Nortel (News - Alert) announced today that it has opened the first Small Business Sales Center to support the growing business needs of cable operators in North America.

 

The center gives partners a flexibility to pick and choose the areas where they can tap Nortel’s extensive small business experience to get assistance in entering the growing small and business market rapidly, according to the company.

 

Service areas include sales, products, installation and support, according to the company.

 

“Nortel understands that selling to small businesses is much more challenging than residential customers because there’s no one-fit solution for every business,” said Valorie Walker, director of North American Inside Sales, Nortel.

 

“For example the communication needs of a real estate office with agents spending so much time off-site vary significantly from a doctor’s office where staff is at their desks most of the day,” Walker added.

 

“Because only 11 percent of small business have dedicated IT staff, the task of implementing these services can be daunting without the right technical help. Nortel has more than 17 years of sales center experience, and a strong presence in the small business market today. This experience makes us very well positioned to help cable companies enter this market with either a hosted voice or customer premise equipment (CPE) solution to their customers.”

 

Sales, products, installation, and support are provided by Nortel under the cable company’s own brand name.

 

Nortel’s Sales Center assists cable companies with a trained team that can make sales calls on the cable company’s behalf or offer helpdesk support for answering any of their customer’s questions, according to the company.

 

Nortel also provides cable companies with a broad portfolio of products and solutions specifically designed for the small business market to meet their varied business needs and building trust with the customer by making a wide variety of solutions available from one trusted vendor, according to the company.

 

With the new center, companies can take advantage of implementation services that include warehousing, provisioning, configuration, installation and training, according to the company.

 

Nortel officials say the company’s next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it, according to the company.

 

Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world, according to the company.