Avaya: Communicating in the Times of Corona

Avaya is one of the leaders in solutions to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration. In light of the COVID19 crisis with WFH and remote workforce becoming mainstream, Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director, Avaya India & SAARC elaborates on how the company’s business model and plans are undergoing changes. He alsio shares best practices to enable a remote workforce and tips on working remotely.

What are Avaya’s business and operating models specifically in India? In light of the COVID19 crisis how has this model got impacted?

There has never been a more important time for adoption and implementation of Avaya’s offering in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Avaya’s channel partners and system incubators are the prime business and operating models in India. The challenges and the changes imposed by the crisis on the business models of the marketing and communications industry have prompted everyone to find new means of communication and communication to make up for the shortfall that occurred after cancelling business events, conferences, exhibitions and other platforms to meet with customers and partners.

As the outbreak continues to be a growing concern for businesses and organizations globally, Avaya is delivering its cloud-based model of UCaaS and CCaaS solutions ensuring its customers and organizations to seamlessly integrate and collaborate no matter where they. The global leader has maintained its cardinal position in Voice with a recently enhanced focus on cloud-enabling multi-experience for its customers by unifying voice, chat, video, file sharing, etc in their solutions that are being placed in organizations’ workforce for remote collaboration.

Avaya aims and has moved to “multi-experience” model that connects people with more nuanced information as well as each other, regardless of location, device or communication platform. In the midst of COVID-19 crisis, Avaya has leveraged its cutting edge remote agent and work-from-home technologies to businesses globally. Avaya continues to actively engage with organizations to help them in transitioning to remote operations model to stay productive. Avaya continues to actively engage with organizations to help them in transitioning to remote operations model to stay productive.

Who are your marquee clients and what are the top verticals from which you witness maximum traction? How has COVID19 impacted business with the existing customers?

The corona virus-led lockdown has had a significant impact on the way businesses operated and acted an inflection point that gave the current system a huge nudge. Avaya is engaged since the early stages of this pandemic with customers in regions particularly affected by the corona virus, ensuring that existing customers and clients can continue delivering support their customers in the safest way possible through Avaya’s work-from-home collaboration technologies.

Focused verticals where Avaya actively engages with in India are – BFSI, e-commerce, digital services, emergency response systems, healthcare, BPOs and mid-market and commercial space. In healthcare, Avaya has leveraged its solutions that integrate the contact center into the hospital information system vastly improving the patient experience whereas in hospitality, the company is enabling advanced applications to be built on top of the Avaya Desktop Experience range.

But with the ongoing outbreak, Avaya has played a central role in enabling business continuity for the Indian BPO industry. It has ensured business continuity and economic stabilization in the face of unprecedented challenges by empowering these OSPs around the world who are challenged with maintaining high levels of customer engagement while they adapt to remote workforce models. Through its strategic relationships, Avaya has been able to move quickly and decisively to enable work-from-home initiatives within days and has leveraged its solutions beyond the BPO Industry. The company has offered free licenses to Avaya’s collaboration technologies, deploying remote home agent solutions and providing 24/7 technical support, enabling tens of thousands of contact center agents to work from home, ensuring that vital citizen and customer services remain unimpacted during the effort to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Avaya has helped large BPOs and prominent companies such as Tech Mahindra, HCL, MakeMyTrip.com and StarTek move to a remote agent set-up. Through Avaya’s solutions, these businesses can convert their existing office-based contact center agents to remote agents, prioritizing the health and safety of their employees while at the same time ensuring excellence in service delivery and guaranteeing the daily operation of customers’ contact centers.

How are solutions like Avaya Spaces helping existing customers with business continuity? How are you looking to add new Avaya Spaces customers especially looking at this as an opportunity window?

Recognized for its ease of implementation and the significant impact it can have on organizational resilience and continuity, Avaya Spaces – provides a cloud meeting and team collaboration solution that enables people and organizations to connect and collaborate remotely – integrating chat, voice, video, online meetings, content sharing and more. As a mobile-enabled solution, it gives users a simple, secure and effective way to track communications and manage tasks when travel and connectivity are limited.

