Big CX News from Avaya, AWS, and Cisco

Popular stories from the last week that you may have missed

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Published: February 17, 2023

Ryan Smith

From bankruptcy announcements to entering strategic partnerships, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.

Avaya Officially Files for Bankruptcy: Now What?

Avaya has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it hopes to exit within 90 days.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows businesses to reorganize their debts and repay creditors while keeping their operations running.

Do not confuse such a filing with chapter seven bankruptcy: liquidation.

Instead, the move gives Avaya breathing space as it right-sizes to its revenues – which dropped by over 36 percent last quarter (YoY) – and repays its substantial debts.

Before this filing, these debts stood at $3.4BN. Now, they will fall to $800M, due in 2028.

The move will also free up $600M, giving Avaya considerable liquidity to press ahead with its innovation plans – which it shared with CX Today in December.

Yet, the voluntary, pre-packaged filing will have many more consequences for the stalwart contact center vendor.

The Webex Contact Center Is Now Available to Microsoft Teams Users

The Webex Contact Center for Teams has achieved official certification from Microsoft.

First teased in October – during WebexOne 2022 – the offering opens up Cisco’s CCaaS platform to an entirely new market of businesses that harness Teams for UCaaS.

That is a broad new audience, with the UC platform boasting 280MN monthly users.

Yet, while Microsoft leads the UC space, ahead of Webex’s own platform, the tech pioneer has plenty of catching up to do in CCaaS.

Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research, recently noted this in conversation with UC Today, predicting that the Microsoft Contact Center will flop this year.

As such, many businesses have avoided combining Microsoft’s CCaaS platform with Teams, despite the many possible benefits. These include improved cross-function collaboration, knowledge sharing, and CX reporting.

Now, the Webex Contact Center for Microsoft Teams allows businesses to achieve these benefits by offering an integration between its “market-leading”CCaaS solution and the UCaaS platform.

Webex Offers Deeper CCaaS Capabilities

According to Aragon Research, Cisco is a leading vendor of intelligent contact center solutions, thanks – in part – to its Webex CCaaS offering.

The platform includes 16+ integrated channels, conversational analytics, agent collaboration tools, and much more.

Now, with this integration, it connects to the Microsoft phone system while supporting Microsoft PSTN and third-party direct routing providers.

The AWS-RingCentral Partnership Is a Big Win for Amazon Connect

AWS has launched a partnership with RingCentral to offer new employee and customer communications tools to its client roster.

These include RingCentral MVP (Message Video Phone) and RingCentral Contact Center solutions, now available within the AWS marketplace.

The latter may help AWS draw in more interest from SMBs, as its Amazon Connect CCaaS platform continues to win significant business in the mid-market and enterprise space.

Yet, the deal may also benefit the Connect platform, pulling it closer to RingCentral’s UCaaS solution, which – according to the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant – is a market-leading offering.

Easy access to such a solution will please many Connect customers. After all, 2022 Metrigy research suggests that the most prevalent reason companies ditch Amazon Connect is that they want to use a single integrated platform for both UC and the contact center.

The new partnership with RingCentral may alleviate such concerns and allow AWS to catch up with competitors such as Five9, Cisco, and Genesys in its CCaaS retention rates.

Of course, AWS also offers its own UCaaS solution: Amazon Chime. However, it is yet to resonate with businesses in the same way Amazon Connect has.

Indeed, Amazon Connect leads the CCaaS market in customer acquisition, as per Metrigy’s study. The RingCentral deal may fortify this position.

RingCentral Also Secures Significant Benefits from the Deal

The deal benefits RingCentral by opening up its UCaaS platform to an expansive base of potential customers as it strives to become the chief competitor to Microsoft Teams.

In addition, Mo Katibeh, President and Chief Operating Officer at RingCentral, highlighted that AWS reps will proactively sell the platform. That is an exclusive benefit for RingCentral.

CX Awards 2023 Winners

AI is everywhere. CCaaS and UCaaS systems are converging. Immersive experiences are emerging. These are just some of the trends touching the customer experience space.

Powering these trends are visionary technology vendors that work closely with their customers to bring innovative customer experiences to life.

The CX Awards 2023 shines a light on these leading providers that excel not only in their creativity but also in their execution.

To crown such worthy winners, our team of judges – which includes industry analysts, practitioners, and consultants – has worked diligently, whittling down long lists of entrants.

With over 100 entrants, each CX Awards victor has gone above and beyond to present themselves as a leader in their space.

As such, a massive congratulations is in order for all of our worthy winners.

 

 

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