Avaya looks to Asia to double growth

[Nick]

Avaya Asean regional director Ray Teske.

The Asia market represents a huge area of potential for global business communications firm Avaya, which is aiming to achieve double growth by 2013.

Following its recent acquisition of Nortel, Avaya appointed Ray Teske as regional director for Asean and assimilated some 450 employees of Nortel in Asia.

The Nortel recovery plan covered the installed base and, as a result, Nortel's existing customers are now being been taken care of as one by Avaya.

To achieve sustainable success, Teske said Avaya will increase its investment in the region and diversify its focus on data by offering Unified Communication (UC) to SME customers, which represent a significant growth sector.

Avaya is already the number one in Asia-Pacific IP-PBX market, IP phone market and contact centre applications, the director said.

Citing research by consultants Frost and Sullivan, Teske said the overall UC application grew by four percent in Asia-Pacific, and is expected to be worth around $4.4 billion (142 billion baht) by 2012, making it a very promising proposition for investors.

The company will deliver a new business model, specialising in solution services that help organisations to enhance their functionalities, such as managed video service.

The new business model is one of Avaya's major strategies to achieve its goal of double growth by 2013, he said.

Investment in Asean is likely to dramatically increase due to the capital funds from China and India, and Thailand is one of the prominent countries, Teske said, because the Kingdom's skilled labour base is very attractive. "Many major hard disk drive manufacturers and vendors are based in Thailand because of the skill-intensive nature of the Thai workforce," the director said.

He noted that from now on, Avaya will be more distinguishable as Avaya components become attached with others, and the market will witness the "Avaya Inside" approach.

From traditional channels of distributors, value-added resellers, system integrators and service providers, Avaya will deliver managed services through a joint approach with service providers.

Teske pointed out that the company has already launched the managed service in Japan by working with NTT and is now considering Australia and Singapore. In Thailand, Avaya has talked to service providers, but it will probably be a few years until the service is launched here, he said.

Avaya is the number one or two IP telephone provider in all Asean countries, and holds the dominant market share in Singapore, the largest Asean market. The director noted that there is a huge opportunity to regrow data presence, and establish an SME base in this region.

Indonesia and Malaysia are also growing very quickly, said Teske, and offer a similarly strong presence as in Thailand, where Avaya covers every relevant industry, including multiple government departments, telecoms, healthcare, insurance, and banking. The director added that Avaya will next approach the education sector, offering applications on SIP and Web 2.0.

However, Teske noted that the political situation here is a key factor in whether business will thrive or wilt. "If Asean grows, Thailand will grow as well, but the [domestic] political problems must be settled first," he said, adding that foreign business is ready to invest in Thailand so long as the country is stable.

Avaya, meanwhile, will invest more in the mass market and SMEs. Teske noted that the company will launch wireless LAN for SMEs over next few months. The product boasts new, wireless architecture which is always on and operates in real time, designed to serve users with a better experience of Wi-Fi phone.


ที่มา: bangkokpost.com