CenturyLink Reorganizing Group Structure

By Josh Long

CenturyLink has announced plans to consolidate three organizations focused on business and government segments into two groups.

The nation’s third-largest fixed line telecommunications provider is hoping that the reorganization will enable it to better serve enterprise clients.

The changes will take effect April 1.

“These organizational changes will allow us to more effectively leverage the strategic assets from our recent acquisitions of Embarq, Qwest and Savvis to better serve our business and government customers,” said Glen F. Post, III, president and CEO of CenturyLink, in a statement. “RMG and EMG will offer a full portfolio of services from voice to broadband to IT services, including colocation, managed hosting and cloud services. We are adopting a more integrated approach, which will help us serve our customers more effectively.”

Under the reorganization, the Enterprise Markets Group (EMG) will serve national and international Business Markets Group (BMG) customers, all Savvis customers and federal government clients. Savvis, the provider of cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises, previously was a separate group, according to a CenturyLink spokesperson. CenturyLink completed its acquisition of Savvis last summer in a $2.5 billion deal.

“The new EMG organization will better match our sales and support with the product and solution needs of our customers,” CenturyLink spokeswoman Stephanie Meisse told Channel Partners in an email. 

CenturyLink’s reorganization also means that the existing Regional Markets Group (RMG) will serve in-region large business customers as well as state and local government clients. The Regional Markets Group presently manages consumer and small/medium business segments. CenturyLink said RMG will serve the entire spectrum of business customers ranging from small businesses to regional enterprise customers that predominantly operate in the telecom provider’s local operating regions.

Asked whether the reorganization will have any practical impact on the indirect sales channel, Meisse responded: “We are currently evaluating our channel partner programs and will announce any changes to those in the near future.”

The reorganization will not impact CenturyLink’s Wholesale Markets Group, and Bill Cheek will continue to serve as president of that group.

Monro, La.-based CenturyLink also said that its Karen Puckett  its executive vice president and chief operating officer  will continue to be in charge of RMG while Jim Ousley will serve as CEO of Savvis and president of EMG.