Avaya Holdings took a proverbial monkey off its back today by exiting bankruptcy after 10 months.
Jim Geary, the general manager of Americas sales and service at Avaya, says the company is exiting bankruptcy with $350 million in cash after closing not only over 4,000 contracts in the last year, but also adding 1,000 net new partners. All told, Avaya claims to have reduced its debt load by $3 billion.
Much of that activity is being driven by demand for products and services associated with unified communications in the enterprise and call centers that are being modernized to support omni-channel communications, says Geary.
Overall, Geary says Avaya is now more focused on engaging customers and partners under the leadership of new company CEO Jim Chirico.
“It’s a new culture,” says Geary.
As for partners, Geary says Avaya is pursuing a dual approach to sales. In cases when customers require their IT vendor to work directly with them Avaya will sell direct. But a much broader swath of the small-to-medium business (SMB) customers still prefer to engage partners, says Geary.
Competition across both unified communications in the enterprise and in the call center sector is fierce. Geary says Avaya and its partners have benefitted from digital business initiatives that fundamentally change the way organizations interact with end customers and communicate internally.
Geary says that after exiting bankruptcy Avaya plans to be soon listed once again as a public company on a major stock exchange. In the meantime, partners will be watching closely to see how much removing the stain of bankruptcy from the Avaya brand will result in more customers willing to engage with them.
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