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2013

2013 North American SSL Certificate

Product Leadership Award

2014

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Background and Company Performance

Industry Challenges

The inbound contact center routing (ICR) market continued its decline in 2013. With a brief pause in 2011, the year 2012 saw a steep decline in premise-based shipments of almost ten percent. Whereas Frost & Sullivan forecasted this decline to slow to -2.8 percent in 2013, shipment results revealed more than double that with a -7.9 percent reduction in sales of ICR systems in 2013.

The factors behind this are somewhat different than in recent years. Although the economy still played a role, contact center budgets are rebounding. While the bulk of contact center budgets are still being funneled to Agent Performance Optimization (APO), IVR sales have halted its years-long decline, and budgets of APO components – workforce management (WFM), quality monitoring (QM), and analytics are more evenly spread than recent years as well.

Despite pressure lessening on contact center budgets, the premise-based market for ICR is still being negatively impacted. The biggest reason for this is the trend of continued movement to the cloud. Vendors who entered the cloud fray at the beginning of its ascent are now comparatively seasoned veterans in the contact center industry and are fine-tuning go-to-market strategies and shoring up solution sets. In addition, increasing numbers of legacy contact center vendors also have jumped onto the cloud bandwagon, increasing competition for companies looking to replace aging premise-based systems.

Finally, the decade-long move to multi-channel contact centers has now evolved toward omni-channel customer engagement. This drives both premise and hosted solutions, as both methods are integrating new channels into their portfolios.

Market Leadership

For Frost & Sullivan, confronting such dynamic challenges and achieving and maintaining market leadership in ICR systems largely depends on the following criterion:

Criterion 1. Brand Recognition

Avaya is one of the most respected brands in the industry. With roots that extend back over a century, a large installed base of loyal customers, and a history of innovation, Avaya enjoys a brand name competitive advantage that smaller players and new market entrants struggle to attain. Avaya also does an excellent job of promoting customer references and use cases into its go-to-market collateral.

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© Frost & Sullivan 3 “We Accelerate Growth” of its success. In addition to a complete package of contact center solutions, the company’s portfolio includes networking, unified communications and collaboration, real-time video collaboration, and related services.

Indeed, this breadth plays into marketing awareness campaigns. For instance, Avaya parlayed its intense involvement as the Official Supplier of Network Equipment for Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games into one of the biggest industry public relations coups in 2013/2014. Media and analyst coverage in the press was widespread and laudatory.

In addition, International Avaya Users Group (IAUG) meetings, webinars, video webinars, and trade show participation are just a few components that contribute to success in brand recognition. In addition, Avaya Evolution® Tours – one day “experience” events that include presentations on business solutions, customer testimonials, and technology trends, in conjunction with an Expo demo area – should not be overlooked. This kind of visibility is invaluable.

Criterion 2. Growth Strategy Excellence

Avaya’s growth strategy is rooted in multiple business areas, starting with the aforementioned focus on building market awareness of the Avaya brand.

But the company also studies industry and technology trends, aligning them with product roadmaps. Avaya does this in conjunction with an active International Avaya Users Group (IAUG) that provides ongoing feedback on the vision, strategy, and product roadmap. The company then leverages its years of expertise and innovative R&D teams to develop new features and products and unique functionality in existing products.

Criterion 3. Implementation Excellence

In a mature and intensely competitive market such as Contact Center Systems, there is a delicate balancing act in keeping the installed base happy, developing new products, releasing updates to existing products, all while presenting a vision for what is possible going forward.

When Frost & Sullivan considers the evolution of multi-channel to omni-channel customer contact, against an ever-changing backdrop of the similar yet distinct concepts of Customer Experience, the Customer Journey, and Customer Engagement, Avaya’s balancing act in successful implementation is all the more impressive.

Criterion 4.Technology Leverage

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© Frost & Sullivan 4 “We Accelerate Growth” IVR that feed into an omni-channel strategy, make the acquisition of new Avaya inbound contact center routing systems, and the upgrade of existing ones, an important consideration. Meanwhile, leveraging the entire portfolio’s technology to improve the Customer Journey and Customer Experience, increase Customer Engagement and retention, and improve employee and agent engagement, also is compelling.

For instance, Avaya’s Customer Experience Management (CEM) framework combines multiple technologies across different applications to dramatically change the Customer Experience. It uses analytics to glean actionable insight into what is happening with the customer, understands customer preferences, and uses that to match the appropriate resource to the customer along with relevant customer data. It also provides context-aware, proactive, and automated technologies to improve the Customer Experience.

Criterion 5. Price/Performance Value

Avaya has broadened its customer reach by creating competitively priced and feature-rich offerings in the small to mid-sized market. New mid-market bundles and the introduction of multichannel contact center solutions for IP Office are excellent examples. Avaya also provides considerable value in unifying functionality of its different feature sets, such as combining unified communication and collaboration with the contact center, providing greater value that is resonating with its customer base.

Conclusion

For the fourth consecutive year Avaya has achieved greater than 30 percent market share in the Inbound Contact Center Routing market. Avaya has achieved a leadership position in this market by continuing its history of innovation, understanding market trends and customer needs, and providing superior support to customers and partners. As such, Frost & Sullivan is proud to recognize Avaya with the 2014 Market Leadership award for Inbound Contact Routing Systems.

Key Performance Criteria

For the Market Leadership Award, we focused on specific criteria to determine the areas of performance excellence that led to the company’s leadership position. The criteria we considered include (although not limited to) the following:

Criterion Requirement

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Implementation Excellence

Processes support the efficient and consistent implementation of tactics designed to support the strategy

Brand Strength The possession of a brand that is respected, recognized, and remembered

Product Quality

The product or service receives high marks for performance, functionality and reliability at every stage of the life cycle

Product Differentiation

The product or service has carved out a market niche, whether based on price, quality, uniqueness of offering (or some combination of the three) that another company cannot easily duplicate

Technology Leverage

Demonstrated commitment to incorporating leading edge technologies into product offerings, for

greater product performance and value

Price/Performance Value Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar offerings in the market

Customer Purchase Experience

Customers feel like they are buying the most optimal solution that addresses both their unique needs and their unique constraints

Customer Ownership Experience

Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service, and have a positive experience

throughout the life of the product or service

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The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best

Practices Awards

Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our research process. It offers a 360-degree-view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Too often, companies make important growth decisions based on a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and commission. Successful growth strategies are founded on a thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best practices, and demographic analyses. The integration of these research disciplines into the 360-degreeresearch methodology provides an evaluation platform for

benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit

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