In the wake of its acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless L.L.C. created a new Business Markets Group, which the carrier said would provide business customers with access to sales and support professionals focused solely on enterprise needs. AWS was regarded as the leading wireless provider for enterprise customers prior to its acquisition by Cingular, and Cingular has been seen as deficient in the enterprise arena.
Cingular said the BMG will have a nationally focused sales force concentrating on four business segments: Global, covering the Fortune 1000 or equivalent U.S. revenue; Corporate, focusing on medium-sized businesses with more than 50 employees; Small Business, focusing on companies with fewer than 49 employees; and Government, focusing on federal, state and select local governments as well as colleges and universities.
The new organization will be run separately from Cingular’s consumer-facing operations and will include sales, customer care, ordering, product and offer development, and solutions deployment. Cingular appointed former senior sales executive Kent Mathy president of the BMG.
“The business-to-business marketplace is a significant growth area for the wireless industry, particularly in the data segment,” said Ralph de la Vega, chief operating officer for Cingular. “While Cingular enjoyed considerable success in the small-business segment, the former AT&T Wireless had built a great reputation in the global, corporate and government segments-a key reason Cingular acquired it. That coupled with our designation of the Business Markets Group as a separate entity within Cingular with profit-and-loss responsibilities underscores the importance we place on business customers.”
Cingular added that post-acquisition of AWS, it counted as customers employees from 95 of the Fortune 100 companies and more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 as customers. The carrier also said it currently serves more than 1,200 federal, state and local government agencies.
