Managed Services: Two Sales Forces May Be Better Than One


One option involves maintaining separate sales forces for each business model.


[Related: The Managed Services Opportunities Behind BYOD]








NEXT: The Carrier Advantage?In the example of Hargray, Rein sees his dual-force strategy as a means of optimizing talents rather than one of overcoming resistance. But, he also believes that moving into managed services from a local exchange business model gives his company unique advantages.

"Companies like ours have an advantage because we are used to recurring revenue models and annuitized revenue streams," he added. As things move more into a hosted environment, we can spread those investments over thousands of customers. This gives us economies of scale that others won't be able to reach. Plus, we are focused on the local area, which enables us to go in and customize the environments and be nearby when they need us. We are large enough to have scale but not too large to lose the local touch."

Combined offerings will include server hosting, monitoring and management, databases, IP telephony, hosted PBX, on-site servers and on-site phone systems and devices.

"I believe that our existing business is going to thrive as a result of being able to deliver to those customers that have been with us for such a long time and add to the equation," Rein summarized. "We're going to be rocket fuel for iTech. They used to be a small company with no network, and now they're going to be able to go to thousands of customers with a great network at their back, and I think that's something that we are really going to be able to capitalize on."