Bangkok--Sep 6--Aziam Burson-Marsteller
Global Leaders in Corporate Networking Solutions and Services team to deliver customer retention and profitability solutions
Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an agreement that will enable businesses and service providers to rapidly deploy new communications management, customer care and contact solutions.
Under today's agreement, IBM Global Services, the world’s largest networking services and systems integration company, will provide consulting and implementation services to help customers deploy various Avaya products and services. Included in the agreement are: unified communication solutions, which enable simplified access for end-users to a variety of messages and mulitimedia from virtually any communications device; customer relationship management infrastructure and applications for customer contact centers; and web-based e-commerce applications. As part of the unified communication offer, Avaya today also announced an agreement with Lotus to jointly develop a Lotus Notes-compatible version of Unified Messenger, a market-leading application for message management.
The companies will support these offerings through a dedicated services practice that includes IBM Global Services and Avaya Professional Services.
"Two of the biggest challenges for enterprises in today’s economy are increasing productivity and retaining customers, “ said Don Peterson, president and CEO, Avaya. "Avaya technology enables businesses to excel in today’s environment, which requires 24-hour-a-day access for commerce, customer support and service. As a result of this agreement, we can deliver the solutions they need quickly and efficiently through the world-class consulting and integration capabilities of IBM.”
Frank Broderick, IBM’s vice president for networking services added, “Companies around the world require a services partner who can help them reduce their deployment risks and decrease their time to market in implementing next-generation communications solutions. By teaming with Avaya, we feel that we’re in a unique position to help customers realize the benefits of leading-edge technology by designing, implementing and deploying these solutions, while reducing their costs.”
In announcing the agreement, Avaya and IBM cited the alliance will position the two companies to be leading providers of applications and services that are forecasted by industry analysts to grow to a combined $22 billion over the next five years. The two firms will be able to serve more than 90 percent of the addressable unified messaging market, which according to market research by the Radicati Group, will increase to $8 billion by 2005, up from $498 million in 2000. The practice for CRM will tap into a growing market for CRM infrastructure and applications that according to IDC, soared 85% in 2000 to $6.2 billion, and is expected to generate more than $14 billion in revenues by 2005.
Today, the two companies mutually serve more than 200 large enterprises and service providers today through existing relationships. The companies will offer additional services to these current clients through these new practices, in addition to jointly seeking new business.
Avaya and IBM will focus on bringing the following services and solutions to market:
- Unified Communication Solutions — IBM Global Services is creating a services practice to sell and support Avaya’s unified communication solutions — a category of applications that streamlines information and contact management for mobile and remote end-users. This practice will focus on Avaya’s market-leading Unified Messenger application, which enables a company’s employees to manage voice mail, e-mail and fax communications. Users — anywhere and at any time — can access, respond to and manage all of their messages from personal computers, wired telephones, wireless phones, handheld devices or the Internet, regardless of the medium of the original messages. For example, a user can choose to listen to emails from a cell phone, or instead retrieve voice mails from their laptop computer.
For the IT manager, Unified Messenger provides a solution that features a single message store, directory, network and administration, making it simpler to administer and less expensive to support. According to an independent study by the Radicati Group, Unified Messenger reduced the cost of ownership by 70%. It is also shown in the same study to be an effective time-management tool for end users, providing on average, more than a half-hour per day of increased productivity.
Avaya’s agreement with Lotus to jointly develop a Lotus Notes-compatible version of Unified Messenger provides the first solution on the market to make the industry-leading unified messaging platform available for large-scale implementations in a Lotus Notes/Domino environment. It also provides Avaya access to Lotus’ base of more than 85 million Notes users worldwide.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) — IBM Global Services is creating a services practice, providing consulting, design and implementation services for Avaya’s contact center solutions. According to market research by Gartner, Avaya is the world leader in the development of call center solutions. It also provides an industry leading contact center solution. With Avaya’s contact center solutions and their mutual CRM application partners, Avaya and IBM will deliver a complete customer relationship management solution across multiple channels that includes voice, email, Web chat, Web self-service and fax. This offer can help companies improve productivity, while increasing customer intimacy, retention, and satisfaction. Additionally, Avaya’s workflow and business analysis solutions will help companies keep their customer service commitments by managing the flow of work associated with fulfillment of requests and will help them gather business intelligence needed to understand customer buying patterns and preferences.
- Web-Based Contact and e-Commerce Solutions — Avaya and IBM will offer contact center solutions to service providers and directly to enterprises that integrate the Web with call center communications, and an e-commerce solution for buying and selling over the Internet.
About Avaya
Avaya, headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., is a leading global provider of communications solutions and services that help businesses, government agencies and other institutions — including more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500 — excel in the customer economy. Avaya offers Customer Relationship Management Solutions, Unified Communication Solutions, Hosted Solutions, Multi-Service Networking Infrastructure, and Converged Voice and Data Networks — including the company's no-compromise Enterprise-Class IP Solutions (ECLIPS) — all supported by Avaya Services and Avaya Labs. Avaya is the worldwide leader in unified messaging, messaging systems, call centers and structured cabling systems. It is the U.S leader in voice communications systems. Avaya is an official partner for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the 2003 Women's World Cup and the 2006 FIFA World Cup championships. For more information on Avaya, visit its website at http://www.avaya.com.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable telecommunications service providers and businesses to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. IBM Global Services is the world's largest information technology services provider, with 1999 revenues of $32 billion. For more information, visit http:/www.ibm.com.
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