We are excited to share with you the news that CenturyLink is going to acquire Savvis, a global leader in cloud computing and hosted IT solutions for businesses. By acquiring an established industry leader like Savvis, CenturyLink can more quickly meet your business’ needs for colocation, managed hosting and cloud computing services. Outsourcing your IT services can help your business reduce capital expense, improve service levels and take advantage of the latest advances in cloud computing.

When the deal closes later this year, CenturyLink will immediately be able to provide your business Savvis’s products and services over their network – offering your business expanded geographic and network options as well as greater redundancy and security across your business’ IT platform. The acquisition will provide a robust hosting presence for CenturyLink, including 48 data centers (combined); more than 1.9 million square feet of gross floor space; a robust, national 207,000-route mile fiber network; and a 190,000-mile global access network.

CenturyLink is focused on bringing a level of service that surpasses everyone in the industry by leveraging the best practices, the best products and services, the best tools and the best systems of this combined company.

Because of CPI’s unique and proven telecom industry back office automation expertise, CPI was invited to speak to industry peers at a national trade show in Washington D.C.

The transcript of the audio interview appears below.

Dan Baldwin:  Hello, this is Dan Baldwin and today I’m speaking with Ronda Perry, the processing commissions manager for CPI Communications, a successful master agency based in Iowa that focuses on serving the network service needs of equipment buyers and systems integrators. Ronda, thanks for talking to TA today.

Ronda Perry:    Sure.

DB:  One of the things that CPI is known for in addition to taking care of equipment integration with network services, is you guys are kind of the experts in the industry on RPM.  For our audience that is not completely familiar with RPM can you share with us what it is and how it is that you came to become an RPM expert?

RP:   RPM is a software solution that we initially brought in to track commissions and be able to report clear commission reports to our agent’s reps and sub-agents and partners, and it turned out that RPM was able to become a cradle to grave  solution for our business so we have the ability of tracking information from the point of a prospect that a sales rep comes across all the way through to the end including renewal. So this would be prospecting. 

We have the ability to automate and track quotes. When that quote turns into a customer we can track everything about the customer including their locations. Once it goes to an order we can track every aspect of that order in status from beginning to turn-up through commissioning.

Then also on the backend as far as customer service we are able to track our renewals, repair tickets and change orders for that customer, and this is all to have the ability to be viewed by our partners and our reps. Most of the feedback that we have gotten from people that may be already working with a partner is they receive a check on commissions and they really don’t know what that commission check is for, what account it’s for, what month it’s for, what did that customer actually bill. So they always have that question in the back of their mind are they really seeing their full commission?  

With RPM they are able to go in and not only view what that customer billed to be sure they’re getting the proper commission, but if they would like to they can also track that order from beginning to end to make sure that it’s getting installed accurately and timely right at the first.  

So we are finding that we are able to keep our customers because they are very happy with the amount of due diligence we’re able to do and handhold these orders and installations because of the software that allows us to track everything along the way.  

Another item that is very beneficial with RPM is our ability to get turn-ups done much quicker.  A lot of times reps and agents talk about how long it takes them to get a commission check on a customer that they worked  with.  With RPM our support staff is continually given automated tasks for all their orders and nothing slips through the cracks.

They know on exactly what day they need to take that order to the next step so nothing is sitting and waiting or being stalled.  So we’re able to get things turned up much quicker which means that partner or agent or sub-agent gets their commission checks much quicker as well.

DB:   Well I’m finding this all very interesting because as many in our audience know I am a sub-agent myself for a different master agent and my master agent uses RPM, and once a month the commissions manager sends out an e-mail and says, “Okay, the commissions are done.  You can log into RPM to see what you’re making.”  I then log into RPM and all I really see is the amount of my commission check and next to nothing more 

So I always thought that RPM was just a way to tell me how much I was getting paid commission which is certainly nice, but what I’m hearing from you is that’s probably just the way RPM comes out of the box when at master agent subscribes to RPM but RPM does so much more but only if you’re hooked up with  master agent that really knows how to customize RPM.

Can you spend a little time and explain to our audience what sort of commitment and resource investment is required of a master agency and how one master agency using RPM certainly doesn’t look like another master agency using RPM? 

RP:   Right, you’re exactly right.  RPM coming out of the box is a great way to track commissions, but as you said unless you spend some time and effort in creating a process and expanding the boundaries of what RPM initially does that’s all you’re going to get.  

With my background as a process pro, what we did at CPI starting back in 2006 is to map out processes for completing orders or quotes or renewal, or whatever we need to do for our customer and how are we going to build out the walls of RPM in order to track that information and make sure it gets done.  

So since 2006 the first thing we did was roll out our order templates which was gathering all the information for the order system including statuses and then we built out our customer templates, then our prospects, and now we’ve added quotes.  So we’ve taken every piece of the process along the way and delve into not only managing information in RPM but first of all taking a step back and creating a process in house in order to manage it.

The great thing about RPM is that if you can dream it up, you can create it.  However, if you have a master agent that doesn’t have a process background or they don’t have the vision to see what is needed to move those walls out and capture everything to make you efficient then it’s just going to be a commission tool.  

Also we give all our staff agents full access to RPM and some of our competitors don’t do that.  Some master partners don’t allow other people to go in and take a look at their own information, and with RPM, the way we have it built if you submit an order and it hasn’t even come yet in most cases you’re not normally going to see anything from another partner until it pays. 

You don’t have any idea when it’s going to pay, if they’re having trouble with getting the order completed.  With our access that we give our partners and sub-agents you can go in and see for yourself every single day what our staff is doing on every single order and every single customer you have.  

