The past several years have been tumultuous for Avaya, marked by bankruptcy and significant restructuring. However, the recent changes and aggressive new strategies indicate a positive future for the company and its customer base. Avaya has installed new corporate leadership, exited bankruptcy, reduced its debt and interest expenses, and gone public. They are busy planning a number of major product announcements at Avaya Engage, the annual user and partner conference. This period marks an optimum moment for enterprise customers to examine their current unified communications (UC) and contact center environments to see how they could capitalize on Avaya’s renewed vigor and new technological offerings.
1. Identify and Review Your Corporate and IT Strategic Plans
Pinpointing and examining your corporate and IT strategic blueprints can facilitate your enterprise’s direction for the next two to five years. This foresight will help you tie in the technologies that make the most sense for your organization. For instance, if delivering retail products is crucial to your customer experience, a Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) application with real-time tracking might be very beneficial for your enterprise. Reviewing your strategic plans allows you to identify which technological integrations can drive your company forward, making it more competitive and efficient in an ever-evolving market.
Additionally, aligning the corporate and IT strategic plans helps in zeroing in on the key technologies that will support your future endeavors. It is crucial to understand what specific competencies need bolstering and how current technologies can support these areas. Enterprises must effectively bridge their long-term objectives with innovative technological solutions to succeed in highly competitive environments. By synchronizing these plans, organizations can make informed decisions that align technological investments with their strategic business goals.
2. Identify Technologies That Should Be on Your Roadmap
Determining which technologies should be featured on your future plan is an essential part of strategic planning. Considering the latest advancements in technology, such as Unified Communications (UC) or contact center cloud, mobile UC, and CPaaS, you need to identify which would be most practical for your organization. The key is to pinpoint technologies that add value to your enterprise’s specific operational needs and long-term goals, rather than jumping on every new technological trend. This ensures that your chosen technologies enhance productivity and competitiveness without unnecessary complexities.
Moreover, enterprises should continuously assess and update their technology roadmap to incorporate the most relevant advancements. Keeping abreast of emerging technologies can provide competitive advantages and enhance customer experiences. Engage with internal stakeholders and technology experts to evaluate the potential impact and feasibility of integrating advanced technologies into your existing infrastructure. By doing so, businesses can develop a robust technological roadmap that aligns with their strategic objectives and adapts to industry trends.
3. Closely Watch the Latest Announcements from Avaya and Others at Avaya Engage
Monitoring the latest announcements from Avaya and other key players at events like Avaya Engage offers insights into upcoming technologies and developments. By staying informed about new announcements, you can assess how these innovations could benefit your organization. Should a particular technology announcement be significant, it could be baseline against your internal plans to determine its applicability. Additionally, it is important to consider major announcements about end-user support, both direct and through value-added resellers (VARs), and evaluate if these align with your organization’s expectations and needs.
Furthermore, attending conferences and engaging with industry news allows enterprises to network and gain practical knowledge from peers and experts. This dynamic exchange of information can lead to better technology adoption strategies and foster partnerships that may further support your organizational goals. As Avaya evolves and unveils new offerings, keeping a close eye on their developments ensures that your enterprise remains agile and ready to leverage any beneficial technological advancements.
4. Obtain a Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) from Avaya and Go Deep
Securing a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) from Avaya is crucial if you want to delve deeply into their strategic plans and upcoming releases. Under an NDA, you can gain privileged access to Avaya’s detailed plans for evolving its UC, contact center, and adjacent technologies over the next 12 to 24 months. This privileged information allows alignment with your organization’s strategic plans, offering clarity on when specific releases, features, and functionalities will become available. Additionally, you can ask if these releases can be included as part of your upgrade platform and what incentives might be available if you migrate from a premises-based setup to a cloud service.
Moreover, understanding Avaya’s future trajectory through an NDA can help you make well-informed decisions about technology investments. It provides vital data needed for timing your upgrades and ensures that the technologies you adopt meet your organization’s evolving needs. This deep dive not only aids in aligning your strategy with Avaya’s but also prepares your enterprise to better negotiate terms and incentives, ultimately benefiting your bottom line.
5. Build a Pro-forma Specification for Budgetary Purposes
Creating a pro-forma specification for your short-term (12 months) and medium-term (24 to 36 months) requirements is critical for effective budget planning. These specifications, which outline detailed financial needs, provide a basis for requesting capital expenditure (CAPEX) or operational expenditure (OPEX) budgetary allocations from Avaya and other potential vendors. Detailed pro-forma specifications allow for better financial planning and ensure that resources are allocated efficiently to meet your enterprise’s strategic objectives over the next few fiscal years.
