Combined CenturyLink/Qwest Creates New Channel Opportunities

When telecommunications carrier Qwest Communications International merged with CenturyLink in April 2011 to become CenturyLink, the results included a nationwide footprint representing what is now the third largest telecommunications provider in the United States. For Qwest’s and CenturyLink’s existing and potential partners, the merger also opened up a plethora of new opportunities.

“With the combined CenturyLink/Qwest product set, VARs now have an expanded soup-to-nuts offering for their end-user customers,” said Blake Wetzel, vice president of Sales, CenturyLink Business Channel Alliance. “Now partners have the right product set to deliver the right solutions to their customers, whether it’s an MPLS solution,  a voice solution, a cloud solution, or even managed services – all of those are available to our business partners.”

Wetzel shared more insights in this FastChat Video:

As part of that effort, CenturyLink Business has combined the channel programs of both companies into a new program it calls CenturyLink Channel Alliance. The new program pulls together the organizations and relationships of both companies into one consolidated offering aimed at the entire ecosystem of former Qwest and current and new CenturyLink business partners, be they traditional telecom partners, VARs, systems integrators and even some partners that are so evolutionary they can’t be labeled. “We continue to evolve our partner program  to embrace more scope and reach for our VARs and our other business partner relationships,” Wetzelsaid.

And as more traditional IT solution providers move to expand their services portfolio into voice, having a relationship with a vendor such as CenturyLink, which has a history in both voice and data services, can help smooth the migration.

Aside from voice and data, CenturyLink Business offers a strong portfolio of managed services and cloud solutions to truly provide end-to-end services to its business partner base.

“You’re hearing a lot about cloud solutions these days – we’ve actually been delivering cloud- solutions for years and VARs now are becoming more and more aware of what those solutions can do for end users,” Wetzel said. “In addition, we have our total national portfolio of voice services and data services that reach across the country and even globally, so our business partners now have a very robust portfolio of services they can work with.”