This year has started off on a fantastic foot for Avaya, with new products, acquisitions, and announcements all rolling out at their incredible Avaya Engage event. Of course, it’s not just Avaya themselves that are seeing the benefits of a healthier and stronger brand. Partners like ConvergeOne are also celebrating the rise of a stronger company, free from the issues of Chapter 11.
To learn more about how partners are responding to the Avaya revival, I spoke to the Vice President of Marketing for North America of ConvergeOne, Scott Clark. Scott told me all about the new C1CX product, and how his company has grown with the help of the Avaya service.
Tell Us About ConvergeOne
ConvergeOne is currently a privately-owned company, but Scott told me that they’ll soon be entering the market as a publicly traded entity, with a collaboration that will allow them to join the New York Stock Exchange in the first quarter of this year.
ConvergeOne is a cloud-focused specialist, and they’ve seen a huge amount of growth over the years. With more than a dozen acquisitions in the past decade, and four of those taking place in 2017, ConvergeOne is masters of development, both in the build and buy world, and when it comes to cultivating organic growth too.
“One of the unique capabilities that we have as a business, is that our specialty around digital transformation and cloud allows us to be very diverse with our partnerships. We work closely with companies all the way from Microsoft, to IBM, and Oracle. Our acquisitions and collaborations put us in a great position to serve our customers going forward.”
Tell Us About ConvergeOne CX
Part of what ConvergeOne has been doing at Avaya Engage this year is launching “C1CX” or ConvergeOne CX – a cloud platform designed for the unified communication and collaboration world. The system is for large to medium-sized enterprises, and Scott told me that:
“We currently serve 52 of the Fortune 100, as well as about 35% of the Fortune 500, and many of the Global 1000 too. Our main market focus is in North America, but many of the organisations we serve have a global presence. What’s more, we’re part of Alliance, so we work with other service providers around the globe too, helping with the design, implementation, and management of cloud services for global customers.
The C1CX product is built on the Avaya cloud platform and the Cisco HCS. It offers a combination of contact centre licensing and unified communications, and Scott noted that it comes with a range of bundles to give people complete functionality all the way from simple unified solutions, all the way up to contact centre features.
“We also have a lot of third-party applications to offer too, such as workflow optimisation, call recording and so on. With C1CX, about 80% of the stack can be automated, while the remaining 20% is highly customised for the applications that our customers need.”
ConvergeOne will be hosting a webinar on the 15th of February for people interested in hearing more about the product.
Is This Something You’ve Been Working on for a While?
Scott told me that the C1CX solution has been in the pipeline for a while now, though they’ve already launched several customers on the platform. Currently, they’re delivering systems to some long-standing customers, and some brand-new, but the focus is primarily on delivering something new for the marketplace.
“We’re using best-in-breed applications to give our customers something unique. We’re one of Avaya’s leading partners not only in North America but across the globe. We were service partner of the year for Avaya, and we have similar accolades with Cisco too, which underlines our position as a service-lead organisation.”
For some time, ConvergeOne has been looking for ways to give their customers an on-ramp strategy for the flexibility that cloud services have to offer. Working with Avaya on the C1CX service has allowed them to do just that.
What Do You Think About the Avaya Announcements?
As a long-standing Avaya partner, ConvergeOne were thrilled to hear about all the success that Avaya has been having lately, from the restructuring of their debt to going forward.
“I think the cloud presentations with Mercer Rowe and his strategy for agile business were very exciting. It’s thrilling to see that Jim (Chirico, Avaya CEO) and his leadership team are moving in the right direction, and now Avaya has the cash to really invest in research and development so that they can bring new applications into the marketplace.”
Avaya has jumped back into the game very quickly after their experience with Chapter 11, which is a sign of just how resilient this brand can be. Scott told me that he thinks the company was forced to recognise during the restructuring process that the way they were working wasn’t going to be enough in the future. “There’s probably been a lot of exploration in the attempt to find the right mindset and cultural changes for the brand.”
The Spoken acquisition has also been an exciting thing for Avaya, as they embrace the new year with an aggressive step in the right direction. “I think the acquisition is a demonstration of the fact that Avaya is going in the right direction.”
With Chapter 11 out of the way, Avaya is now making smarter, more intelligent investments in their future, and in the cloud. While the previous year has probably been a difficult experience for everyone involved, Scott told me that ConvergeOne couldn’t be happier with the way that Jim is leading the company forward.
“All the steps that Avaya are taking right now are very encouraging to us as a partner, and our customers feel the same way. They’re excited about where Avaya is going, and the new investments that are being made.”
Scott told me that it’s still early days for Avaya, but for now, the things they’re doing are being received very positively.
