really helps that, you know, those marketplace transactions helps really streamline the process, you know, consistent, you know, contracting. You've got the edbs, you can draw down and and it's really, it just makes everything a lot smoother.

Slo Unicevic  7:56  
The partners have been vetted, right? So the customers have trust, the trust, the trust aspect of it, they have trust that this is, this is a solid company, a partner to AWS, and then, obviously, then, from a simplified billing and procurement standpoint, those are great gains. The fact that they don't have to go and secure a new budget. We're able to be able to procure that. They can leverage an existing commitment level. That's huge. All right, you know, you don't need to go to the CFO, and that could be a director level decision, because it's already been, you know, committed. So those are, those are huge enablers. I feel these marketplace are huge enablers for partners like RingCentral.

Chip Rodgers   8:30  
That's fantastic. Slow. Thank you so much for taking a little time and sharing what's what's happening at RingCentral and and, you know, we got another day and a half still to go two days, and yeah,

Slo Unicevic  8:45  
a week later, I'm out of Toronto, leading a week in Toronto recover from a week in Vegas. But you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's been wonderful. I look forward to seeing you at subsequent events. And thank you all for your time. I appreciate

Chip Rodgers   8:56  
it. Fantastic. Thank you slow and thank you all for joining and we'll see you next time. Thanks everybody. Good Feet.

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