Master Agent Featured Articles

Colotraq, a global sourcing advisory firm for data center services, has launched its master agency for colocation and managed hosting. 

Officials with Colotraq said that the new master agency empowers agents and consultants, who specialize in delivering telecom and IT solutions, to source their clients' needs for IT infrastructure.

Company officials said that joining the master agency gives an agent instant access to the services of more than 400 service providers who maintain over 3,000 colocation facilities in 1,200 markets across 160 countries. 

Colotraq's partners offer a full range of outsourcing options from collocation through managed services and even the latest Cloud offerings. 

"While the rest of the economy is retrenching, this is an exciting opportunity for agents to diversify their revenue stream, enhance their value proposition and maximize their share of customer wallet by moving into a part of the IT market that's still hot," said Lou Pecorralo, COO, Colotraq, in a statement. 

According to company officials, agents will have three ways to work with Colotraq, which they may elect on a deal-by-deal basis. 

The first is the traditional agency model where the agent manages the sale exclusively. At the other extreme, is the pure referral where the agent introduces the client to Colotraq and Colotraq takes it from there. 

There is also an "assisted sales" option for large complex projects and multisite deals where Colotraq's expert sourcing consultants provide technical consultation, sales cycle management and even conduct tours of facilities. 

Company officials said that both the agency and assisted sales options take advantage of the evergreen clauses, the strongest in the industry, in the company's contracts with its vendor partners and pay commissions for the life of the client's relationship with the vendor. 

When asked about the advantages of working through Colotraq rather than "going direct" to the vendor, Dany Bouchedid, the company's CEO, said, "We believe agents should focus on revenue generating activities, sales and client management rather than managing vendor relationships. We are experts in managing the total vendor relationship; including administering highly 'agent-friendly' contracts, managing commissions and resolving the inevitable disputes which arise from time to time." 

Bouchedid said that the company's dedicated Commissions Management Group conducts regular audits and reconciliations to insure that the agent partners receive all the compensation they are due.

"We also have a revenue retention group that will remind the agent when a customer is coming up for renewal and assist in the renewal process, if asked. All this plus access to an unmatched global network of providers and sales support from the industry's most knowledgeable sourcing specialists creates a tremendous value proposition for our agent partners," he said. 

Bouchedid said that while an agent may or may not gain a point or two in commissions by going direct to a vendor, he or she has a much better chance of closing more business and successfully managing their long-term client relationships by partnering with the company.