Avaya tightens channel program

Avaya offers new incremental rebate for large and small partners who exceed revenue growth targets from 1 April.

During the partner's webcast Avaya's global channel chief, Steve Biondi, said that joining Avaya's program is easy and some partners don't always do what is required required.

"We are going to make sure that who is in is going to be taken care of. If you are not going through accreditation we are going to kick you out," said Biondi.

Biondi explained that the company hopes to keep all partners but will benefit the ones who specialise.

As part of the changes, partners will be categorised as high-volume or fast-growing based on size and scope.

Avaya stated that high-volume partners will be eligible for the portfolio growth rebate when they meet revenue requirements, and to incremental portfolio growth when this is exceeded.

Asia Pacific channels director Hock Leong Choo, said: "A 3 percent back-end rebate on partner program product revenue sold in the quarter will be paid quarterly if the partner exceeds the growth target for the quarter and is a partner in good standing. For the 2016 financial year, the growth target will be set at 5 per cent and will be adjusted annually."

Fast-growing partners, who specialise in networking or midmarket and achieve an expert specialisation, can qualify for the specialised growth rebate, as long as they meet the quarterly and year on year growth requirement. A 3 percent rebate will also be paid to partners that exceed growth targets.

"For the 2016 financial year, the growth target for these partners will be set at 40 percent and will be adjusted annually," said Choo.

All changes are part of Avaya's effort to move from a hardware company into a software and services provider. Channel vice president Joe Lohmeier said that the changes being introduced are "a step into building a global class partner program".

Local boss Choo added: "Our transition to software and services made up 73 percent of our total revenue in the first fiscal quarter of the 2016 fiscal year. At the same time, our core business remains very important to maintain and leverage for incremental wallet-share."

The company wants partners around the world to specialise in networking, midmarket, contact centre, and cloud and customer base modernisation.

Changes will also be made to the co-delivery program which will be effective of the second semester of 2016. The program will focus in performance; to enhance partner requirements, execution; to unify the customer support model and competiveness; to align partners strategically.

Avaya recently launched Zang in the US, a cloud-based platform that enables users to build and deploy a communications app with the APIs provided.

The company explained Zang as "an out-of-the-box solution that provides an easy way to use drag and drop tools, pre-built applications and robust APIs to quickly build and deploy applications that enable consumer and enterprise communications applications and services".

Nathan Chapman, CTO of Generation-e, expects Zang might take years to reach Australia because of "legal and tax challenges with rolling out a platform like this".