Furthermore, these budgetary specifications must encompass both immediate and future needs, factoring in any potential technological advancements that may prove beneficial. By projecting financial requirements over an extended period, you can ensure that both current and future technology needs are met without compromising on quality or functionality. This proactive approach to financial planning can secure the necessary investments in new technologies while maintaining operational stability.
6. Ensure Your Current Infrastructure Is UC Ready
Verifying that your existing infrastructure is ready for UC implementation is fundamental for seamless technology integration. This involves ensuring that all intra- and interbuilding cabling, Layer 3 switching, and Wide Area Network (WAN) bandwidth can support UC components, including voice, video, data, and extended technologies requiring additional bandwidth. With predictions from Cisco that by 2020, 82% of all IP traffic would be video, an infrastructure prepared for high bandwidth demands is indispensable. High-definition video calls, which add approximately 1 Mbps of bandwidth per call, exemplify the significant WAN requirements necessitated by modern UC solutions.
Equally important is the consideration of high-definition video and voice call codecs, such as G.711 or G.722, which place video calls at a substantially higher volume than voice calls. Organizations should strategically plan for the added bandwidth requirements that video will impose on their network. Preparing the infrastructure to handle increased data traffic and ensuring its robustness can prevent bottlenecks and facilitate smoother UC adoption. By doing so, enterprises maintain high performance and reliability even as they scale their telecommunications capabilities.
7. Identify Areas for Return on Investment (ROI)
Pinpointing areas for potential return on investment (ROI) is a critical aspect of justifying new technology expenditures. Many clients find the idea of balancing capital expenditure (CAPEX) or increased operational expenditure (OPEX) costs with potential ROI opportunities compelling. For instance, leveraging Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking to save significant sums annually highlights how strategic decisions can offset initial costs. Identifying substantial savings for a contact center opportunity or UC and contact center cloud spend can make a compelling case for technology investments to executive management.
Moreover, providing these financial projections to executive management in a well-structured spreadsheet format, showing all costs and hard-dollar savings over a seven to 10-year period, can immensely aid in securing funding. For instance, a recent case study involving Software Defined-Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) use, paired with SIP trunking and plain old telephone service (POTS) savings, demonstrated how a fully redundant network across multiple sites could generate net savings. These tangible financial advantages bolster the case for modernizing and upgrading enterprise communication systems.
8. Document Your Plan, Then Present It to and Get Buy-in from CXO Management
Recording your detailed plan and presenting it to CXO management is essential for obtaining approval and necessary funding. This documentation should be in the form of a comprehensive report and PowerPoint presentation that encapsulates your organization’s objectives, available capital/non-capital monies, options, project objectives, associated risks, and a general timeline for implementation. Providing detailed support and documentation will help management understand the strategic importance of system upgrades or replacements, thereby facilitating the leverage of required funding.
Additionally, develop a timeline within your plan to align with Avaya announcements, due diligence, necessary logistics for new system migration, one-time and ongoing costs, and deployment of newer technologies. Ensuring that every aspect is thoroughly documented and clearly communicated allows for smoother approval processes and showcases the potential impact on the organization’s efficiency and differentiation. This meticulous planning helps in securing buy-in from top management and paves the way for successful technology implementations that support overall business strategies.
9. When Ready to Purchase/Upgrade, Go Out for Bid
The past few years have been rough for Avaya, characterized by bankruptcy and substantial restructuring. Nevertheless, the company’s recent turnaround and aggressive new strategies hint at a promising future for Avaya and its clientele. The company has appointed new corporate leadership, successfully emerged from bankruptcy, slashed its debt and interest expenses, and has reentered the public market.
Currently, Avaya is gearing up for several major product announcements set to be unveiled at Avaya Engage, their annual conference for users and partners. This seems to be the perfect time for enterprise customers to reevaluate their existing unified communications (UC) and contact center setups. By doing so, they could potentially leverage Avaya’s newfound energy and innovative technology offerings to enhance their business operations.
With a renewed corporate vision and reinvigorated technological advancements, Avaya is positioning itself as a strong player in the market once again. For businesses contemplating updates or changes to their communication systems, this period provides a significant opportunity to harness the benefits of Avaya’s updated services and products.