Avaya has been a name on everyone’s lips in the world of Comms over the last few months, particularly as customers, partners, and other companies wait for more news about the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing being undertaken by the US part of its business. At UC EXPO 2017, UC Today had a chance to sit down and get the facts on Avaya UK’s growth and development this year.
Thanks to a conversation with the Avaya’s UK Managing Director, Ioan MacRae, I learned that Avaya is going strong and plans to emerge leaner and even more confident by the end of summer this year.
What’s Happening for Avaya?
Looking at the new developments in the Avaya space, it’s clear to see their portfolio is making some changes. The new Avaya is a true-collaboration, customer experience, and communications solutions provider, which helps businesses make effective digital transformations.
As MacRae explained to me: “We have transformed our software architecture to enable ultimate flexibility of deployment, moving our solution from a monolithic approach to a modular one. Now, new solutions are built to deliver use cases that are unique to customers, by transforming to completely open and services based platforms for UC and CC.
“We’re making the IP office more cloud-based, the aura platform has been integrated with Oceana for a high-end contact centre experience, and we now have Breeze, a more open middleware solution for work automation.”
Today’s Avaya is on a digital journey into the future, part of which means taking a different role in the wider communications ecosystem. With Breeze, Avaya automates workflows through UC platforms, web chat, CRM, and cloud solutions. In other words, Avaya is now going to be more cloud-delivered and cloud-consumed. This is a huge change from the traditional legacy structure of the past.
As MacRae said: “I don’t think one vendor can do everything a customer needs anymore. Our focus needs to be on becoming part of the wider communications ecosystem. We want to help our customers design the kind of solutions that can truly transform their customer and team experiences.”
What are Avaya Doing to Improve UX?
The idea behind Equinox is to simplify everything the user needs to be efficient. This means making enterprise applications communication enabled; giving people simple and easy access to collaboration tools of their choice, leaving room for customisation and creativity. Having all collaboration, chat, IM, and video in a single space, and operating through one app, is an essential part of Equinox’s value.
MacRae’s colleague Dina El Banna, Marketing Director for Avaya, explained that the development of Avaya’s Software Developer Kits were another essential part of letting consumers to plug their own apps into the system. In other words, agent workspaces are now more customisable than ever before. Applications can be integrated and systems can be personalised.
“Even our SME and mid-market customers can now benefit from enabling communication features into Salesforce, Office 365, or Google workspaces. This allows us to offer a solution that’s more open and engaged with the wider communications ecosystem,” she said.
Avaya and Zang
Since the recent Zang acquisition is still a pretty hot topic, I was interested to find out more. Zang is another example of where Avaya is introducing flexibility in deployment models, which is especially useful for businesses with dynamically changing needs driven by seasonality, special events, or budget constraints.
Avaya offers a fully-scalable cloud solution to businesses where companies can flex the solution in the way they need. Zang is still growing as a solution, and MacRae is evaluating where it will fit in the UK market. “We’re very partner-focused, and we always will be. Whatever we bring into the UK market, we always make sure that it will bring value to our customers and partners.” Zang includes three cloud based solution offerings: Zang Office, Zang Cloud and Zang Spaces.
Notably, Avaya commented that both Oceana and Equinox are built on Breeze, which has similar capabilities to Zang. That means that eventually, we may begin to see Zang and Equinox blending together.
Avaya and Chapter 11
Of course, I couldn’t end the interview without talking about the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. MacRae responded to my questions by saying:
“We’re building on our latest technology to take our integrated UC and CC forward. Chapter 11 has allowed us to keep our focus on bringing out these solutions.”
Avaya have been earning well, but they did build up a debt structure. While they could continue operating as they were, they would have just been paying interest on their debt, which meant the money owed would continue to follow them. Instead, the Chapter 11 process will enable them to reduce the debt and enhance the amount they can invest into their business.
“Through the last year, we’ve maintained our investment in R&D at 16% of revenue – which is market leading. If we can free up additional cash to increase that, then Avaya can start to grow even more. So, Avaya US has entered a plan of re-organisation, which is now with the courts, and our focus has been on continuing to evolve and deliver value.”
Avaya’s second quarter results, which were released at the same time as UC EXPO, were healthy. It reported a non-GAAP operating margin of 18.4% and adjusted EBITDA at 24.8% of revenue, describing both as record percentages for a second fiscal quarter. While the Chapter 11 process has been ongoing, Avaya has continued to move forward, signing more than 1,100 customer contracts before March 31, 2017 and adding 300 net-new partners.
MacRae finished by saying that he accepted the role as UK Managing Director one month after Avaya filed for Chapter 11, and he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think the business could come out stronger: “I believe in the people, the products, and the company. We continue to anticipate emerging from chapter 11 as early as the summer of 2017.”
UC Today’s Rob Scott adds “Avaya is a fantastic business with great people and products, the industry needs to stand by them as they emerge leaner and stronger than ever before later this year.”
