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Avaya has found itself uniquely positioned to help governments, businesses and communities miti-gate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time of its outbreak in China’s Hubei Province, Avaya was among the first foreign companies to respond – providing solutions that enabled hospitals on the frontlines to conduct remote diagnosis and treat patients.
As the virus spreads, the company has remained steadfast in its mission to help people stay safe, while enabling businesses to continue to deliver critical services.
This commitment, and its speed of response, has allowed Avaya to successfully enable more than 11,000 companies worldwide to equip over 2 million work-ers to operate remotely.
In the Middle East specifically, Avaya has worked with numerous government agencies to set up video conferencing solutions across various disaster recovery sites, thus enabling business continuity at the highest levels of government.
These solutions are also integrated with various remote working applications to ensure connectivity and productivity across the workforce.
What are some of the key systems that you offer your clients?Avaya has always taken a human-centric approach to developing technologies. In this current climate, when businesses and communities are challenged by social distancing measures, these solutions are more relevant than ever, particularly for organisations in the education, healthcare and government sectors.
For example, educational institutions are leveraging our cloud-based collaboration solution, Avaya Spaces, to maintain face-to-face interactions between teachers and students.
Entities in the critical infrastructure sector are relying on Avaya contact centre technology to ensure vital emergency services are unimpacted by migrating dispatchers to remote working arrangements.
And our video conferencing solutions are enabling hospitals to allow quarantined patients to keep in virtual contact with their loved ones.
Our video and collaboration solutions are also being leveraged by private sector companies from all around the world, allowing their employees to meet, connect and interact in innovative and more agile formats, without having to compromise on productivity.
Many businesses have had their workflows impacted – what are some of the ways you are able to mitigate the effects of what is happening now?Today more than ever, technology companies have the power to influence the progress of society. I believe therefore that in the time of this crisis it is our moral obligation to enable communities to maintain a sense of continuity – using the power of persistent collaboration.
In recent months, we have been able to align our values around innovation and business enable-ment with our commitment to customer-centricity and technology for the good of humanity.
This culminated in our decision to offer all organizations 60 days of complimentary, full-feature access to Avaya Spaces – our flagship cloud-based collaboration app.
This offer came as part of the ongoing Avaya Cares programme, which we launched to helped organisations struggling with the effects of Covid-19, and has been very well received by customers and partners across the region.
As a case in point, in Egypt, following the government’s decision to close schools and universities as a measure to prevent the spread of coronavirus, we partnered with Orange Egypt to roll out Avaya Spaces to educational institutions in the country, enabling them to implement remote learning initiatives.
In a similar vein, we recognise that fear, uncertainty and the inability of customers to avail of services via traditional channels has resulted in a surge in the demand for digital and telephonic support.
Organisations in the critical services sector have had to accommodate this while balancing the need to prioritise the health and safety of their contact centre agents.
To aid these efforts, Avaya began offering its customers the ability to enable their contact centre agents to work remotely, while maintaining uncompromised access to the tools they need to remain efficient and effective.
Raya Contact Centre – a leading Business Process Outsourcing service provider with contact centres in the UAE, Egypt and Poland – was one of the first organisations in the region to avail of this offer and we worked closely with their team to empower over 6,500 of their service agents to work from home.
It was this uncompromising support from Avaya that prompted Yasser M. Sharaf, IT Director at Raya Contact Centre to commend us for being “extremely proactive in anticipating business continuity requirements” and enabling them to “implement a solution without having to incur any additional costs”.
What is Avaya Spaces?Avaya Spaces is a unified communications solution that enables a way of working which supports modern-day, unplanned work challenges.
Avaya Spaces helps reduce the current disruption organisations face by providing an easy way to securely share documents, coordinate work across teams and assign and track work.
It supports hyper decision making as using this application, anyone can have a say and get things going around the world.
This way, I could post an idea and then, by the time I wake up the following morning, someone has already picked it up and done something with it – regardless of the hierarchy. It’s almost like you’ve got everyone in a room, constantly collaborating in a reactive and high-octane manner.
As a demonstration of how critical a role that Avaya Spaces is playing in enabling businesses to overcome the challenges they currently face, I would highlight that we have seen a 2,700 percent increase in video collaboration traffic on Avaya Spaces since January.
What are some of Avaya’s USPs that business leaders in the region should be aware of?Avaya is not only uniquely positioned to deliver the technologies that businesses need in these challenging times, we do so with the speed and agility this rapidly evolving crisis demands.
Although Avaya has been on the forefront in helping to support companies in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic since day one, we have not for a second rested on our laurels.
We’re offering the kind of tools and professional support that will become the benchmark in the new and evolved communications market.
We’re delivering something that’s valuable, extensible, and innovative. Our technologies aren’t just ticking boxes, they’re solving real problems, allowing people to work with the tools that they need, and access the latest innovations when they arrive.
Moreover, we are a company that has been defined by its long-term vision. We remain market leaders, be it in established or emerging technological domains.
Our customers can therefore rest assured that Avaya solutions will not only empower them to effectively address the challenges they face today, but will strongly position them for success in the post-Covid world.