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Master Mania: Avant, TBI, Intelisys Grew Supplier Portfolios in Q3
An arms race is escalating in the channel.
Our latest quarterly recap of master-agent doings shows that they are more and more looking to expand their geographical reach, and perhaps more importantly, diversify their solution set.
We’ve seen MicroCorp introduce a cloud division and bring in new expertise for the unit, a CRM company join the Intelisys family, and Sandler Partners further build its Midwest channel. The race is on to show the ability to support subagents across all regions of the United States and with a large variety of products and services.
Scroll through the nine images below to catch up on the latest happenings in the master-agent community.
Looking for more? Check out our second-quarter recap.
It formerly went by the moniker of Telecom Brokerage Inc., but its diversified portfolio says otherwise.
The Chicago-based master agent has announced numerous partnerships from a variety of niches in 2018. The company added five vendors in the third quarter, ranging from contact center to internet of things. Equinix brings a set of data-center services, while Towerstream touches on the connectivity side. Office Depot joined the master agent to offer its managed IT services, and Nextiva brought its business communications to the fold. Finally, Sierra Wireless partnered with TBI to give subagents its IoT solutions.
The one thing as common as master agents announcing supplier partnerships these days is masters announcing hires. Making your portfolio bigger is one key to attracting partners; building a support team is another pillar.
Utah-based Telarus landed a new cloud sales engineer, director of account management, and director of contact-center and UC solutions.
The business' expansion continued with the unveiling its new branding following its completed acquisition of CarrierSales.
The Petulama, California-based company enjoyed a busy summer.
The steady stream of hirings continued with a new solutions engineer, and Intelisys joined rival TBI in announcing a lengthy list of new suppliers: business satellite internet provider ViaSat, contact-center software provider ZaiLab, and text-based solutions provider MessagePro.
ScanSource, Intelisys' parent company, acquired Canpango to add customer relationship management (CRM) resources.
The Arizona-based master agent/distributor is now a member of 8x8's partner program.
PlanetOne subagents can now sell the vendor's unified communications and contact center platforms. Adding the cloud-focused communications provider fits in with PlanetOne's push to up its cloud expertise.
Check out our story on the partnership.
Sandler Partners hired Kim Lombardo as its new channel manager for the Midwest.
The Denver resident will serve agents in Denver and Chicago, which are “high-growth markets” for the master agency. Sandler hired a director of its Midwest channel earlier this year.
Read the personnel story.
Avant Communications publicized a few new vendors that joined its stable.
BCN came on board in August, giving sales partners new services for voice, data and other areas. A partnership with Green Cloud Technologies one week later added numerous as-a-service IT offerings. The Microsoft Azure cloud services provider Atmosera also announced that it has partnered with Avant.
Brant Elliot joined the master agent and distributor as a sales engineer for its cloud-elements division.
The company said Elliot will develop presales engineering for “advanced hosted solutions and cloud optimization opportunities.” MicroCorp reported that demand for its new cloud business has been rising since it launched the unit for SMBs and enterprises.
Learn more about what MicrCorp is doing with cloud.
Each company we've mentioned in this gallery earned platinum status with Masergy. The vendor named Intelisys its top overall sales partner, while Avant took honors for tops in UCaaS and unified enterprise security sales partner.
Below are the 13 platinum partners:
- Advantage Communications
- Avant
- BCM One
- Bridgepointe Technologies
- Converged Network Services Group (CNSG)
- Intelisys
- PlanetOne Communications
- Profit Enhancement Systems
- Simplify
- Telarus
- Sandler Partners
