Strengthening Outbound

Avaya Innovations event on Proactive Customer Engagement was held in Mumbai on April 5, 2013. The event also presented the launch of Avaya Outbound Contact Express (OCE), a new product from Avaya, specifically targeted at the mid-market outbound contact center segment.

The event was attended by senior professionals from 76 unique companies like Aditya Birla Minacs, Barclays Bank, Blue Dart, Cleartrip, Ican BPO, Yes Bank, Wipro Infotech, Serco Global, SBI, TCS, ICICI Bank, IDBI Intech, and IDBI Federal to name a few.

Sandip Sen, global CEO, Aegis BPO, delivered the industry keynote. Sen has 25 years experience as a serial entrepreneur and business leader in telecom, technology, and outsourcing industries. He is an acknowledged leader in the contact center industry and is credited with growing Aegis' revenues from $60 mn to $1 bn in 10 years. Earlier in 2001, he had set up his own CRM company focused on customer lifecycle processes. In his keynote, Sen outlined the evolution of outbound contact centers and their strategic relevance to business growth. He stressed on the need for aligning technology and automation with customer acquisition processes as the cornerstone for success in customer lifecycle management.

Stacking the Right Technologies

Rajeev Mittal, managing director, Avaya India and Saarc, gave examples of innovation and global leadership in the contact center industry by Avaya. He brought forth the need for companies to respond to market needs with speed and sophistication. According to Mittal, the only way this could happen was by aligning superior technology with perfect processes handled by competent professionals. Perhaps, the role of technology is larger and more important, in that, the right technology solution can enhance processes and make people smarter, he averred.
Avaya technology products and its roadmaps are oriented towards achieving this objective, he said.

Gary E Barnett, Sr VP and general manager, collaboration platforms, delivered the Avaya keynote. He characterized Avaya's global leadership in the contact center industry and attributed its success to the R&D and innovation efforts at Avaya. Avaya's closeness to customers and its disciplined approach of listening to their needs has been an integral part of its product development strategy, Gary stressed.

Gary said that the mid-market is emerging as a very important segment that has been continually underserved. This is because either the existing products were unaffordable or that the products designed for the mid-market were under-configured. Barnett said that he was totally convinced that the problems faced by the large companies and the mid-market ones are the same and that the latter cannot be served by under-configured products. Beyond that, the mid-market has certain other unique requirements borne out resource constraints and competitive market dynamics, which necessitate far smarter products.

In the outbound industry, the mid-market needs speed to market, ease of operation, and an all-in-one turnkey equipment that handles all the sub-processes of outbound process from predictive dialing to value reporting.

Barnett and the Avaya team then unveiled the Avaya Outbound Contact Express (OCE) along with Rajeev Mittal and Johnson Varkey. Johnson Varkey and his team then took over the stage for a detailed demonstration of the key features of OCE. Senior leaders from Avaya Labs in Pune and Bangalore who were instrumental in architecting OCE were also present.