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
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.”
For years, Avaya has been a leading company in the development of on-premise contact centre tools. Now, more than 25% of the business has converted to focus on the cloud. “We had all the skills and experience that we needed on-premises, now we’ve had to make sure that we can take the same quality and expertise into the cloud.”
Customisation Plays a Major Role in the Offering
One of the silver bullets of the Avaya solution has always been the fact that customers can customise their deployments. Ahmed told me that the company will be holding onto that bespoke factor with its cloud strategy. “Our customers are going to get a lot of out-of-the-box functionality immediately, but there’s also going to be a rich API layer where you can add integrations. There’s also going to be an adaptive multi-tenant solution which allows bigger players to access public and private APIs.”
According to Helmy, Avaya are committed to giving customers everything they need to plug a lot of customisation and innovation into their CCaaS solutions. After all, some people in the contact centre space will need private clouds, others will be happy to join a flexible public environment. While CCaaS hasn’t allowed for a lot of flexibility in the past, Avaya believes that should change.
“We know that our customers want something that’s both scalable and customisable too. That’s why we’ve developed IX-CC to deliver on both of those fronts.”
Begin your CCaaS Migration Today
While it will take a while to get all of the applications that Avaya offers on-premise migrated into the CCaaS solution, Helmy told me that companies can begin their migration now.
“We’re giving our customers the option to begin adopting capabilities as soon as they choose. We’re starting by providing a cloud UX Workspace that you can implement now, so that you can begin adopting technology from the cloud in hybrid mode, before replacing your existing stack completely.”
Every month from March onwards, Avaya is planning on releasing new capabilities for the IX-CC solution. Customers will be able to use their cloud UX to add new features when and as they arrive on the cloud. What’s more, once you’re ready to move fully to the cloud, you can do so quickly and easily, maintaining the same interface that you’re already used to.
“The ability to access hybrid solutions before a full-cloud offering will make it a lot easier for many businesses to digitally transform. By the end of 2020, we’ll also be able to onboard customers fully onto the cloud if that’s what they want.”
“Our intent is to deliver the best of both worlds, so customers don’t lose the rich Avaya experience by moving to cloud”
Standing out from the CCaaS Crowd
Avaya is one of the few full-stack players in the marketplace today. Not only are they jumping into customizable CCaaS solutions, but they’re also bringing the worlds of UC and CC together with help from their partnerships with leading brands like RingCentral.
“People often overlook how important the information in the back office is to the contact centre. Most tools force agents to serve customers based on just the information that’s presented to them in the CC side of things. We believe that bringing both UC and CC together in the future will allow for a more complete and contextual experience.”
According to Ahmed, the future for Avaya will be built not just on cloud, but also the “team space” where different environments can connect and collaborate freely over a better user experience.
Helmy told me that the future is going to be a very exciting time for Avaya and its customers. The most thrilling thing in his mind is the fact that Avaya isn’t just going to be delivering transformation to its clients, it’s going through the transformation in its own right.
“Soon, you’re going to see a totally different company, and that’s going to be exciting for everyone”
