All 4 One: Master Agencies Merge

Three master agencies - UteleSys, Communications Industries and Telelink Communications - have come together to form X4 Communications LLC, consolidating carrier commitments and back offices to improve commissions and efficiencies for their subagents. The new company launched in April.

“Our cradle-to-grave approach to managing agent processes and focus on quality control will allow us to provide the best agent experience in the industry,” says Steve Braverman, former Telelink president and CEO.

Braverman takes the helm as X4’s CEO and vice president of marketing and business development.

UteleSys founding partner Steve Snure will assume rolls as COO and CTO and his brother and partner Randy Snure will serve as director of partner compensation. Communications Industries’ founder Dennis (DJ) Fioretti will be vice president of sales and CFO. All former staff members of each partner have been retained.

The company says it will focus on perfecting its internal and external automation. X4’s new Agent On-boarding Program, for example, is a multistep process designed to help educate new agents on X4’s products, services and procedures. At the same time, X4 will seek to control “information overload” on behalf of its agents. It will pass on only pertinent vendor information to agents through periodic e-mails and an upcoming newsletter.

Braverman says the trio had little overlap in their contracts. Communications Industries had deals with SBC Communications Inc., Qwest Communications International Inc. and Global Crossing Ltd. while UteleSys maintained agreements with Qwest, PowerNet Global Communications and Primus Telecommunications Group Inc. In contrast, Telelink developed relationships with CLECs, such as XO Communications Inc., Focal Communications Corp., mPower Communications and others.

Braverman says Communications Industries had worked with both of the other master agencies and its founder Fioretti initiated the discussions about merging the three entities more than a year ago. The companies had been working jointly on an informal basis - passing agent leads to each other without overrides - before they finally agreed to make it official last December.

A key driver of the move was economies of scale, he says, noting that by combining the companies are able to support a pre-sales group, post-sales group and run the back-office with one Logicware software license.

He says that along with the efficiencies, X4 also is able to offer more aggressive commissions. The company renegotiated all its carrier agreements to reflect its increased buying power.

X4 has about 200 agents and plans to add another 80 by the end of the year. The company’s end user targets are businesses spending about $1,500 to $2,200 per month for voice and data services.