ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
It’s making sure that the
customer chooses the
right cloud application
and functionality
integration and uses it
properly to achieve the
objective they want.
providers approach their customer
experience and customer centre differently.
There was a need to combine the best of
both worlds. That’s why we implemented a
strategy to move to cloud – not in an abrupt
manner but rather in an evolution.
This is in the sense that our products
used to be available in CapEx, then we
made them available in subscription so they
can still be used on-premises but paid for
on subscription.
Then we started to introduce a private
club which still creates a unique environment
for every customer but is totally hosted,
managed and operated by Avaya, so the
customer gets the benefit of the on-premises
solution but in a cloud flavour.
And last but not least, we have the public
cloud services, things like we are launching
now in the UK, where the customers have
their requirements met by a public cloud. They
can just consume as fast as possible; they
don’t need to have their own customisation.
They can have integration points that are
built into the solution – but the customisation
needs are low, because they are not always
available in a public cloud offer.
With all these flavours, the customer now
has the right option that fits their current
situation or their future plans.
From here, it is important to have a
smooth cloud evolution. It wasn’t about just
launching another cloud service but offering
a path to the customer to become more agile
in consuming technology and more agile in
adapting to the environmental changes.
The repercussions of the current situation
will be felt for a long time and I think the new
normal will see customers, agents, contact
centres etc. all working from home. This is
going to become normal and the exception
will be face-to-face. To what extent, we
will see, but at least our solutions enable
the customer to deal with either end of the
changes and anything in between.
Can you talk about some of
the investments and solution
announcements Avaya has made
in recent months?
Investments, including R&D investments,
are ongoing things for a technology vendor
across our whole product range, from
releasing our products in subscription to
bringing up new releases and new features.
Even on the devices we have released,
some are open devices where they are
available to work with Avaya and non-Avaya
applications, especially in the collaboration
space. For example, the CU360, which is a
room that will allow any customer to connect
to any collaboration out there in the market,
Avaya or not.
Of course, on Oceana, which is our
flagship on-premises contact centre product,
we are having new releases practically every
three months, introducing new features and
evolving towards introducing more and more
integration capabilities.
Because we realised that we – along with
our ecosystem of partners – need to provide
end-to-end applications. We are not trying
to be everything for everybody, but we are
trying to allow anybody to integrate us with
any other business application they have.
That’s why we have also invested in
expanding our ecosystem of partners and
building more integration capabilities, APIs,
into our existing products because we
realised that the power of any solution is not
only around the functionality it offers, but in
the integration capabilities it offers.
Every customer has their own key business
application that they would like to integrate
with contact centre or unified communication
applications and serve their customers in a
certain way or operate and collaborate with
their employees in certain ways. This is where
our investments are going.
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