Channel technologies, Channel partner programs, CSPs

Box Hires Chief Marketing Officer for Channel Partner Push

Maturing partnerships -- including technology and channel partners -- are becoming an integral part of Box's go-to-market strategy, according to CEO Aaron Levie. To build on that momentum, Box has hired and will soon announce a chief marketing officer (CMO) who has more than 20 years of enterprise experience, Levie has confirmed.

Levie and CFO Dylan Smith shared that tidbit -- and plenty more -- during a Box earnings call yesterday. They also described how the file sync and sharing company increasingly sells with and through channel partners. The results are promising. For its Q1 2017 (which ended April 30, 2016), Box's revenues jumped 37 percent to $90 million. Key relationships with Adobe, Cognizant and IBM reached new milestones during the quarter, the executives said.

Still, Wall Street wants event faster growth. Box shares are down about 12% on the earnings report and competition looms around every corner. Among the eager rivals: Dropbox has growing channel momentum, and MSP-centric players like Autotask Workplace, Datto Drive and eFolder Anchor are carving their own market niches.

New Box Chief Marketing Officer, Partner Moves

Of course, Box isn't resting on its laurels. Levie says Box continues to differentiate from rivals by offering a "modern approach to enterprise content management, our differentiated product offerings and our maturing partnerships that are becoming an integral part of our go- to-market strategy."

"To further execute on these go-to-market efforts we’re bringing on board a chief marketing officer with 20 years of enterprise technology experience who will be joining us shortly," Levie added without mentioning the executive by name.

The new CMO and Box executive team will focus on three strategic goals this year, he added:

  1. Grow as a multi-product company: "Allowing us to deliver more innovation for current customers and penetrate new markets and industries."
  2. Expand Box's addressable market: To "include hundreds of millions of more users to the Box platform."
  3. Build a world-class partner ecosystem: That "extends the capabilities of Box and increase their distribution.

    4. Measuring Box's Progress

    In Q1, Levie said, Box made "significant progress against all three objectives."

    A few examples he mentioned:

    • In April, the company launched Box Zones -- which enable customers to store Box data in regions outside of the US beginning with Europe and Asia. The system leverages third-party platforms like IBM Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
    • In early May, the company launched Box for Government and announced that Box achieved FedRAMP certification from the U.S. Department of Defense.
    • More than 75,000 developers are building on Box’s APIs, using over 6 billion third-party APIs calls every single month.
    • Box in Q1 named Cognizant a preferred systems integrator, while also working closely with Adobe and Microsoft, Levie added.

      • And what about that new Chief Marketing Officer? We're poking around for names...

      Joe Panettieri

      Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.

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