>> Live from Orlando, Florida It's the Cube covering Enterprise Connect twenty nineteen brought to you by five nine. >> Welcome back to Orlando, Florida. Lisa Martin. With the cues to minimum joining me, we are a day three of our coverage of enterprise connect nineteen. Thanks to our gracious hosts in the booth here, five nine, We're pleased to welcome from five nine to the program. Wendell Black, VP of Global Channels and international Business. Wendell, thank you so much for joining us today. >> Well, Lisa, thank you for having me on. >> I know you're a bit of a celebrity because you have now been a crn channel chief honoree three times, most recently last month. Congratulations. >> Well, thank you very much. It's absolutely a tribute to my team and the company's focus on building out our channel business over the last three years. So it's been, you know, a super time for five nights growth in this area on DH. It definitely is a team engage sport >> team that pulled you out of retirement. They're less >> Well, you know, we don't talk about that so much, but it is exciting to be back in the business and, you know, working here toe, you have to build something new for five nine and to help take us into the next Thira Business delivery and especially the expansion we're doing outside of North America. That's, uh, that's the really exciting part. >> So before we talk about the international peace, one of the things that's been really interesting to watch anybody that knows the channel is the cloud has had a dramatic effect on on them. If I walk around the show floor, many of the companies here in the channel that they did, where used to sell in boxes and then all I need to understand software and oh, jeez, this cloud, it's gonna put us out of a business. They'Ll all go direct, but I'm sure you've got a lot of perspectives on this. So maybe help walk us through some of that transformation. >> But it's interesting. I've been an evangelist in the cloud space since the late nineties senses peace. So we didn't call it cloud then it was multi tenant managed service technology. But you know, the really exciting part is, you know, the last four or five years when it really caught on and started to take off, you know, we've had a lot of good trailblazing companies out there that yo have won the minds of people for cloud and the C r m or the Air P and other spaces. Yeah, telecommunications is kind of the lagging, Uh, yeah. Technology area to be adopted, You know, his standards for cloud. But I believe today most buyers are trying to figure out why not cloud, rather than why go to cloud. And that's a game changer. >> Yes. Oh, I'm curious. Just from the channel perspective itself. We understand that customer journey, but the channel people was there. Do they have the skill set that they need to go? Was just some retraining. Was it partnerships like like yours, you know, how did that transition go? >> Yeah, that's a great question. And I really think that the channel has the skills. Yeah, they just have to adapt and re tune a little bit. Things just happen faster when you do the cloud and and we have get a MIDI discussions and experiences with partners where we're sitting around the table planning Ah, roll out. And you're just doing the basic discovery. And, you know, at the end of that, r P s team can say, Well, I've actually built it. Let me show you how it works, you know, rather than you know, the six month or twelve months rollout process that people were accustomed to in the past. So it's pretty exciting to be able to show people actionable results that kind of time frame very, very fun. >> Talk to us about the partnerships and the influence that your partners have had on such a big, successful close to f. Y eighteen. >> You know, the other partners were strong contributors in, you know, our cue for and we certainly value everything they're doing for us and with us out in the market are continuum of partners is get both in the master agent community. So referral oriented relationships where the five nine direct sales team is getting Carrie in the water and working with them to get a deal done, but also in our resale business. Uh, you know, it's great to see those partners doing more and more to build the business and their portfolio on DH delivered joint customers. So it's a very exciting, you know, kind of up lift everything we're doing. All right, >> So So Wendell, uh, one of things when we talked. A lot of companies, it's like, Well, there's North American. There's everything else I was promised by some of your team members. You can actually give us a little bit more granular view of, you know, Europe, Eastern Europe and some of the other global differences that are happening in the market Place would love if you could share some of your wisdom. It's >> your thing. And I believe that I don't want to be disparaging Tio my friends in Europe, but they're a little slower on the adoption rate. Um, it's interesting. In my history and contact center, there were times where Europe led the field with different technologies, and yet other times that they were kind of behind what North America was doing. Uh, this is one of behind times, and I think it is just, you know, an ongoing concern and their minds about you know, how security and management of a cloud based delivery model was going to affect their business and how they were going to be looked at by regulators. But I think we've overcome, uh, those hurdles and the last several years in twenty eighteen, our business in Europe doubled year over year. Uh, and it's inspired us God, ADM. Or sales and other departmental resource is in the region so that we can do that again here and twenty nineteen similar story in Latin America. And now there is, ah lot of growth, a lot of interest. And it's not just in the mid market anymore. We're talking big, big call centers on. They are all jumping on the bandwagon. Uh, for all of the economic reasons that people want to go to the cloud in the first place. You know it's less expensive to get started. You know, it's easier to be nimble and flexible and your staffing and costs, and, you