Avaya Buyer's Guide 2018

Leaders in digital transformation (DX), communication, and collaboration, Avaya is an American technology business with impact across the globe. Specialising in enterprise communication software and hardware, Avaya has overcome incredible odds to achieve exceptional results as a growing brand.

Currently, Avaya offers services and support to more than 1 million customer locations. The company is built on a commitment to bringing people together through streams of information delivered in the right places, with the proper context.

Let's get to know this fantastic company a little better.

Introducing Avaya: Experts in Unified Communication

[caption id="attachment_18306" align="alignleft" width="214"] Jim Chirico - CEO, Avaya Inc.[/caption]

With its headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Avaya has a reach that spans the world. Currently, the organisation has over 8,700 employees, who rate the brand as "above average" (3.2 out of 5) for employee satisfaction. The average revenue for Avaya as of 2017 is $3.27 billion, with CEO Jim Chirico leading the way.

Avaya started life in 1995, as part of "Lucent Technologies." Before then, Avaya had roots with AT&T, as an organisation committed to understanding communication technology, and implementing it in the best possible way for future customers. In the year 2000, Lucent broke the Avaya part of their business off in the form of the "Enterprise Communications Group." The organisation adopted the name "Avaya" as a way of conveying the seamless flow of open communication. From that point, the business began to thrive, launching their Converged Communications roadmap in 2002, followed by Avaya MultiVantage Communications in 2003.

In 2004, Avaya delivered the first multimedia contact centre for mid-sized companies, and in 2005, their Aura Experience portal came to life. By 2007, with the arrival of the Avaya Customer Interaction Suite, the company had been purchased by two private equity firms, Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital for $8.2 billion.

The Ups and Downs of the Avaya Brand

Following the purchase in 2007, Avaya began accelerating their marketplace strategies, with new integrated communication solutions in Avaya Aura, and the Aura Contact Centre in 2010. Of course, Avaya has seen some ups and downs in its roadmap. On January 19^th, 2017, the business filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

Fortunately, Avaya had a plan in place. The company sold its networking business to Extreme Networks for USD 100 million in July 2017 and emerged with new leadership under CEO Jim Chirico by the end of the year. Avaya now had a revitalized strategy based on software, a cloud-first architecture, and a commitment to emerging technologies like blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.

On the 15^th of December 2017, Avaya became a public company again, trading under the stock ticker "AVYA." By mid-2018, the company had once again become a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (for the 9^th time), and Contact Centre technology (for the seventeenth time).

Avaya's Top Competitors

As a leader in the UC and Contact Centre technology sectors, Avaya has some serious competition from major brands looking to take their share of two thriving marketplaces. Avaya's top competitors right now include:

• Mitel: A telecommunications company focusing on unified communications
• Cisco: A multi-national technology conglomerate selling networking hardware, communication software, and various other products
• Microsoft: One of the biggest technology companies in the world, specialising in software, hardware, and innovation

Mitel vs. Avaya: Choosing Your Path to UC

Avaya vs. Cisco: Creating Your UC Roadmap

Avaya vs. Microsoft: Two Giants in the UC Space

What Does Avaya Do Best?

Avaya began with a reputation in hardware and endpoints. However, their portfolio has grown significantly in recent years. Today, Avaya creates products and solutions for:

• Unified communications: Tools designed to simplify the proliferation of everyday technologies for audio conferencing, video, messaging, presence, and more into a single pane of glass.
• Hardware: Avaya's line-up of devices both enhances the UC experience and supports contact centre Smart devices and desktop phones come together to provide ease-of-use, seamless integration, and location diversity.
• Cloud: Avaya provides a range of subscription services hosted in the cloud for voice over IP, video conferencing, remote collaboration and unified communications.
• Contact Centre: Avaya offers both desk phones and UC management experiences for the contact centre, as well as workforce optimisation and customer experience management solutions.

The Avaya Product Portfolio

Avaya's product and service portfolio is enormous, with new solutions being added every day. To help you better understand the benefits that Avaya can bring to your business, let's explore some of the most popular components in their selection.

Avaya Oceana

Designed to enhance the customer experience strategy in a world driven by CX, Avaya Oceana simplifies client service. Oceana connects every piece of the CX strategy with a complete overview of your clients wherever and whenever they choose to connect. Perfect for companies seeking an omnichannel approach to service, Oceana helps you to deliver a consistent and personalised customer experience through every device or channel with:

• Customer analytics
• Cloud flexibility
• Agent performance visualization
• Real-time customer context across all channels

Avaya Equinox

Intended to maintain productivity and efficiency, Avaya Equinox provides action-oriented workflow solutions to customers through a single pane of glass communications services. On mobile and desktop, users can take immediate action with a single touch, access browser-based collaboration, multi-media messaging, and even video conferencing. Avaya Equinox boosts productivity and simplifies communication with:

• Calling messaging and conferencing features
• Simple collaboration across all devices
• Rich HD video and audio
• Zero-download software
• Flexible deployment (on-premises or in the cloud)

There's also Avaya Equinox Meetings online to enhance communication and collaboration with colleagues, customers, and partners through WebRTC technology. 1080p HD video and wideband audio are available with just a single click on a meeting link.

Read the UC Today review of Avaya Equinox Meetings Online

Avaya Spaces (Zang)

As the world continues to move towards higher demands for collaboration and communication services, Avaya offers a unique team-based app for more natural interactions. Avaya Spaces is a cloud-based meeting app that integrates video, voice, file sharing and more into an application you can use anywhere, on any device. Avaya Spaces comes with:

• Single sign-on security
• Web and mobile access
• Room messaging
• File sharing
• Video calling and conferencing
• Voice conferencing
• Application integrations
• Group task management

Avaya IP Office

[caption id="attachment_5944" align="alignleft" width="350"] Avaya IP Office[/caption]

A market-leading Business Communications system, Avaya IP Office creates an incredible experience for collaboration, through messaging, telephony, conferencing, video, unified communications and contact centre. The IP Office platform integrates with Avaya Equinox to give you the perfect all-around UC environment. There's also a selection of devices and phones to choose from to boost your on-premise experience. With Avaya IP Office you can:

• Choose from a range of deployment options, including IP office in the cloud
• Maximize the flexibility and scalability of your communications service
• Access a full stack solution for UC, and contact centre management
• Protect existing investments in phones and hardware while you move to the cloud

Read the UC Today review of the Avaya IP Office