Ramp recently named Doug Collins Vice President of Global Channels and Partnerships as part of the company’s strategy to grow business and better serve our customers. Throughout his career, Doug has fostered both channel and alliance relationships to drive growth and improve customer success.
Doug is responsible for all things related to our channel strategy and partner ecosystem. With enterprise video adoption growing at an unprecedented rate in 2020, Ramp and our partners have an amazing opportunity to help organizations deliver secure, high-quality video.
Doug is a channel guru, enjoys creating meaningful partnerships, and has been in the enterprise video biz for the better part of a decade. Read on to learn more about Doug and get a glimpse into what he has planned for Ramp’s channel and partner programs.
Q. What was your career path leading up to your position at Ramp?
Most of my career has been dedicated to supporting channel and alliance partnerships in the tech industry. I’ve worked with huge enterprises, small startups, and in reseller organizations.
It all started at Oracle where I made the transition from direct sales to channel and alliances working on a high-growth software solution. It was at Oracle where I learned the concept of integrated solutions. This has been at the foundation of my career ever since. I started in the unified communications (UC) space at Interwise, when the market was in a state of massive transition. With Cisco’s acquisition of WebEx, other service providers followed suit, which led to AT&T’s acquisition of Interwise. There I had the responsibility for helping define the UCaaS product and GTM strategy for AT&T. With the Interwise solutions as the foundation, we built an end-to-end UCaaS solution. We took that offering to market across the enterprise, mid-market, healthcare, education, and federal and state/local government markets.
After eight years at AT&T, I joined reseller NWN Corp, where I was responsible for their Cloud Voice Collaboration solutions and their Cisco relationship. We were one of Cisco’s first channel partners to deploy their UCaaS HCS voice technology. From there, I joined Hive Streaming, a company similar to Ramp, with the objective of building out the company’s channel strategy and go-to-market approach to drive a set of integrated solutions into the enterprise marketplace.
That brings us to today. I’m here to help drive, recruit and enhance Ramp’s global channel and partnership program. With video adoption at an all-time high, Ramp’s technology is also in very high demand—which means there is a ton of opportunity for Ramp and our partners.
Q. What is one piece of advice for someone just starting their career in the channel?
Building strong relationships with your business partners is the foundation of business success. Start by building trust. You must be responsive, attentive and responsible. You want your partners to know they can count on you to deliver.
If you build the right relationships, you can play in a bigger pond rather than trying to do it all yourself. Although it is sometimes easier to sell direct, building and growing your channel—through relationships—can yield exponential success.
Q. What changes do you anticipate for our industry as a whole in 2021?
The landscape has changed forever. Although some worked from home pre-pandemic, it wasn’t a heavily endorsed practice. If you lived near an office, you were expected to work in the office—until now. Moving forward, work from anywhere will be more widely accepted.
You probably won’t have a specific desk in the office. Instead, the office will be transformed into a place where you go to collaborate with colleagues, which will dramatically change the look and feel of the physical workplace. We will no longer need huddle rooms and traditional work stations. But I don’t believe people—and companies—will succeed with 100% of employees working from home. We’re social creatures and need to connect with others on a deeper level.
In addition, corporations will need to revisit their digital transformation initiatives. Employees must be able to access the info and tools they need to get their jobs done anytime and from anywhere, which is only possible with the right technology.
One of those technologies, video, became the de facto communication tool in 2020. At first, companies scrambled to get collaboration tools like enterprise video up and running. We saw an explosion of Microsoft Teams and Zoom adoption because they are easy to deploy and use.
Now, companies must take a step back and determine what’s needed to scale and grow video. They have to figure out how to deliver high-quality video to every employee without buffering and jitter. I believe we’ll continue to see exponential growth in enterprise video, including solutions like eCDN, as IT teams identify the right technology to support a hybrid workplace. One where people can work either in or away from the office.
Q. Although you have only been with Ramp a short time, what are your immediate priorities?
As the team continues to build and promote the very best video distribution platform, I’ll be looking for ways to expand and deepen our partnerships.
First, I’ll spend time with Ramp Partners to ensure the relationship and integration are solid. Although Ramp’s partnerships come in two flavors—Ramp Integrated and Ramp Resellers—the majority are companies who provide enterprise video content management solutions. Some examples include Brightcove, Intrado, Kaltura and Microsoft.
But how do we take our presence to the next level? Get Ramp eCDN in front of more of the right people? This is where the channel comes in. Ramp’s channel will become an extension of our team to get our solutions into the market and drive customer success. We already work with a handful of resellers. So, we want to make sure they have what they need to successfully sell and implement Ramp solutions. Then, we’ll double down by expanding and formalizing our channel program.
The ideal partnerships will come from resellers who are already helping organizations take full advantage of enterprise video. We will identify, recruit and sign both global and regional resellers who are already in the business of digital transformation. For example, Ramp will target resellers who are enabling solutions like Microsoft 365 (with a focus on Micorosft Teams and Microsoft Stream) and adding on capabilities to improve the end-user experience.
Q. What’s one thing you like to do in your free time?
My family is the most important thing in my life, so I spend most of my free time with my family. When we started our family, my wife and I agreed we would be fully dedicated to creating amazing memories with our kids. I’ve coached both of my daughters’ sports teams, including softball, basketball and soccer, and have been a part of parent organizations at their schools.
We’re blessed to have a vacation home where we (along with the girls’ friends on occasion) spend time. We love being on the water during summer months and skiing in the winter. Although my children are grown, and my wife and I are now empty nesters, our family is still the center of everything we do.
About the Ramp Partner Ecosystem
Ramp partners with the most recognized names in technology to make sure our eCDN delivers the maximum value for organizations of every size. We have three types of partners:
- Ramp Integrated: We work with these partners to ensure a seamless integration between Ramp eCDN and their solutions. Many of Ramp’s integrated partners also resell our solutions.
- Ramp Reseller: Ramp channel partners are certified to sell Ramp solutions and specialize in enterprise video.
- Ramp Verified: Enterprise video solutions that we’ve tested and verified to work with Ramp eCDN. Some of these companies also resell Ramp solutions.
Are you interested in becoming a partner? Contact us now.
