As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, we just announced a worldwide distribution agreement with global unified communications leader, Siemens Enterprise Communications. In addition, an affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications has made a strategic investment in the company. I’m thrilled to share with you some of the details of the agreement, as it underscores our undeniable leadership of the growing cloud contact center market.
Worldwide distribution agreement
Under the new commercial agreement, Siemens Enterprise Communications will be the exclusive master distributor for the NICE CXone cloud contact center software portfolio in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and will deliver the solutions under the Siemens Enterprise Communications brand name. Siemens Enterprise Communications will also resell the NICE CXone portfolio in the U.S., Asia Pacific and Latin America. NICE CXone will establish the cloud infrastructure required to support this new agreement in Europe and will enable and train the Siemens Enterprise Communications team to independently sell, implement and support its global cloud contact center customers.
Being selected by Siemens Enterprise Communications to power their global cloud-based contact center offering is a huge step forward for NICE CXone, and a very exciting development for our company. With more than 3,000 sales and support personnel as well as 3,000 channel partners around the world, the Siemens Enterprise Communications team is uniquely positioned to help NICE CXone drive significant growth in the next several years.
Strategic investment
Under the terms of the equity agreement, an affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications will make an investment of nearly $24 million in NICE CXone. This equity investment will provide NICE CXone with the strong balance sheet and financial capability required to continue to grow our cloud business and further strengthen our market leading position.
We are also excited to welcome Siemens Enterprise Communications CEO, Hamid Akhavan, software and telecommunications veteran and the former COO at Deutsche Telekom Group, to the NICE CXone Board of Directors.
What this means for NICE CXone customers
So, what does this agreement mean for current NICE CXone customers? First, it creates additional resources for us to grow our platform capabilities and provide support for their operations and customers. Siemens Enterprise Communications' massive market footprint, especially outside the US, will help us bring the business-changing benefits of the cloud to companies large and small around the globe.
What this means for NICE CXone business partners
Our partners bring industry experience, knowledge and technologies that help us deliver winning solutions to our customers. We believe that the new Siemens Enterprise Communications cloud UC and PBX offering can open new revenue streams for our partner channel, and that the combined solutions will drive big value for our joint customers. Our partners will continue to send referrals to our channel management team, and we will do the heavy lifting during the sales process.
What an exciting time for the cloud market and for NICE CXone! This highly strategic relationship with Siemens Enterprise Communications marks the beginning of a new era of accelerated global growth and visibility for NICE CXone. We have never been in a better position, both financially and technologically, to capitalize on the massive opportunity before us and we continue to actively develop additional potential partnerships that will expand our presence across the globe.
