CRN: What is new for Avaya this year?
Andy Hurt: Avaya has orchestrated many positive organisational changes in the past 18 months after becoming a private organisation.
These include key leadership changes, the consolidation of our technology portfolio into two main areas - unified communications and contact centre solutions, and a renewed focus on improving our efficiencies both internally and externally.
Most recently, we announced a new channel-centric go-to-market model aimed at increasing our local reach across territories and sectors, including mid-market.
Part of our efforts to improve internal efficiencies stems from the fact that the company has not spent much money on IT.
According to our new leadership team, IT isn't providing nearly as much benefit as one would like at the moment, so we'll be one of the few companies that actually increases our investment in IT over the next couple of years to improve our own processes.
By re-engineering the company it will make it easier for our partners and ultimately, our customers, to do business with us.
We are excited about embracing the new global, channel-centric initiative in Australia, which is aimed at fuelling market penetration for the entire range of our unified communications and contact centre technologies.
We are adopting a two-tier distribution model with the appointment of a new distributor, Distribution Central, and an expanded relationship with Avnet.
As part of the new channel program, we are continuing to grow existing relationships with our BusinessPartner community including NSC, GlobalConnect Australia and Comlinx; the System Integrators - IBM and HP, and service providers - Verizon Business, BT, Optus and Telstra.
Our goal is to deliver the best unified communications and contact centre technologies to enterprises, and our channel business partners will help us meet - and ideally exceed - that goal.
CRN: What does this mean for resellers?
AH: We have just announced that we have a dedicated channel team in Australia to support our new partner engagement model and the entire team is focused on creating a clear, concise vision of what our channel partners can offer to their customers.
As we continue to articulate the benefits of the new channel partner program and our vision to increase the reach of our leading unified communications and contact centre products, we are confident resellers will want to take this journey with us.
CRN: Why now?
AH: We have the right leadership in place, the right model, the right team locally. Plus the market conditions are right.
In 2009 we expect organisations to be focused on consolidation, total cost of ownership and on their own productivity and competitiveness.
The business-savvy leaders of today are seeing technology as a strategic asset that can be used to drive innovation, reduce costs and promote reinvention.
Our partners are in a unique position to work with customers to demonstrate the business gains around implementing Avaya's unified communications and contact centre tools to drive productivity gains associated with simplified, intuitive communications and collaboration in this challenging economic climate.
CRN: How many resellers does Avaya have onboard and what is this number compared to two
years ago?
AH: Avaya has about 85 BusinessPartners in Australia and our strategy has been to keep that number steady and ensure our partners secure a healthy return from the customers they work with.
CRN: You recently promoted Yvette McEnearney to lead the newly created 'high touch team', tell us about that.
AH: Avaya has introduced a High Touch team under the direction of Yvette which is focused on bringing Avaya closer to its top customers by increasing support for local BusinessPartners.
The aim is to create a closer working relationship with our customers by gaining a better understanding of their requirements, now, and into the future.
As part of the High Touch model, Yvette's team will engage Avaya's local BusinessPartners to set strategy on customer accounts and identify targeted opportunities to maintain Avaya's strategic momentum.
We are excited about the creation of this team as it aims to make Avaya a valued strategic partner that is able to offer services and solutions that cut to the heart of the growth needs of our customers.
CRN: Tell us about Avaya's strategic alliances such as the recently announced partnership with HP ProCurve. What does this mean for the channel and why did you enter into this agreement?
AH: Avaya has strategic alliances with global organisations where the fit makes sense. Through the HP ProCurve ONE program, Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony software has been tested and certified for interoperability with the HP ProCurve line of products.
This means enterprises, branch and mid-size customers can reap the benefits of easy-to-deploy, fully integrated IP networking and unified communications solutions.
Our current record of success with existing joint HP customers is just the beginning of what will become many advances in both technology and go-to-market business models as we move forward.
We expect this partnership to accelerate overall growth of the unified communications market and we are putting a lot of work into ensuring there is momentum behind it.
CRN: According to a report by Infonetics, Cisco is the leader in enterprise telephony and Avaya is second, how do you feel about your competitor in this space?
AH: There is absolutely no question Avaya is a leader in the enterprise telephony space and we are focused on delivering the best unified communications and contact centre technologies to our customers. We are financially sound and have a focused business strategy in Australia and globally.
Unlike other vendors that force customers into proprietary end-to-end systems and software, Avaya is leading the industry to a model that gives enterprises choice.
Avaya is committed to open standards, compliance testing and interoperability support as in the case of the HP ProCurve ONE alliance.
In the age of intelligent communications, open, standards-based applications are the key to ability and business value.
We are confident we will continue to carve out a sizeable market position in the unified communications and contact centres spaces because of our rich history and experience in voice networking solutions, and our ability to develop innovative applications.
CRN: With big-name vendors hit by economic woes and staff redundancies, how will Avaya
cope in this financial crisis?
AH: Avaya is a stable, viable and growing organisation with the financial backing of private investors. We are focused on delivering true value to our customers by re-engineering our own internal processes to create a more efficient organisation; creating an A-team to lead our strategic vision and implementing a strong channel-centric business model to drive growth across the company.
In addition, we are seeing that challenging market conditions can provide the trigger for vendors, CIOs and IT staff to be more innovative with new technology systems.
We believe this year will herald an even heightened focus on extracting business benefits from investments in communications technologies and companies that are committed to improving operational efficiency will look to enhance or refresh their enterprise communications software systems with a focus on making it easier for their staff to interact and collaborate with their customers as well as each other.
CRN: Kevin Kennedy joined as CEO in January. What changes will he make across the company?
AH: We are very pleased that Kevin Kennedy assumed the positions of president and CEO of Avaya in January and joined us from JDS Uniphase Corporation, where he was CEO.
He has reiterated to the market that Avaya has a proven record of enabling enterprises to gain a marketplace advantage through the strategic use of communications.
His focus is on leading our employees and working with our BusinessPartners to deliver the communications capabilities enterprises rely on to grow revenue, strengthen their ties to customers and enhance employee productivity.
CRN: Has the acquisition of Avaya by a Consortium group put resellers off from taking your products to sell?
AH: No, Avaya continues to work closely with its channel partners to grow its marketshare and the new channel framework will create even more opportunities to extend our reach in
the market.
CRN: Any other plans for 2009?
AH: Avaya will lead the way by working closely with its channel partners to ensure customers see true value in the new era of converged communications.
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