know, they all need those benefits just as much as a mid market or s and be kind of a client. >> Well, dig in a little bit further, Wendell, on how five nine and your partners have helped some of these customers in Europe in Latin America become comfortable with. We need to move to the cloud and also help them understand some of the other implications. Besides costs and things like the opportunity to start taking advantage of a >> okay, Great, yeah, because in particular, one of our partners in the UK has specialized in the travel, vacation Liza kind of industry and yell when they work in those markets. Uh, distributed workforce is very much kind of the norm for them. And so, you know, one of their clients, in particular, has agents in the UK They have agents in Germany. They want to manage him, is a common group and be able Teo manage there, television advertising to be ableto staff and respond based on wherever the load is. You know, whenever things are going on in there, you know, marketing activity, that's that's a key flexibility win for them. And they get the right staff at the right time to be ableto you know, to cover the television advertising, which is pretty costly, but it's a big win for them. Gotta have that flexibility with five nine. >> You know, it's interesting. We actually have only talked a little bit this week about the distributed workforce, and I I'd love to get your perspective. You know, I think back there's, you know, a large apparel company in the Northeast that when they didn't have any of their agents, you know, in their headquarters, and, you know, it was something that got written up. You know when that had happened. So today you know what? What is that? That mix? And, you know, are there some geographic differences that you see in that? >> Yeah, there are some differences just based on the infrastructure that may be available. And, you know, we find that home based workforce is a little bit more challenging in Latin America than it is perhaps in Europe or in the US But then there's also cultural differences. Yeah, there are some countries that have actually regulate that employees have to show up in a physical building or you're violating the law because you might be taking advantage of your employees. So that's different. Different strokes for get up for different locations. We are finding it more and more desirable because of all the reasons that, yeah, I've been around for a long time. You can save on real estate. You can save on the wear and tear of your employees traveling, but probably the biggest one is the benefit of flex staffing that allows you to get the right number of people for a short shift to cover your peaks or your be ready for your valleys that you know if people have to drive to an office they're just not is likely to want to sign up for, But that business modeling is actually becoming more and more compelling. Driving around Orlando. You know, this week it was kind of a challenge. Get on I for and with the rain. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to be at home workers here, you know, based on the weather this week. >> Definitely. So this is the end of enterprise Connect Expo Hall anyway, today, three full days this Expo Hall one hundred forty vendors knew new products. New service is sixty five hundred attendees. So much excitement in this hot, hot contact center market. What are some of the things that excite you that you've heard from partners and customers that just think we're on the right track? The momentum, The wind is at our backs >> Well, and you mentioned a I and what do your earlier questions? And that's kind of the buzz. Everybody was to talk about automation and machine learning, and you can bring a I into, you know, interacting in the call center. I'm sure you've heard from other people that have been up here. The focus we see in the near term is on agent augmentation and, you know, enhancing. Yeah. Agent performance through those technologies on, you know, a lot of people would have approached this thinking like Ivy ours in the past. I can replace agents with interactive voice response. Well, we will. We want to make a smarter, better customer serving agent and bring that technology and to play to do it. That's to me. Going be the things I've been seen exciting new technologies that can be applied in real time transcription and Theo providing the ability to read that and data depth and serve things up for for agents to allow them, Tio go to be more on the ball, talking to a client. >> Yeah, that old mental Asian is definitely something that came up quite a bit. We even talked with your CEO, Rohan trollop about that and the importance of empathy and voice that as consumers I would love to know that you went to an augmented agent on the other end. Who knows? Okay, I understand the issue. I see how many times this person has reached out through different channels and they're actually going to use that technology to facilitate a resolution and hopefully drive up. See Elvi. >> I mean, that insight into the customer experience is key for the agent to be able to do Mohr and do it better. You know, we've been talking about that night of insight for years and years. You know, technology has caught up with desire. And so now that we have the technology to do it, you know, we can allow the agent focus more on their conversation with a customer and not have to be working the keyboard in order to retrieve the next thing that they need to take care of. And so better prepared agent, you know, knowing the background of the client, you know, is going to give them a much better experience. And, you know, that's what five nines trying to deliver in the market. >> We've heard that resoundingly throughout the re through your partners customers, and it's been fantastic. Wendell, congrats again on your three time channel, chief. Honoree. A record. And I'm sure there's got to be a fourth one around the corner. I won't jinx that, but I'm just gonna gas. >> Thank you. >> We thank you so much for your time. >> Appreciate it. >> Likewise forced to Mina. Man, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube?