We made it to 2021! As we look back on everything that happened in the most unforgettable year of
our lifetimes, we want to express our sincere gratitude for our incredible partnerships with the
people in this community.
In 2020, we came together in a way we never imagined. We grew together. We learned more about one
another, and we learned more about ourselves. We empathized with our friends and neighbors. We
raised money for those in need. We celebrated each other from a far.
We spent more time away from our partners, friends, and family than ever before, and somehow it
made us closer.
And despite the most challenging year in modern day history, our trusted advisors and vendors were
able to help customers transform their businesses in a way we never imagined. Years worth of digital
transformation happened in a matter of months, solidifying that our trusted advisors are critical to their
customers – now more than ever before.
We are thankful for the lessons that 2020 taught us, and for the opportunities it brought us. Here are a
few highlights of AVANT’s 2020:
1. Trusted Advisors Record Sales Growth –
- Industry Firsts! AVANT’s trusted advisors became the first group of partners to hit $1M
in new MRC with Zoom ($0 to 1M in 10 months), first EVER partner to hit $1 M in new MRC in a calendar year with Rackspace! - UCaaS was off the charts with 61% year over year growth, as AVANT’s trusted advisors
were some of the top sellers with RingCentral and 8×8! AVANT is leading with in all of
the categories of services that will shape the future of the trusted advisor movement.
2. The Ritz-Carlton of support – Avant announced our New Enhanced Support Model to better
support our trusted advisor community with enhanced emphasis in back office support and
engineering. Jennifer Gallego and Shane McNamara lead the charge in the new roles. AVANT
also expanded its coverage in Denver, East Coast, Midwest, and Europe with new Channel
Managers and a team coverage model to better support our trusted advisors.
3. We Recognized Our Top Performing Trusted Advisors and Vendors at our Virtual Special Forces
Summit – We are very proud of the achievements of our trusted advisors. Despite an incredibly
challenging year, our trusted advisors continue to show commitment to helping customers
navigate their digital transformation strategies and finding the best solutions to their next-gen IT
needs. Check out the impressive list of our winners here.
4. New Hustle Award Program for Vendors – Celebrating outstanding work is a cornerstone of
AVANT, it’s why internally we have the Hustle Awards. A program designed to recognize our
employees when they go above and beyond for each other or for our Trusted Advisors. This
commitment to excellence isn’t limited and shouldn’t be limited to just AVANT employees. Our
Vendor Partners – a valuable extension of the AVANT team – regularly go above and beyond for
AVANT team members, our Trusted Advisors and their customers too. With that, help us celebrate
a new program acknowledging their contributions as well with the Vendor Hustle
Awards. Congratulations to these outstanding vendors! You can nominate your outstanding vendor
partners for the next Hustle Award by emailing: [email protected]
5. We raised $22,014 for Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief
organization – Our very own Alex Danyluk shaved his head to celebrate and Shane McNamara
wore a wig for a week! We also raised money for bStrong, a disaster relief initiative that provides real
time emergency assistance to individuals and their families in crisis. Charity is an incredibly important
priority to AVANT, and we are always looking for more ways to get involved. If you have ideas or would
like to get involved with AVANT, email [email protected], and join our monthly charity poker events.
Register Here!
6. Shattered Expectations for a Virtual Summit – over 2,100 attendees, 21 breakout sessions, and
mainstage guest speakers including the CEOs from Zoom, Talkdesk, Vonage, NICE InContact, and
the CSO for Dialpad, and an incredible line up of keynote speakers, featuring Bethenny Frankel,
Marcus Luttrell, Bobby Flay, Kevin Brown, Mark Hawkins, Daymond John and Robert
Herjavec! You can find all content in the Pathfinder, and check out the highlights!
