This summer Broadvox revamped its indirect sales channel program by naming a new channel chief and adding six sales directors. The changes are coincident with changes to the SIP trunking product lineup – repackaging, repricing and the addition of connectivity.
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| Broadvox's David Byrd |
David Byrd, who joined Broadvox as vice president of marketing in June 2007, was given sales as an additional responsibility on his year anniversary. As part of that, he was tasked with rebuilding the company’s go-to-market channel strategy.
That meant increasing the channel staff, which included adding a vice president of channel sales and one channel manager. Mark Bresler, formerly vice president of channels, now handles major accounts and VARs focused on enterprise installations. The lone channel manager was replaced with six channel directors, each covering a different region of the country. They include Bill Baumgartel in the Mid-Atlantic region, Dwight Beagle in the Southwest, Suzanne Condon in the West, Mary Jaco in the Southeast, Robert Musgrove in the Northwest and Matt Sharp in the North. Byrd said he plans to subdivide the Northern territory in the future. The channel directors are experienced in telecom; Beagle, Musgrove and Sharp came from Excel Telecommunications while Baumgartel came from Samsung, Condon from Cbeyond and Jaco from Speakeasy.
These channel directors are charged with working with the partners in their regions as well as leveraging previous relationships they have that may be outside of their regions. Because of this cross-region approach, the channel directors must work as a team to manage accounts. For national master agents, for example, there is one primary account manager for the master agent, but each regional channel director supports the master agent’s subagents in their region.
They also are charged with growing their regional business with the understanding that local sales support resources will follow that success, Byrd said.
Broadvox channel directors also will have an advisory role in defining the company’s product offering. Byrd said already the directors have suggested product changes, including the addition of connectivity and managed services.
“Previously we were a ‘bring your own broadband’ company, but we are now beginning to offer ... connectivity,” Byrd said, explaining that the company is now offering fractional T1s, T1s and DS3s at speeds ranging from 784kbps to 45mbps. This is facilitated by resale agreements with local loop providers to connect into Broadvox IP backbone.
As a result of the connection to the premises-based IAD, Broadvox also now offers managed services.
Byrd said Broadvox does not sell hardware and will continue to move boxes through distributors to its VARs. VARs that have their own relationships with distributors may use them. However, Broadvox will facilitate those transactions for other partners, such as telephony agents, that do not, arranging for shipment of the IAD to the customer’s premises or to the VAR as required. Broadvox channel directors also will pair agents with VARs that can take care of the gear installation.
Currently, Broadvox works with distributor ABP Tech and is finalizing a second distribution partnership, Byrd said.
