Starting from IP Telephony, contact centre solutions, unified communication solutions and CEBP (communication enabled business products) solution, the company has excelled in every space and packaged the best-of-the-breed solution for the customers. And, truly, Avaya’s philosophy rests balanced on these four pillars. Avaya’s performance in these four spaces has brought the company quite a number of accolades too. This year, in India Avaya GlobalConnect has won Frost & Sullivan’s Market Leadership Award for Enterprise Telephony and Contact Centres. Some months back also the VARIndia magazine had honoured them with the Best Unified Communication Award. The company has also received The Economic Times Customer Responsiveness Award for the third time in India.
Amit Mehta, Director – Marketing, Avaya GlobalConnect, says, “Avaya GlobalConnect as a company has evolved from the Tata Tele days when the Indian market was opened for private participation. In 1987, it is Tala Tele and the company then manufactured the first state-of-the-art PBX products in the Indian market. Since then till 1991, the company did well in addressing the enterprises communication needs.” But, since 1994, the journey changed for the company. That was the time when the company started its relationship with Lucent. That was the time when the company fulfilled the enterprises’ needs of high-end PBX products. It was the time when the multinational banks opened up their operations in India. And, that was the time when the telecommunication operators set up their call centres in the country. From 1994 till 1997, the company offered enterprise solution for voice and added messaging solution to it. Following this, the company provided call centre solution inherited from Lucent tie-up. In the meantime, Indian enterprises looked at the global market for call centre solutions and then Avaya made a major change in its strategy. The vendor offered remote call centre solution and then video solutions. Since this time frame, Avaya has been adding value to its offering in a meaningful way of bringing the best-of-the-breed technology on top of its services and support to make the enterprises capable of meeting the customer’s needs. In turn, Avaya GlobalConnect has made customer responsiveness as its theme and a biggest differentiator in the competition.
The very theme of “customer responsiveness” encapsulates all Avaya Global’s strategies while enabling the customers to address the needs of their customers in a meaningful way. And even in all the world-class forums including the CEO forum also, the company has emphasized on the same aspect. Within this philosophy, the company has highlighted the best practices of the customers. The company has embarked upon a strategy of verticalization with in the company. Intelligent communication is about embedding communication within the heart of the business, which makes the customers happy, makes employees more productive and makes the business process more efficient. It can bring about transparency capabilities. This capability of Avaya is taken forth through its strong ecosystem and world-class alliances. With these efforts, Avaya Global offers infrastructure which are IP-based and SIP-based that enables the customers to optimize their communications. The products and services that fall in place include IP telephony, call centres, call management systems, contact centres, Unified Communications, media gateways, media servers, softphones, workgroup and gigabit switches, voice portals, etc.
“Avaya GlobalConnect has partnered global technology leaders – Polycom, the world’s leading video-conferencing solutions provider; NICE Systems, the Israel-based customer experience management specialist; LG, a leading global player in EPABX and KTS products, and IEX, a Tekelec company and the leading provider of contact centre workforce management solutions and Juniper for the security and router space. Avaya GlobalConnect has also entered into a strategic tie-up with Motorola to offer Intelligent Communications to mobile workers. The solution is focussed at the mobile workers in retail, manufacturing, healthcare and other industries. The company recently also has tied up with Gajshied for UTM to address the SMBs. Of late, Avaya GlobalConnect also works with Microsoft Dynamics to personalize customer interactions for Contact Centre, BPO, KPO and Enterprises. The company has strategic alliances with systems integrators such as IBM, HP, Servion, Cable & Wireless, CMC and Tata Infotech.
The acquisition of Nimcat Networks by Avaya has allowed small businesses to introduce VoIP to their organizations without having to buying servers or switches.
The company’s philosophy is based on four pillars, i.e. IP Telephony, contact centre, unified communication and CEBP (communication enabled business products).
The Intelligent communication framework offered by the company hinges on open standards in the space of SOA, Web 2.0 SIP, XML, Voice XML, etc. Therefore, the solutions offered by Avaya sit on any of the enterprise environment – be it SAP or Oracle applications. On the other hand, the solutions are also agnostic of operating systems.
Besides the large enterprises, the company has also addressed SMEs as a focussed vertical. The company offers IP office as a voice solution for the branch offices and OKI for PBX and KTS. And, on the video side, the company brings conferencing product from Polycom and Sony. Similarly, in the security space, the company has tied up with Gajshield for offering their UTMs. Avaya also offers extreme data solutions to the SMBs through its business partners and VARs.
Avaya has also tied up with ICICI Bank for easy finance options for the customers. Differentiating Factor Mehta says, “The competition could find product parity but which differentiates us from them is the service and support, which revolves around our ethos that is ‘customer responsiveness’. We have the ability to service the customers 24/7 across India. Secondly, through our customer studio initiative, we are able to showcase the solutions live replicating the customers’ environment. Thirdly, Avaya is the leader in contact centre solutions, which are scalable, reliable and open standards based because we do not want to dictate choice to the customers.” He adds, “In our vertical strategy, we are showcasing our end-to-end solutions, which enable the customers to have centralized command and control in India and work effectively with decentralized centres based out of different geographies across the globe.”
Avaya delivers performance optimization solutions, which enable the organizations optimize their workforce needs better. It eliminates wastage and ensures that the right people are there to service the customers at the right time. Even in the BFSI space, Avaya provides lead management solutions and campaign management solutions.
In the hospitality space, Avaya provides wireless handheld devices to give the customers a unique experience. Towards achieving this kind of excellence, the company has hired industry specialists to understand the customers’ pain points.
The Avaya India Development Centre located in Pune collaborates with Avaya Labs in the Asia-Pacific and around the world for research and development in converged solutions, Customer Relationship Management and Unified Communications Solutions as well as consulting and integration services. This Centre also houses Avaya Global Solutions Support Centre.
Recent Customer Wins
Recently, Avaya Global has enabled MakeMyTrip.com its Contact Centre solutions to power the online business. With Avaya’s solutions, MakeMyTrip.com is experiencing a 99.99-per cent uptime in its Contact Centre and creating a better, higher value experience for its customers. Another Indian enterprise known as India Infoline, recently, has set up state-of-the-art Dealing Room for Institutional Broking division with solutions from Avaya GlobalConnect.
Finally…
Avaya has achieved a record Gross Income of Rs.924.71 crore and a net profit of Rs.42.76 crore for FY06-07 (18 months). The consolidated profit before tax (PBT) stands at Rs.69.07 crore. Commenting on the Company’s results, Niru Mehta, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, Avaya GlobalConnect, said,’“We are pleased with our progress. Intelligent Communication solutions continue to remain our focus area. With the growing market needs, Avaya GlobalConnect has continued to Innovate.” Customer satisfaction is core to Avaya’s business and reiterating this belief Avaya GlobalConnect has also completed a year for its state-of-the-art Customer Studio in Mumbai.
