Zoom Introduces Self-Service Tools, Simplified Pricing As Company Marches Toward ‘Partner-First’

'The partner community continues to expect us to improve in the quote-to-cash area. This is a major, major step forward for us in our adoption of partner-first,' Zoom's Nick Tidd tells CRN.

Zoom is carrying out its ambitious plan to transform into a partner-first company by simplifying pricing and making it easier for partners to serve themselves, Nick Tidd, head of global channel go-to-market for Zoom, told CRN.

The videoconferencing giant has unveiled new self-service capabilities for faster quoting, to accelerate deal cycles and simplify pricing for Zoom’s tens of thousands of global partners, Tidd told CRN ahead of the Monday rollout of the new features.

The recent additions to the partner portal will arm partners with what they need to grow their business alongside Zoom faster and more efficiently, he said.

“The partner community continues to expect us to improve in the quote-to-cash area. This is a major, major step forward for us in our adoption of partner-first,” Tidd said.

Zoom in February under the direction of Tidd, who joined the company in September, revealed that it was evolving its partner program as part of the company’s efforts to lead with partners. The evolution of the Zoom Up Services Program rewards partners based on their investment and skill sets and arms partners with specialized enablement and training via three partner service models, including Reseller or Referral, Certified Services, and Partner-Delivered Programs.

Tidd’s prescriptive plan for revenue growth through the channel involved an updated program. The next order of business and the biggest piece of feedback that partners had for Tidd? Make Zoom easier to work with, he said.

“As we build out our channel-first strategy at Zoom, it was very clear coming into the role that we needed to do some significant upgrades to our quote-to-cash tools,” he said.

To that end, the longtime channel leader got to work on self-service capabilities with new partner quoting, ordering, and automation tools. These new features, available on Monday, will also let partners more easily collaborate with Zoom’s internal sales team, which is now compensation-neutral, Tidd said.

The quoting cycle, said Tidd, will be cut down from “days to minutes.”

“In my early beta testing with one partner, they were provisioned in less than 30 minutes, and they called to ask if there was a mistake,” he said. “It’s going to put us in a position to be much, much more effective and much more responsive.”

Tidd and his team are also on Monday introducing a simplified, single unit pricing strategy, “which means I’m going to be reducing thousands of SKUs,” he said.

“From a partner experience perspective, they’re going to see dramatic improvements that is a byproduct of many, many, months of feedback from the partner community,” Tidd said.

A Partner-First Zoom

San Jose, California-based Zoom has historically been a direct sales-led company, but the videoconferencing giant in recent years has been working to boost its profile with the channel. The company’s field sales team, which largely defaulted to direct sales mode, said Tidd, has been learning that they have greater opportunities for scale by working with the channel.

The new tools, available now for partners, will also help open pathways between Zoom’s sales team and the channel that were previously challenged, he said.

Tidd’s strategy aims to boost enterprise revenue generated by the channel from about 30 percent at the start of the company’s fiscal year, which began February 1, to 50 percent by the end of its FY26, is on-track, he said.

“We’re continuing to march to that goal,” he said. “We have seen increased activity quarter on quarter, and we are currently on the right course and path to meet that objective … This is a journey without an endpoint.”