7. AVANT Community Came Together Virtually – With over 30 virtual events since March, AVANT
created some of the most unique, high energy and engaging experiences for our trusted
advisors and vendors. Here are a few highlights:
- Conscious Leadership Summit – Mental Health was a critical component of getting
through 2020. So we spent a day completely focused on the mind and body. We did
yoga with the incredible Shiva Rae, had incredible panels discuss the importance of the
workforce promoting mental and physical health, and providing resources for their
employees. We also heard a keynote from Robin Sharma, one of the world’s top
leadership experts, and the author of the 5AM club and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
book series. - 8 Work From Home BattleBriefings – Focused on how to assist customers in the
Working From Home transformation that was happening all across the globe. Helping
customers quickly and calmly pivot and transform their business. - 24 Insight Events – While it pained us to stay physically away from our closest channel
friends and family, we made the most of it and spent a LOT of quality time together at
numerous wine tasting events, Trunk Club style events, yoga, REI, and beauty/spa
insights. Social Distancing couldn’t stop us from having the best time and creating
special memories with our trusted advisors and vendors. - 5 Celebrity Chef Events – We came together with our families and learned how to cook
with our favorite celebrity chefs! Including Stephanie Izard, Graham Elliot, Thomas
Keller, Jeff Mauro and Bobby Flay!
8. 97 NPS score for our Sales Engineers from 238 responses – the culmination of our monthly
survey with our trusted advisors. We are incredibly proud that our engineers are so highly
sought after, and even more proud of the incredible work they do.
9. Helped our Trusted Advisors land new accounts with our CIO Events – 4 CIO events with
over 2,400 attendees, covering SD WAN, UCaaS, Security and CCaaS – with keynote speakers Rob
O’Neil, Former Navy SEAL team 6, Sam Esmail, the creative mind behind Mr. Robot, and Robert
Richman, former Culture Strategist at Zappos.com. Keep an eye out for our next CIO Event
coming later this year!
10. Major Enhancements for Pathfinder the Platform for Technology Decision Making: We
continued to invest in the Pathfinder, with features like the new Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
tool for UCaaS where selling partners can create an assessment of how much a client could save
by switching to cloud-based collaboration, Quick Quote v2: real-time connectivity pricing,
Commission Exhibits that give ability for partners to view our service providers’ price book, and
many more. We also added 11 new matrices, (including Microsoft Teams, Managed Cloud –
AWS, Azure & GCP, Portfolio, and many more), and 3 new IQAs (Microsoft Teams, SIP Trunking
& Work From Home). Talk to your channel manager today to demo these new features and
functionalities!
11. New Research and Analytics – Our VP of Research & Analytics Ken Presti, released two
New 6-12 Reports in Security and UCaaS, which covers predictions on where the market is heading in
the next 6-12 months, based on real time data AVANT collects with our IQAs and the
Pathfinder. Look for our 6-12 CCaaS Report and our State of Disruption Report to be published
later this quarter.
12. Speaking of Ken Presti, AVANT VP of Research and Analytics, he dropped 45 podcasts with over 7,500+ downloads! – In Ken’s podcasts, he discusses a broad range of topics, such as “Whats Next
for WAN?”, “The ‘Nightmare Scenario’ of Ransomware, “MFST Teams & Enterprise Voice”,
“Navigating Change in Tech’s New Era” with guest speakers from our industry leading providers,
AVANT’s own Sales Engineers, and our president, Drew Lydecker. Don’t’ miss Technology Insights with Ken Presti! Search for AVANT Technology Insights on your favorite podcast platform on Apple, Spotify or
Google Play and subscribe.
13. We Celebrated the Grand Opening of Dallas BattleLab! We are ready to support your business
in 2021. Tour the BattleLab.
In a way, we are thankful for 2020 and everything it taught us. But boy, are we ready for everything
2021 has in store (speaking of, check out our new store)! Keep an eye out for exciting new research and
analytics reports, our brand new industry training and certification program, and continuous
enhancements to the #1 Platform for Technology Decision Making, the Pathfinder.
We can’t wait to see everyone in person again.