When it comes to cloud-focused software for contact centre support, collaboration, and unified communications, there are two brands that seem to lead the way: Avaya and Mitel. Both companies offer a range of advanced solutions for modern companies who need to find new methods for workflow optimisation, customer experience enhancement, and productivity.
While Mitel is the trusted solution for companies like the Make-A-Wish foundation, Carlsberg, and Hyatt, Avaya have their own strength in the UC marketplace, according to their website 95% of Fortune 500 companies run on Avaya.
To help you figure out which vendor is right for you, we’ll be looking at the different products offered by Mitel and Avaya.
Mitel vs Avaya: Introducing Both Companies
Let’s start with a quick introduction. Mitel currently powers more than 2 billion business connections each day, helping companies to collaborate, connect, and take care of their customers. This includes access to more than 33 million cloud connections every day, which helps Mitel to be one of the largest providers of cloud communications in the world.
Avaya is another market leader (three times the annual revenue of Mitel) in the world of business communication systems, delivering unified communication services, contact centre tech, and collaboration solutions to companies around the world. Though Avaya has seen some ups and downs in the past, this organisation has maintained a strong reputation for its exceptional products and services.
Financials
Q4 fiscal for 2017 for Avaya –
- GAAP revenue $790 million
- Adjusted EBITDA – $225 million
Q4 fiscal for 2017 for Mitel –
- GAAP revenue $355.9 million
- Adjusted EBITDA – $60.4 million
Gartner Says:
Both Mitel and Avaya are “leaders” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for 2018.
Mitel achieved leadership status for the fifth year in a row in 2018. Gartner highlighted the company’s flexible UC offering, stating that Mitel has a “significant installed base of solutions deployed on virtual systems.” Gartner also credited Mitel for their success across a host of verticals, including healthcare, government, hospitality, and education. The report claimed that Mitel offers a “positive front-end solution” as well as “smooth operating transitions.”
Avaya, on the other hand, is celebrating nine years in the top spot as a Gartner Magic Quadrant UC leader. Gartner highlighted Avaya’s “strong brand recognition” for its telephony and contact centre business, as well as the company’s ability to support both mid-size and larger organisations. Gartner also noted that Avaya’s managed services offering, and consumption-based licensing makes it “easier for customers to outsource their Avaya Infrastructure.”
Glassdoor Says:
In 2017, Avaya had approximately 8,700 employees worldwide, compared to Mitel’s 4,200.
Independent employer rating platform Glassdoor gives each company the following rating:
- Avaya: 3.2 for employee satisfaction
- Mitel: 2.4 for employee satisfaction
Mitel vs Avaya: Cloud Communications
The move to the cloud is something that many organisations are considering more seriously these days. As digital transformation (DX) forces brands to become more agile in the way they embrace and adapt to new technologies, the cloud offers a layer of flexibility and scalability that can’t be accessed on-premise. Both Mitel and Avaya have their own cloud communication solutions in the form of MiCloud, and Avaya Cloud.
Mitel MiCloud:
Designed to be so much more than just another phone system, the MiCloud UCaaS (unified communications as a service) solution supports and transforms businesses with highly versatile connectivity services. Designed for the modern workforce, MiCloud delivers a clear business impact to elevate the conversations between customers and companies. With MiCloud, organisations get a business phone system that works consistently in the cloud.. Features include:
- Mobility: Access the same collaboration and phone systems available in your office on every device with the cloud.
- Powerful business analytics: Data visualization available in real-time on intuitive dashboards.
- Advanced security: Enterprise security throughout.
- CRM Integration – e.g Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics etc
Avaya Cloud
As businesses continue to tap into more cloud solutions to meet their ever-growing list of demands, the Avaya Cloud allows organisations to get the flexibility they need at a cost that suits them. They can choose the cloud model that fits their needs from a list of solutions like Avaya Hybrid services, Powered by Avaya, or Avaya Cloud Services. The cloud solutions designed by Avaya are built on open architecture with a heavy focus on security and reliability for every business. Features include:
- Consistent support: Avaya and partners deliver market-leading communication solutions so that companies can focus on their growth.
- Easy scalability: As your company continues to grow and evolve, seamlessly deploy new contact centre and mobile conferencing capabilities.
- Complete mobility: The option to access the same solutions from any device, anywhere with an internet connection.
Mitel vs Avaya: Unified Communications
Now that the average communication infrastructure for a company is more complex and diverse, organisations need a way to bring all the different parts of their strategy together with a Unified Communications platform. Mitel offers a wide range of UC platforms and call controllers however their flagship product appears to be MiVoice Business and MiCollab, while Avaya offers Aura for large organisations and IP Office for small business and mid-market segments.
