NICE Recognized by Master Referral Partners with Performance Awards

In all industries, partnerships are important factors in a company’s success. But in the complex and intensely competitive tech sector, companies rely heavily on partnerships to extend their reach to new markets, generate leads and sales—and ultimately, to continue building new relationships and nurturing existing ones. 

Having an extensive network of active partners—and being a partner to other companies—is a critical driver of business success for NICE, as well as for our partners. The company was recently recognized by three Master Referral Partners for our significant contributions to the respective partnerships—and to growing sales—for each:

• Intelisys named NICE a 2020 Top Revenue Growth Supplier.
• AVANT Communications named NICE Top CCaaS Provider.
• Telarus named NICE among top 5 Suppliers in Overall Sales

Intelisys Honors NICE as a Top Revenue Growth Supplier 

Intelisys recognized its top supplier channel managers and supplier partners at Channel Connect, the company’s annual partner conference, held virtually this year on October 13-15.

One of three supplier partners honored for achieving significant revenue and growth objectives for 2020, NICE received the Top Revenue Growth Supplier Award, based on the largest increase in year-over-year revenue growth among all Intelisys suppliers.

“We “We know that there are many great suppliers in the Intelisys portfolio, so to receive this award is a great tribute to us, and we’re grateful for it,” said Ray Hicken, NICE  VP, Strategy & Business Development. "The market right now is exploding. It is rapidly increasing with cloud contact center, and we are seeing great success. We look forward to continued success with Intelisys and its partners moving forward and are honored to receive the 2020 Top Revenue Growth Supplier from Intelisys.” 

The annual Intelisys Supplier Awards highlight partners who have demonstrated a level of excellence, dedication, support and value to Intelisys and its sales partners. According to Intelisys, the company maintains a partnership with more than 160 of the world’s leading telecom carriers, cloud services providers and technology partners. Intelisys delivers these technology services and solutions to end users exclusively through its nationwide network of sales partners.

“The commitment that our suppliers demonstrate to both the channel and our sales partner community is extraordinary, and we are proud to honor those partners who go above and beyond to provide exceptional value and support,” said Paul Constantine, Executive Vice President of Supplier Services, Digital Distribution at Intelisys. “We are grateful for these partnerships, and for the opportunity to recognize all those who empower the success of our sales partners and the channel.”

Intelisys is widely recognized as the nation’s leading provider of technology services and solutions, including business communications services, voice, data, access, cable, collaboration, wireless and cloud. More than a master agent, Intelisys delivers a platform for back office support, digital transformation, sales tools, and business enablement via MyIntelisys, the company’s partner enablement platform.

AVANT Communications Recognizes NICE as Top CCaaS Provider

NICE was honored with the Top CCaaS Provider Award at AVANT’s third annual Special Forces Summit, held virtually October 7-8. Based on 2019 sales results, the award demonstrates our ability to sell and to be successful with Avant’s trusted advisors at a level that exceeds other contact center providers. Additionally, it confirms our stature among analysts.

AVANT’s Partner Excellence Award winners were celebrated for commitment to sales results, innovation and disruption in the channel. This year’s summit, especially, honored award recipients across several categories for not only their sales achievements but also for their sales resourcefulness.

“Despite the challenges faced in 2020, we are pleased as always with the impressive achievements of our partners and the strength of the AVANT community, said Ian Kieninger, CEO at AVANT. The virtual Special Forces Summit [was] the most fitting place to honor our top performing partners.” 

NICE cites its shared commitment with AVANT to working together for continued reciprocal success and describes AVANT as “an extension of the NICE team and a vital part of helping contact centers win in the CX economy.”

“[We’re] honored to receive the Top CCaaS Provider for 2019-2020 again!” said Hicken. “Two years in a row is a tribute to both companies’ focus on the cloud contact center. We value our partnership with AVANT and its committed vision to the rapid growth of the cloud contact center and look forward to continued success in 2020.”

AVANT Communications is a platform for IT decision-making and the nation’s premier distributor for next-generation technologies. According to AVANT, it provides unique value to its extensive network of trusted advisors with original research, channel sales assistance, training, and tools to guide decision-making around IT services that promote business growth. 

Telarus recognizes NICE as a Top Five 5 Supplier in Overall Sales

Telarus, LLC, a leading master agent of business cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity and contact center services, unveiled its top-performing suppliers of 2019 during a live, quasi-virtual awards ceremony held at the Hale Center Theatre in Sandy Utah.

NICE was recognized as one among the Top 5 Suppliers in Overall Sales, a group that also includes CenturyLink, AT&T, Spectrum Business and Comcast Business.

“Congratulations to our Top Suppliers of 2019,” said Richard Murray, COO of Telarus. “Each of these companies has gone above and beyond when it comes to creating products that businesses are asking for: cybersecurity, contact center, cloud computing and storage, dynamic WAN networks, and super-fast internet. On top of that, they’ve all invested heavily in their channel support organizations, giving them the resources they need to educate, help, and sell with our channel partners.

“NICE is honored again to receive this award from Telarus as one of their top five overall suppliers in sales for 2019,” said Hicken. “The legacy of our relationship goes back many years since the inception of NICE. As both companies have worked closely together through the years in a strategic partnership, it has resulted in Telarus being the top master agency with NICE six years consecutively. We look forward to a achieving this valued award again.”

Built for You, Telarus is the largest privately held technology services distributor (master agent) in the U.S. The company’s dynamic agent-partner community sources data, voice, cloud, and managed services through a robust portfolio of over 200 leading service providers.

How supplier-partner relationships work

NICE’s Master Referral Partners work with their own “sub-agents” to refer contact center business to us. As a CCaaS (contact center as a service) supplier, we work closely with our Master Referral partners on developing marketing messaging and activities to encourage sub-agents to promote NICE products and generate referrals.

In other words, these pivotal relationships are with partners who offer complementary services to ours and essentially increase the size of our sales force all over the world, covering exponentially more market space than we could otherwise.  Conversely, our partners and their advisors are able to offer a more diverse set of solutions to their customers than they would working alone.  The upshot: everyone wins by joining forces.

Productive supplier-partner relationships require a mutual understanding of each other’s businesses and of effective ways of working together to increase sales. These partnerships are built on trust and transparency and a mutual commitment to growing both partners’ businesses.  From its inception, NICE committed to developing relationships with supplier-partners and has been nurturing—and leveraging them ever since.

The importance of supplier-partner relationships

Supplier partnerships are critical to NICE as a means—serving as an extended network—of reaching many more customers all over the world than the company could on its own. Individual partners’ advisors also serve in a consultative role, helping customers evaluate their contact needs and bringing the “best of breed” solutions from NICE to the table.  The relationships enable the partners, on the other hand, to expand their portfolios to include Customer Experience (CX) in their offerings to their own clients. 

The ripple effects of these partnerships can’t be overstated. The relationships open a window for a deeper-solution sale and add more complexity to partners’ portfolio. But together, NICE and its supplier-partners provide thousands of solutions across the world that help end-user clients improve interactions with their own customers.

NICE's continuing recognition from its Master Referral Partners as a top performer is a tribute to the tireless efforts of countless teams and individuals throughout our company.  Thank you—and congratulations to all!