Cincinnati Bell has developed a new unit that will focus on the needs of small to medium sized businesses that have unique needs that differ from the larger enterprise customers served by its CBTS division.
The Cincinnati Bell Business unit will provide a suite of voice, data and technology integration and support services to companies that have less than 100 employees in its home Cincinnati market.
Greg Wheeler, senior vice president of small/medium business solutions for Cincinnati Bell, told the Cincinnati Business Courier that there are "more than 50,000 customers we can support" with the new unit.
Wheeler said that it needs to work with the IT community that supports SMBs, and this new division reflects its "commitment to rebuilding that program."
It should be of no surprise that a key focus for the new unit will be on providing a series of hosted services that Cincinnati Bell manages as most SMBs lack the knowledge and IT staff to manage services like e-mail and storage themselves.
Establishing a SMB unit comes as the company looks to shore up its assets to battle emerging cable competitors like Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), which will enter Cincinnati when it completes its purchase of Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC).
In addition to the new unit, Cincinnati Bell recently began co-marketing a new Web-based portal with ATC that allows businesses to find quotes and pricing for fiber services. ATC is operating the site and Cincinnati Bell is supporting the site and its mission.
Being able to provide fiber-based services to SMBs and a set of services and customer service capabilities focused on their needs will enable Cincinnati Bell to win back or prevent these customers from churning over to a cable provider.
For more:
- Cincinnati Business Courier has this article
Related articles:
Cincinnati Bell taps ETI to migrate business customers from T1 to fiber services
Cincinnati Bell, ATC launch fiber portal targeting SMB customers
Cincinnati Bell's Fox: Fiber makes us more competitive with cable in the SMB, commercial space
Cincinnati Bell's Fox: Metered broadband pricing will happen over time
Cincinnati Bell to target new business fiber expansion to battle TWC, eyes out of region opportunities