XO Localizes Channel Support

XO Communications Inc. in fourth quarter 2006 reorganized its channel support organization to provide localized decision-making a move that has received positive response among the companys top agents.

The company tapped its top channel executive Jim Delis to be its president of business service sales. When the person running indirect gets put in charge of all company sales, that, in itself, sends a strong message to the channel, notes Ted Schuman, CEO of master agency PlanetOne Communications Inc., one of XOs national dealers.

Since Delis joined the company in July 2005 as president of indirect sales, he has managed to get the message to the executives that the channel produces less churn and a higher-value customer, agrees Steve Braverman, CEO of Chicago-based master agency X4 Communications Inc. They are putting all kinds of support behind the channel now, he adds.

Tom Gorey, national director of the Business Partner Channel, runs day-to-day channel sales operations and reports to Delis, who still provides strategic direction.

The changes to the XO program go beyond leadership, however, and include a restructuring of indirect channel marketing and support with an eye toward moving support closer to the partners, says Gorey, who spoke to PHONE+ at the 2007 kickoff meeting for its indirect sales management team, held in Tempe, Ariz., in January.

About one-third of the indirect sales team is at headquarters while the rest have been deployed to local markets, Gorey says. He adds this is not a teaming approach wherein direct sales reps or managers are paired with agents to sell. Instead, these local support folks are devoted to the channel. Gorey says many of the people in the indirect channel simply have been redeployed, but there have been a number of new hires to fill in the gaps.

For the agents, the material change is that their channel manager will no longer be the be everything person, Gorey says. Instead, they will have responsibility for business planning and management with the agent while the support for customer engagements will be localized. So, if a master agent is in California and a subagent is in New Jersey, the support for the subagent will be in New Jersey. The same goes for account help. If the customer is based in Atlanta, the local channel support will be available in Atlanta.

In the three months since the reorg, Gorey says the change has been well-received. Agents PHONE+ spoke to concur. The overall company has done a 180, says X4s Braverman. He explains that as Nextlink (XOs predecessor), the company operated very locally, but management decided to centralize to cut costs. It damaged the feeling that Nextlink was a local company, he recalls. Now, XO is pushing a lot of the control back to the local offices.

Carol Beering, director of support services for California-based master agency Intelisys Communications Inc., agrees the companys subagents are being supported better by XO than in the past. With agents (and their customers) scattered across the country, she says it helps for subs to be able to engage the local channel manager to help with a deal. Previously, they were not incented to do so and Intelisys assigned channel manager would often have to fly out to help. Now, they can get the support locally, and the local channel managers get credit and compensation for those sales. She also finds benefit in a simple byproduct of the change, such as having XO contacts in the local time zone for quicker response, rather than waiting on a West Coast channel manager.

In 2007, Gorey says XO will be focused on getting closer to the partners and understanding their businesses better so the company can tailor its support. He promised some unconventional approaches to this in the coming year, but would not tip his hand.