As customer expectations shift towards greater flexibility, consumption-based services and measurable outcomes, channel partners are having to rethink how they sell, support and grow their customer relationships. In an exclusive interview, Emily Masterton, Global Head of Channel at 8×8, tells us how new consumption models, Artificial Intelligence and a growing focus on the SMB market are creating opportunities for partners to increase adoption, strengthen customer relationships and build sustainable long-term growth.
The channel is entering another period of significant change as customers demand greater flexibility in how they consume technology and partners look for new ways to protect margins, demonstrate value and build longer-term relationships.
For Emily Masterton, Global Head of Channel at 8×8, the shift has parallels with the industry’s earlier transition from on-premise technology to cloud. This time, however, partners are moving from an overwhelmingly subscription-based model towards an environment where subscription and consumption-based services increasingly co-exist.
“It’s a period of big change. Just as partners had to adjust from on-premise to cloud, we see another evolution now with a move from all-subscription to a hybrid of subscription and consumption models. It requires quite a change in attitude and approach, but there’s a lot of potential benefit in it.”
Consumption itself is not new. CPaaS has traditionally operated in this way, but Masterton believes Artificial Intelligence is accelerating the model’s adoption across a broader range of technologies.
The result is a change in the conversations partners need to have with customers. Rather than concentrating primarily on seats and licences, discussions increasingly centre on usage, business requirements and measurable outcomes.
“Consumption isn’t new to our industry, CPaaS has always worked that way, and AI is accelerating it further. What’s changing is that it’s now sitting alongside subscription rather than replacing it. That means different conversations with customers, less about seats and more about usage and outcomes. It means partners need to rethink how they price, how they forecast revenue and how they structure deals.”
Opening the SMB opportunity
One area where 8×8 sees a particular opportunity for consumption-based services is the sub-100-user SMB market.
Masterton believes smaller organisations can miss out on technology because traditional licensing models do not necessarily reflect their requirements. They may not need an entire suite of capabilities or their staffing levels may fluctuate in ways that make fixed licensing less attractive.
8×8 Small Business has been developed as a self-service, consumption-based offering for direct resell partners serving customers with fewer than 100 users. Rather than fixed seat counts and annual licence commitments, customers pay according to usage, while partners can provision services within days.
The offering includes calling, meetings, chat, compliance, analytics, CRM integration and Microsoft Teams Phone integration.
Crucially, Masterton said the consumption model is intended to complement rather than replace the company’s existing subscription business.
“This doesn’t replace our existing subscription model – it runs alongside it – so we can support partners with all the needs for all their existing and potential customers. For some the solution will be 8×8 Small Business, while for others it will be 8×8 Engage, 8×8 Contact Center, and 8×8 AI Studio. The point is, we are now there for every business a partner may want to try and support.”
Partner feedback played an important role in shaping the offering. According to Masterton, resellers found that smaller opportunities could demand almost as much sales and provisioning effort as larger deals while generating significantly less revenue.
“Partners told us fixed seat counts and annual contracts were costing them deals in the sub-100-seat segment because a 25-seat prospect takes nearly the same sales and provisioning effort as a much larger one, for a fraction of the revenue, and many walked rather than sign a rigid agreement.”
Consumption needs adoption
Greater flexibility alone, however, will not guarantee growth.
Masterton believes one of the most important opportunities for partners is to combine consumption-based commercial models with a much greater focus on customer adoption.
Lower commitments can encourage customers to experiment with technologies without making significant upfront commitments. For partners, that can create opportunities to introduce additional capabilities and strengthen customer relationships.
But the commercial benefits only materialise if customers actually use what they buy.
“That said, low commitment alone isn’t the win, adoption is. If a customer signs up to a consumption model and never actually adopts the product properly, nobody wins, the partner doesn’t grow the account and the customer doesn’t see the value. So adoption has to sit right alongside consumption.”
Partners that invest in onboarding and help customers make effective use of technology are therefore better positioned to turn initial consumption into longer-term expansion.
That connects directly with another change Masterton sees across the channel: a move away from selling specifications towards selling business outcomes.
“Customers don’t buy a platform, they buy a result: fewer dropped calls, faster resolution, a better customer experience. Partners who can walk into a conversation with a use case and an outcome, not just a spec sheet, are the ones winning deals and keeping them.”
Alongside the SMB opportunity, Masterton sees considerable potential for partners to expand within existing accounts by increasing adoption across products such as 8×8 Engage, 8×8 Contact Center and 8×8 AI Studio.
The more extensively a customer uses the platform, she argues, the more durable and valuable the relationship can become for the partner.
AI changes what partners can deliver
Artificial Intelligence is adding another dimension to this transition by changing both the technologies partners sell and how they operate their own businesses.
One significant development is the increasing democratisation of sophisticated technology. Masterton points to the ability of small organisations to access capabilities that would previously have been associated primarily with much larger enterprises.
“Everyone is still getting used to changing decades of how we worked and operated. 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.”
She believes AI is also allowing partners to become more closely involved in solving individual customer problems.
Using tools such as 8×8 AI Studio, partners can work with customers to develop bespoke applications and workflows using natural language, potentially reducing development cycles while providing solutions more closely aligned with individual business requirements.
“This doesn’t just take development cycles from months to weeks, or even days, it means companies get the exact tools they need, while seeing the partner supporting them as genuinely invested in what they’re trying to achieve. It also makes the partner more embedded with each customer.”
The impact extends beyond customer-facing 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 8×8 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, co-branded marketing, and demand generation that actually moves pipeline.”
Trust is another important part of that equation. Masterton wants partners to see 8×8 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 8×8 goes to market. They’re not a channel we sell through, they’re a channel we grow with.”