Mitel:
The Mitel MiVoice is best described as the call control software that delivers most of the traditional PBX functionality that organisations require. The Mitel strategy combines voice, IM, and video with mobility solutions so that the modern enterprise can conduct business in a host of new dimensions. Across their range of platforms they can scale from anywhere between 2 and 500,000 users. Something for everyone it appears.
Avaya:
Transform your business and accelerate growth with the fully-integrated UC solution from Avaya. Avaya’s platforms allow businesses to transform the way they interact with co-workers and customers through a seamless engagement platform. Regardless of device, location, or application, users can access the same fantastic video, conferencing, and messaging solutions from Avaya. Aura and IP Office easily and affordably scales from between 5 and 250,000 users on a single network, and WebRTC applications offer click-to-call solutions from Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365 and Google for Work.
Mitel vs Avaya: Contact Centre Support
The contact centre is emerging as a more common consideration of the Unified Communications marketplace, as companies of all shapes and sizes recognise the need to connect with their clients through robust platforms. In an age where customer experience is king, the right contact centre support could be key to your success.
Mitel MiContact Centre:
A contact centre solution designed to empower customers and staff members alike, Mitel MiContact Centre offers a range of new ways for brands to interact with their clients. The system allows administrators to manage their workforce, monitor quality of service, and even give customers self-service capabilities so that they can choose the kind of support that most appeals to them. MiContact Centre supports the customer experience strategy every step of the way with:
- Support for up to 30,000 concurrent agents on the “Enterprise” level
- Integrated Unified Communication and Collaboration with chat, email, instant messaging, desktop sharing, social media, presence, and more
- Open architecture: Flexible open APIs and toolkits for third-party integration
Avaya Aura Contact Centre
Avaya Contact Centre gives businesses a single, simple interface through which sales representatives can manage a host of complex customer interactions. The system is designed to help organisations move beyond call conversations so that customers can connect through email, IM, chat, and more. Features include:
- A full omnichannel experience with email, chat, SMS, IM, and social media support
- Performance management with an onboard reporting module with more than 120 historical and real-time reports
- Agent management with performance reporting and contact flow support
Avaya vs Mitel: Workflow and Collaboration
Finally, collaboration and workflow are critical to productivity in this fast-paced and highly-dispersed business world. Both Mitel and Avaya have stepped up to the plate with their own unique collaboration systems, including MiCollab and Avaya Equinox:
Avaya Equinox:
Avaya Equinox allows companies to empower their teams by breaking down the office boundaries. With Equinox users inside and outside of the business space can create their own team rooms, organise them into different categories, and connect through instant messaging, video and audio conferencing, and file sharing solutions. There’s also an option for screen sharing and multi-media messages.
Mitel MiCollab:
Mitel MiCollab gives users everything they need to communicate and collaborate across a range of dispersed environments, driving a faster workflow and enabling high-quality decision making. MiCollab gets rid of the barriers around team environments with tools that bring more productivity to team environments, including file sharing, audio and video conferencing, and instant messaging tools. More recently, MiTeam has been added to the MiCollab UC suite which is comparable to Microsoft Teams or Cisco Spark for team collaboration and persistent chat.
Endpoints:
When it comes to Endpoints, Avaya has:
- Avaya Vantage device
- J100 series phones
- Avaya CU-360 collaboration unit
- H200 Series IP devices
- +more
Mitel offers:
- Mitel 6900 series phones
- Mitel IP420 phones
- MiVoice conferencing phones
- Mitel 53xx series phones
- +more
Target Market and Regional Availability
Both Mitel and Avaya are global companies with a reach spanning across various countries around the world. They offer solutions for small to mid-sized companies based on the cloud, as well as expansive unified communication and collaboration services for larger enterprise organisations.
Pricing
Pricing for Avaya and Mitel products and services will depend on what you want to buy. You can find the price for their desk phone and endpoints by speaking to accredited channel partners or talk to Avaya and Mitel directly to get a quote for your cloud-based systems.
The services available from both Avaya and Mitel are customisable, so the price of your service may vary according to what your organisation needs.
Finishing Thoughts
Avaya and Mitel are both powerful contenders in the markets for endpoints, contact centre solutions, and unified communications. For most people, the decision of which vendor to go with will depend on your own personal preferences, and any experiences you might have had with the brands in the past.
Interestingly, both organisations have also begun to develop their roadmap with artificial intelligence and disruptive technology. Mitel announced an integration with Google Cloud in 2018 to bring AI to the contact centre, while Avaya has their own AI service in the form of “Ava.”
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
