Twilio this week appointed Chetan Chaudhary to be global vice president of partners. This move follows the untimely passing of former Twilio channel chief Ron Huddleston last Fall.
The goal now is to advance the existing channel strategy Twilio put in place under the leadership of Huddleston earlier in 2017, says Chaudhary.
Twilio is trying to foster the development of a more cloud-centric approach that relies less on traditional resellers and distributors in favor of application developers, systems integrators and cloud service providers, says Chaudhary. As the overall IT market continues to evolve, it is clear partners need to focus on developing their own intellectual property by developing various classes of applications.
By exposing a range of communications services via application programming interfaces (APIs), Twilio is making it simpler for partners to embed a range of video and messaging technologies within those applications. Cloud service providers via the app stores they create online are in effect becoming a new distribution vehicle for those applications.
That approach reflects an approach to building a channel ecosystem around a cloud service similar to the approach employed, for example, by Salesforce, says Chaudhary.
“We’re not selling hardware through a distribution partner,” says Chaudhary.
Chaudhary is no stranger to the channel. Prior to taking on this role, Chetan was head of channel sales and general manager of Twilio’s IoT business unit. In addition to spearheading and building Twilio’s IoT Business, Chaudhary had led the design and development of Twilio’s channel strategy and go to market plans earlier in his five-year tenure at Twilio. Chaudhary continues to function as the general manager of Twilio’s IoT Business unit in addition to overseeing Twilio’s global channel. Chaudhary also serves on the board of Novoscale, a systems integrator.
It may take a while for the channel to fully embrace cloud-based business models. But the transition is clearly well underway. The real challenge now isn’t so much the will to make the required shift, but rather acquiring all the expertise needed to succeed.
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