Michael Thurk has a lot of explaining to do these days. The Avaya COO was in Canada recently to talk to the movers and shakers of the telecom industry about the company’s US$8.2 billion private equity merger.His chat there was part of a 28 city, 60-day journey where he will be answering questions from employees and business partners.
Besides providing answers Thurk is also trying to build on an arduous company goal of attaining top flight status in IP telephony, contact centres and unified communications.
All three markets have tough competitors and in some cases maybe even overcrowded, but Thurk believes Avaya has an ace in the hole with its approach to each segment.
Avaya solutions use IP telephony as a platform to speed up otherwise labourious processes such as inventory management with voice.
Thurk realizes that Avaya cannot do this alone and is in partnering mode with other vendors and the channel.
For example, the human latency problem with customer care cannot by solved by Avaya technology alone, he said. But, by combining it with SAP’s ERP system performance improvement can be achieved. Thurk said there is a new way of thinking at Avaya these days. The company has spent the past three years investing in it. The recently concluded US$140 million acquisition of Ubiquity is one of the elements of this new thinking strategy.
Thurk sat down with CDN to discuss this among other topics.
CDN: What is your take on the Canadian market and your place in it?
Michael Thurk: Historically, the PBX market has been nationalistic and companies like Avaya were strong in the U.S., Alcatel was strong in France and Nortel was strong in Canada. The opportunities have changed in the last few years with IP. Companies are less and less making nationalistic decisions and looking at global providers like Nortel and Avaya and a number of other companies. The boundaries are less important today because of the global nature of business and a standardizing on IP, which can be used globally we have seen this change. We have a better chance now to further penetrate the Canadian market than say five years ago.
CDN: How will this private equity move impact customers and your channel partners worldwide and specifically in Canada?
M.T.: Business partners are no different than customers. Globally there is nothing unique with Canada or elsewhere with this deal. All I can say is (when this announcement was made) by chance we had our top 100 business partners in our headquarters that day. After the announcement, we took time to address questions and I asked them for their views positive or neutral or negative. And 98 per cent said it was positive, zero said negative. They now view us to be quicker and nimble as a competitor in a private setting. I was struck by the support from the business partners.
CDN: When compared to your main competitors, analysts and market watchers in the press, including myself believe Avaya’s weak points are in its marketing and in its channel. What are you doing to build up both areas?
M.T.: Our channel is extremely loyal and strong. We migrated to the channel about five years ago when we went from PBX to IP. The business partners have migrated well and the marketing investment and the general sales investment are in one area now. What I would like to see is more consideration and an expanded reach globally to increase in both selling and marketing. We are actively discussing that internally. Not as much as we would like. We do want to invest more dollars because the opportunity is out there. In six years we had to develop a brand and a channel and re-tool the product line to be a global player in the face of strong competition and, that said, there are still lots of opportunities.
CDN: Is the market in your opinion today really in the SMB and, if you think so, what is Avaya doing to gain more market share and market presence in this segment?
M.T.: The SMB market is transforming right now and the one thing that’s important to provide to small customers in the 20 and under range is cost effectiveness and easy to install. We bought a company called NimCad networks in Ottawa and they have an out-of-the-box offering to get SMB companies started in IP telephony. As you get to the 100 and 200 employee range, it is not just IP and dial tone, but small contact centres and collaborative desktops. The business partners are more suited to discuss Microsoft and Avaya than IBM and they can be more successful there.
CDN: Do you think you have to increase your channel business over the next six to 18 months and, if so, how are you going about it?
M.T: The channel business has been growing as a percentage in a number of years and one area we need to do a better job in is developing channel unique offers. We have largely offers in both enterprise and SMB and everything from direct or indirect and the business in SMB is changing and we need to offer them that customized solution for high volume channel distribution. We can do a better job of that and we need to do more investing in that area.