One of the market leaders in communication and contact centre solutions, Avaya, recently announced the arrival of its upcoming CCaaS service. The IX-CC solution aims to transform the way that customers embrace contact centre technology with Avaya and the cloud.
Unlike other CCaaS strategies, the IX-CC product gives businesses of all sizes the freedom to completely customise their path to cloud, with everything from hybrid migrations, to add-on functionality at an API level. This CCaaS offering marks one of the biggest steps that Avaya has made so far on its path to the cloud.
I caught up with CTO for Avaya EMEA & APAC, Ahmed Helmy, to learn more about the proposition.
Investment in CCaaS
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Ahmed Helmy[/caption]
Avaya has undoubtedly been embarking on a crucial mission of transformation over the last couple of years, investing in countless new opportunities in the cloud. Most recently, the company’s decision to work with RingCentral – a leading cloud provider – highlighted a powerful evolution in the company strategy. According to Ahmed, the decision to bring CCaaS into the portfolio actually happened quite a while ago, back when CCaaS was still in its early days.
“We began looking at CCaaS the company decided that although we run one of the most feature-rich platforms in the industry, we too many offers, targeting different segments of the market. Our goal was to streamline and yet bring a compelling proposition to all segments. We decided to turn to CCaaS as a way of simplifying how we went to market.”
Helmy told me that this path to CCaaS started with a lot of research, figuring out what customers actually needed from cloud technology. Avaya conducted in-depth analyses with partners, customers, and everyone else that they could think of, to paint the perfect picture of a CCaaS solution with the ideal Avaya touch.
“We wanted to maintain the features that everyone loved, while creating an easy-to-use platform that’s more accessible, customisable, and flexible for different customers”
Avaya’s CCaaS Strategy
A lot of bigger brands in the communication industry have expanded their portfolios recently by purchasing services from other brands or partnering with companies. I was interested to find out why Avaya hadn’t taken the same route. Ahmed told me that the team had discussed the option of using acquisition to build out their portfolio when the CCaaS idea was first raised.
“We took a close look at what makes Avaya special, and decided that the company has the strength, history, and knowledge to build a truly next-level platform for our customers. Compared to what we believe that we can build for our clients, nothing else on the market really came close. We knew we had to start from scratch if we wanted something that suited Avaya’s heritage.”
Avaya believes that by building it own CCaaS solution, it can differentiate itself from other players on the market even further, showcasing expertise and innovation that no other brand can mimic.
“Over the last few years, the sentiment towards Avaya as a business has been a little shaky. People didn’t believe that we were innovating anymore. This is our opportunity to prove that we’re still dedicated to creating pioneering new products”
All Systems Go
Ahmed told me that the decision to invest in CCaaS had been a complicated one. The team had discussed the concept with Jim Chirico, highlighting the importance of a flexible cloud strategy for contact centre tools. Eventually, Jim gave the project the go ahead, providing enough investment so that Avaya could test the product with some initial stakeholders and conduct proof-of-concept projects.
“Honestly, the feedback that we received was incredible. Everyone loved the idea of the technology and were keen to get started. The response we got was more than enough to get everyone onto the same page – believing that our approach to CCaaS was the right way to go. Now the full team is onboard, ready to really commit to making our CCaaS offering stand out.”
Ahmed told me that Avaya believes the IX-CC solution will show customers which direction the Avaya brand is moving in for the future. “We’re not just protecting the investments of our existing customers; we’re also winning the attention of new clients too. We’re expanding, evolving, and looking for new opportunities.”
Moving to Cloud Native
Avaya’s shift from an on-premise business to a company that delivers immersive cloud solutions like CCaaS is no small feat. I was interested to learn just how much work Avaya had been putting into this transformation. Helmy told me that the journey had been a long one. “We couldn’t move the applications into the CCaaS system that we already had as-is, because they weren’t cloud native.”
Instead, Avaya needed to use its architects to extract the logics of the features and place them into a new, enhanced cloud environment. “The part that really took a lot of effort on our behalf was figuring out how we could start changing our underlying structure to focus on the cloud.”