Master Agent Featured Articles

Although the economy appears to be in recovery mode, IT budgets remain under the microscope with telecom expense management solutions coming into focus as enterprises persevere to look for cost-savings and ways to reduce overhead.

 

With telecom expenses often accounting for up to 20 percent of firms’ overall IT budgets, enterprises and SMBs alike understand that inconsistent processing and auditing of telecom invoices is no longer acceptable, according to IT research firm Forrester (News - Alert).

 

In order to best manage telecom expenses, going through a “master agent” as opposed to going directly to a carrier has several advantages, according to officials at Chicago-based Telecom Brokerage Incorporated.

 

Company officials explained that once the decision to become an independent sales agent has been made, the next decision is whether to go it alone and contract directly with the carriers or contract with an established master agent. TBI executives said the agent “strives to understand the prospects needs and suggests several solutions from different carriers to fill those needs. The customer is given a choice without the hassle of dealing with multiple sales people.”

 

TBI represents a broad base of carriers, including: Major IX’s such as Qwest, ATT, Verizon, and Level 3; R-BOC’s such as Qwest, AT&T and Verizon; C-LEC’s Access One (News - Alert), ACC, McLeod, Paetec, TelePacific and XO; IP Telephony’s Geckotech and Netlogic; conference calling carrier Intercall; wireless carriers Sprint PCS, XO and Covad; and Internet access/hosting carriers Eyezon, XO, New Edge Networks (News - Alert), Savvis and Level 3.

 

If a vendor or carrier abandons agent support or raises rates so they are no longer competitive, TBI will provide alternative vendors and support to help the agent easily switch to selling for other vendors, company officials said.

 

Last month, TBI announced the company has expanded their national channel manager division.

According to Ken Mercer, senior vice president of TBI, the role of a national channel manager is to recruit, support, and build strong relationships with sub agents, regionally and based on past relationships.

 

Channel managers, “allow TBI to support and find agents we may have never had before, as well as creating a personal relationship between the agent and the channel manager that TBI may not have had in the past,” Mercer said.

 

Learn more about master agent TBI by visiting their Web site or check out their Master Agent channel here on TMCnet.