Peter Wilson
Sun
Rogers Communications moved into the heart of Telus territory Thursday, with a declaration by one of its top executives that it’s out to grab small and medium business customers in the West.
“We’re signalling to the market here that Rogers is moving into the business area in a much more aggressive way,” Randy Reynolds, president of Rogers business solutions said during a visit to Vancouver.
“Our goal is to become the No. 1 alternative provider in Canada,” said Reynolds, who formerly headed Bell’s wireless operations.
“In the East, Bell may be first and we’d be the next provider, the number 1 alternative. In the West it would be the same thing, where Telus is first and we’d be the next guy.”
Reynolds said that while Rogers is primarily known to Canadians as a consumer-based wireless provider — with about 80 per cent of its revenues in that area — it now sees an opportunity to provide wired IP networks and local voice connectivity.
Small business customers in particular, said Reynolds, are ready for a change.
“The smaller the business customer, the less happy they are with the incumbent provider. And so we’re combining the strengths that we’ve had in the consumer market and we’re rolling out services to the business client, with a real focus in the small and medium segment.”
Although Rogers does have some well-known clients here — including BC Hydro, Vancity, TransLink and Ticketmaster — Reynolds admits that Rogers is not a name with huge business recognition in British Columbia.
“We don’t yet have the profile that we’d like to have,” said Reynolds. “One of my jobs is to figure out, working with the team here in B.C., how do we get that profile. We’re going gangbusters, winning a good percentage of the business that we bid on, but we’re still relatively small compared to Telus and Bell.”
As well, said Reynolds, he has to make it known to customers that Rogers, through its Sprint acquisition, has a cross-country business IT network that runs from Victoria to Newfoundland.
Rogers thinks it can score new customers when companies switch from ordinary wireline services to VoiP.
“We’re moving in now to try to find the customers that are changing their systems,” said Reynolds. “One of the things that’s happening in the market is that customers are changing at a fairly quick pace from the old style data networks to the new IP networks.
“So there’s an opportunity for us to get in there and become their networks provider.”
While pushing the business services, Reynolds also said that Rogers continues its innovation in the business market with its announcement this week that it has exclusive Canadian rights for a year to the new and highly hyped BlackBerry Pearl phone, aimed at those who want to get e-mails on the run, but don’t have a business connection.
“It’s really cost effective. You can get an e-mail pack on the Pearl for as low as $15 a month. And it’s designed to be easy to use.”
Reynolds said that since the Pearl was only introduced this week, he doesn’t yet have feedback from the retail level to know how its doing.
“But the hype is pretty hot, so I’m sure it’s going to be one of our big sellers.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
