What a year for Zift Solutions! Early in 2019, we launched ZiftONE, a groundbreaking fresh approach to Enterprise Channel Management. ZiftONE was years in the making and the largest engineering effort in Zift’s history. We recognized channel leaders were not well served by piecemeal pure-play channel applications. We became the first among channel technology providers to address the fact that running a predictable and scalable channel program requires a comprehensive platform. Moreover, that platform must deliver operational excellence and exceptional analytics and instrumentation. The only way to achieve extraordinary ease of use for suppliers and channel partners, while also delivering the insights and analytics progressive channel leaders require, was to build a new end-to-end channel management platform from the ground up. That’s why and how we created ZiftONE.
Industry thought leaders and analysts were quick to recognize our efforts as well as the transformational power of ZiftONE. We were honored to receive the prestigious 2019 Frost Radar Best Practices Award for Innovation Excellence from Frost & Sullivan recognizing the launch and impact of ZiftONE. In their words, “The Innovation Excellence best practice award is bestowed on companies that are industry leaders reinventing themselves through R&D investments and innovation.“
Frost & Sullivan analysts noted: Removing data silos and making intelligent marketing decisions on the channel partner and direct marketing and sales side is a challenge most marketing teams face today. ZiftONE from Zift Solutions alleviates these pain points by bringing data and insights from channel marketing, sales, and operations into one place, highlighting Zift Solutions’ understanding and innovation leadership in the marketing automation solutions market today.
Zift’s investment in innovation is unmatched in the industry, with over 25% of our revenue committed to R&D to expand functionality for suppliers managing their channel programs with ZiftONE. After launching ZiftONE, our pace of innovation accelerated, and the platform is growing and improving every day. The Zift product team is constantly listening to the market and our customers, and our engineering team delivers enhancements and improvements every week.
Enhance. Expand. Integrate.
An exciting platform extension you can put to work immediately is the ZiftONE Developers Workbench. The channel management platform has to integrate with existing enterprise technologies and operational systems. ZiftONE was built to be a part of the enterprise ecosystem, and it comes with a long list of pre-built connectors and interface tools, but most IT organizations require more. To answer that need, we delivered the ZiftONE Developers Workbench. It is a comprehensive toolkit that opens up all of the programming interfaces in the platform so that anything Zift developers can do, our customers’ IT team can do. We made ZiftONE an open platform that enables developers to enhance, expand and integrate it with just about anything in the corporate infrastructure.
To ensure the highest levels of service and security as your IT infrastructure grows, Zift has added a number of critical security certifications (Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Level 1, Cyber Essentials, IASME Consortium, and Privacy Shield Framework) as well yet another year to our string of Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II compliance audits with no exceptions.
Joining the Revolution
Shortly after the launch of ZiftONE, members of the channel technology market asked to join in our channel technology revolution. So we created the ZiftZone Strategic Alliance Program, a rapidly growing ecosystem of trusted and certified agencies, applications, and service providers, all of whom drive channel success for our customers. Zift’s global reach is advancing rapidly via ZiftZone and our customers are reaping the benefits with connections to more than 30 leading providers of channel-focused solutions and services.
We’re moving forward into 2020 with more customers, more integrations, more alliance partners, and more expansive capabilities. We continue to support and invest in our existing customer platforms while we innovate and advance ZiftONE to provide the next generation of channel management excellence.
We’ve spent a great deal of time in 2019 listening to our customers. They are excited about the ability to manage the entire partner lifecycle with ZiftONE. They like the fact that they can onboard, train, engage, and activate their partners with transformative tools to generate pipeline and close deals. They also appreciate the fact that they have the flexibility to take a DIY approach, using ZiftONE’s dynamic portal tools to quickly onboard and activate partners. They also appreciate that they can leverage our Zift Services, Channel Center of Excellence and ZiftZone partners for even more expansive capabilities and support.
In 2020, our focus remains on addressing the complex needs of channel leaders. We’re thrilled to see so many organizations reaching out to us to learn how they can join the ZiftONE revolution. Some have expressed their desire to get help in understanding exactly how their channel program stacks up against others in the industry — and even create an action plan to move forward. Our Channel Center of Excellence provides a Channel Readiness Assessment to explore the foundational levels, current capabilities, and overall effectiveness of your channel program. I encourage you to kick off the new year by scheduling your assessment as soon as possible to ensure you meet your 2020 goals.
What are you planning to conquer in your channel program in 2020 and beyond? Let us know if you’re ready to turn your future visions of channel success into reality today with ZiftONE.
