INTERNATIONAL AGENTS “AI [artificial intelligence] adoption has also shown a huge increase in companies since 2020 and will continue that path during 2022. “The choice of channel partner is a fundamental decision,” he continued. “At HGC we have local presence in 23 different markets, in Hong Kong, the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Africa, along with the rest of Asia, and we understand each unique situation on each of those countries that allow us to better support our channel partners.” Yeastar vice president Prince Cai added, “With the travel restrictions and imposed lockdowns, there are limited possibilities in business trips and offline events. Everything is pushed to go online. “In the past years, Yeastar Team was involved in surging virtual meetings and got partners on board without visiting them,” Cai said. “Also, we launched multiple campaigns to interact with clients via a digital marketing mix. Live streaming and virtual launch events were the new norm for Yeastar.” What Partners Are Saying Cai said the lockdowns and market shutdowns have caused a slowdown in business and most of Yeastar’s partners are selling online. “With economic uncertainty and remote work shift, many partners transitioned to provide Yeastar’s cloud services and subscription-based services, because they are easier to sell and deploy,” Cai said. Kourchenko pointed out the pandemic’s effect on work is occurring at the same time of ongoing massive change. “We are going through a technological disruption, and consumer behavior is changing rapidly, and this is largely because of the explosive growth of e-commerce,” he said. “Customers have many choices at their fingertips before they commit to a purchase decision. A huge share of business and purchases are now made online, and this can turn into opportunities for our channels on their multinational corporations. They can reach and help with solutions.” At SCB Global, Mahmood senses optimism among the company’s channel partners. “Although the pandemic has brought its challenges, our partners are encouraged by the significant adoption of the platforms and the solution,” he said. “There is a great level of excitement that Communications 4.0 is enabling them to go deeper and wider into their customer base. “Our partners are seeing a significant growth enabled by telephony, collaboration tools and unified platforms,” Mahmood said. Day added, “The massive shift in the way people consumed goods and services since the pandemic accelerated their demand for digitalization, migration to the cloud and adoption of software-based solutions – all in an effort to remain productive and, for some, relevant. “Many industries achieved incredible growth during the pandemic and are continuing to expand and invest in network-based initiatives, particularly technology and SaaS providers across collaboration, gaming, streaming and cloud,” Day continued. “The channel has played a key role in addressing these challenges and supporting many customers across those industries.” Day added that because of external market forces, companies need to reassess their internal resources and capabilities to meet the changing digital landscape. “Technology decision makers are now key stakeholders sitting at the table to address organization-wide needs and challenges,” he explained. “Similar to the network itself, the technology leaders within our customers’ organizations have also arguably never been more important to their companies’ success. We have to be ready to support our partners by providing capabilities and options that address those specific challenges and desired business outcomes,” Day said. 2022 Challenges While international partners may be encouraged, that doesn’t mean 2022 won’t have its share of challenges for companies. “I think the biggest challenge in 2022 is getting through to all the different agent communities in North America and cutting through the noise, inconsistent messaging and narratives that have sprung up around Microsoft Teams solutions,” Mahmood said. He added SCB Global will “work more closely with its master agent partners as well as recruit more master agents to get through to other agents.” Mahmood said SCB Global plans to develop and deploy products and services in 2022 that enable digital transformation. At HGC, “Business owners have endless options for technology platforms that can streamline and help scale up their businesses. Most of them look for telecom services to improve their processes, but they often make misguided choices,” Kourchenko said. “We understand what services will fit the end customers’ needs to satisfy their business model,” Kourchenko added, “HGC can help providing one-stop-shop capacity management from capacity termination to the provision of multi-layered services such as IPLC, GEPL, IP transit, peering and voice services.” 56 CHANNELV ISION | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2022 Prince Cai, vice president, Yeastar Nabeel Mahmood, SCB Global director of the Americas Roberto Kourchenko, AVP of Americas for HGC
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