So you’re going to know two months before you get that check what you are going to be getting a check on.

DB:  And you’d be able to track problems if there are any in the provisioning.  So what I hear you saying Ronda is that if a sub-agent or equipment VAR or systems integrator is searching for the right master agency and that master agency says, “Well, we use RPM,” then what the sub-agent needs to do is say, “Can you share with me all the different RPM modules that you have in place and that you share with the agent and can I have a tour of those different modules?”,   because that’s really what separates the RPM “wannabes” with the RPM experts, right?

RP:  Absolutely.  I mean we’ve got years into creating this to be what it is today so we’ve already done our due diligence. The best thing for people to do is to ask who they are working with. “Do I have an ability to view and track my orders, my customers, my prospects, my quotes, or just my commissions?”  And that’s going to tell you right there how far out they have utilized RPM.  

The other thing that’s going to be important is do they create reporting for you?  RPM has a wonderful ability to report any type information that that sub-agent wants, and we can do that for them and send the reports to them or they can go in and very easily build these reports themselves in the RPM.  

So if they’re curious as to what customers they have in a certain state with a certain product because there’s a promo coming out and we want to do a move, you can pull up all that information in a matter of seconds.  Or even just, “What prospects are using a current carrier or current product?”,  because now we have something better coming along down the pipe and you want to let them know.

Within two minutes we can pull out for them all their prospects that fit that query.

DB:   Great.  Great.  So now what I hear you saying is if a sub-agent can think of a report question like, “Where are my customers and prospects in relation to this upcoming promo?”  Whatever question they can think of RPM can do.

And also, it sounds like this is a very powerful tool for those sub-agents that need something that can manage a complicated environment because many of the sub-agents are moving into multi-location customers that have locations over multiple LEC zones.  I mean, anybody can manage a single location integrated T-1 customer on an Excel spreadsheet, but when you have multiple locations, multiple customers, multiple LEC zones, you really need something that can handle a complicated environment.

RP:   Absolutely, and the way RPM is built and the way we’ve added on our extra templates it’s very easy to sort out the information you’re looking for. It’s so easy to use, and the other item is that the agents or sub-agents and partners need to feel comfortable about is their information that they supply us into RPM is still their information.

No one else, none of our other partners or sub-agents can see that information.  Our support staff can see it to work the orders, I see it to take care of the commissions, but otherwise their information is secure. They don’t have to worry about what’s happening with their revenue.

DB:  Great. This is Dan Baldwin. We’ve been talking to Ronda Perry. She’s the process and commissions manager for CPI Communications.  Now Ronda my understanding is that CPI is so good at RPM that you were recently invited to speak at a national trade show where RPM and several other software vendors were on the panel.

RP:   Yes, we were privileged to do that.  I worked very closely with RPM with some of the ideas we’ve had for expanding its usage and they’ve been wonderful at working with me to make sure that what we’re envisioning is going to be a reality within RPM.  We’ve also worked with them with some of their upgrades and have given them some ideas of  some extra perks that we’d like to see in the system, and it’s all been very helpful. They have been a great company to work with.

DB:   Great. This is Dan Baldwin. We’ve been talking again to Ronda Perry, and  CPI Communications, for all the TA vendors and members, have thrown down gauntlet.  They are basically saying to the audience that they are the best master agency when it comes to customizing RPM to do what systems integrators and equipment VARs need done to manage a multi-customer, multi-location, multi-carrier environment.  Ronda, thanks for talking to TA today.  Is there anything else you want to share in closing?

RP:  No, I don’t think so other than if anyone has any questions or would like to have a webinar tour of what we can do on RPM for them have them give me a call.

DB:   That would be great.  You have a great day.  We look forward to talking to you again soon.

RP:  Thank you

Rob Shelby
Director Global Partner Program

Jason Dishon
Regional Manager

 Cale A. Perry
 President

“Much like the water and electric programs the government established to encourage rural development, federal grants are needed to enable the deployment of broadband to high-cost, unserved areas,” said Steve Davis, senior vice president of Qwest Public Policy and Government Relations.

In its application, Qwest proposes to build facilities to serve more than half a million homes, schools, businesses and hospitals that lack access to today’s high-speed Internet capabilities. It plans to introduce the service at download speeds of 12 to 40 Mbps. Customers will be able to choose from a full array of broadband services and features.

The total cost of the proposed deployment would be $467 million. Qwest is requesting a grant for $350 million from the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), which is administered by the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). When Congress enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year, it directed the USDA to establish a program that would stimulate broadband deployment to hard-to-serve rural areas.

The Broadband Initiatives Program provides 75 percent of the build-out costs. The remaining 25 percent, or $117 million, would be funded by Qwest.

The Rural Utilities Service has indicated that it will consider BIP applications during the summer and award the grants by Sept. 30, 2010.

In other news, Verizon today announced it has chosen Qwest to help deploy fiber to cell towers as part of Verizon’s LTE rollout, which will reach 25-30 markets this year.

 As you heard at Q.Marketplace, Qwest earned multiple awards from Atlantic – ACM in 2009. In addition, Qwest also earned several Nemertes Pilothouse Awards. Both of these research and advisory firms base their awards solely on customer input.

Atlantic – ACM 2009

Qwest ranked Best-in-Class for:

• Network Performance
• Provisioning/Installation
• Billing
• Customer Service
• Small/Medium Business Data Value
• Sales Reps
• Enterprise Voice Value
• Enterprise Data Value

Nemertes Pilothouse Awards 2009

Qwest earned the following:

• Top Ethernet Service Provider
• Highest Overall Rating
• Highest Value Rating
• Highest Customer Service Rating