Since the outbreak, Avaya Spaces collaboration software is being provided for free to educational institutions and eligible non-profit organizations worldwide. Owing to the immediate need in the education sector, school and university administrators consider the safety of their students while addressing the challenges around delivering education that arises in the event of lockdown, Avaya is ensuring continuity of their classes, engagement with their students and delivering on their educational objectives. The cloud-based platform has enabled teachers to create virtual classrooms and invite their students to participate in lessons delivered over a video conference while Task management features can be utilized for assigning homework to students.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Avaya has seen a massive SURGE in the percent increase in video collaboration traffic on the Avaya Spaces platform as more and more entities are queuing up to adopt the cloud-based solution accessible from any endpoint device. The company is actively engaging with universities and schools to help them coordinate remote worker/education strategies leveraging our expertise and solutions like Avaya to bring about organization resilience and continuity. Collaboration solution like Spaces is providing reliable, accessible, and streamlined approach to communications and collaboration.

Work From Home (WFH) has become mainstream and will remain so in the future. This means the growth of a bigger remote workforce. What according to you are the best practices to enable a remote workforce?

Document Remote Work Policies and Procedures

A written policy should already be in place that governs remote workers with clear and uniform rules. This policy should also make clear that all company policies apply — in addition to those specifically for remote workers. With each remote worker, including contact center agents, the manager should review the policies and procedures together. Focus on job responsibilities, organizational and departmental goals and objectives, customer impact, and employees’ work performance.

For all workers transitioning from traditional in-office roles to a remote basis, even if temporary, reinforce your policies and practices regarding protection of customer sensitive information. This is especially important for employees in customer-facing and customer support roles.

Select the Right People for the Job

Some employees are good workers but may not be best suited to work at home. Personality is only one aspect of this. Most remote workers may have access to customer-sensitive information, such as financial or health information. For these reasons and more, make it a part of your selection process to do background checks. You should also be open to organizational changes, monitor performance, and promote the people who thrive in the new remote environment.

Equip Remote Workers to Succeed

There are several hardware, software and connectivity factors that play a vital role in effectively empowering your employees to work remotely. Remote workers generally need a hard phone or headset and a computer. If your company provides the PC or otherwise enforces system requirements up front, your Help Desk will thank you later.

On the software side, remote workers need the same access to applications, tools, and peers as they do when in the office and this can be facilitated by the right communications and collaboration tools. For example, contact center agents working from home will require the same access to supervisors as in-office agents while supervisors working remotely need access to their contact center management tools for their agents.

The ability to collaborate is key but there can be significant upfront and ongoing costs associated with regular fixed-line or cellular calls. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) effectively addresses these costs but keep in mind that these solutions may require either SIP voice connectivity via the internet or virtual-private network (VPN) support, depending on your country’s rules and regulations.

When equipping your employees with remote working tools, it is advisable to provide them with easy-to-use documentation and job aids regarding password policies, or how to log into remote network services like VPN, or telephone services.

Make Experts Readily Available

Remote workers need access to the same subject matter experts and support as if in the office. “Presence” is a technology that is familiar to users of instant messaging, where a list of names is accompanied by icons indicating whether each person is logged in. When presence is incorporated into an enterprise, finding an expert is just as easy for the remote worker as for the in-office worker.

Manage and Monitor

Remote workers need to meet the same productivity goals as in-office workers. Predictable management check-in times are reassuring to remote workers. In addition, remote employees need to be included in team meetings and events so they can stay connected socially and culturally. Remember to keep training and mentoring remote workers, and reward good performance.

While remote working is proving essential in the ongoing effort to contain and control the spread of Covid-19, there is no doubt that is also has the power to forever transform and enhance the way organizations operate. Gartner forecasts that by 2023, fewer than one-third of digital workers will choose the office as their preferred place to work. The remote workforce investments businesses make today in their people, policies, procedures and technologies will serve to benefit them greatly – both in the near and long term.

During this COVID19 crisis what are the measures Avaya has undertaken to continue its own business without disruption as well as uninterrupted service for customers?

The effects of the crisis are worsening at an alarming rate and it will be more painful if the business of the companies does not go forward. Avaya is leaving no stone unturned in providing relief to the global economy by empowering work from home culture globally through its cutting edge collaboration technologies. The company is focused on empowering teams to work in more effective and productive ways with their preferred channels and touch points, wherever they may be and using whatever devices and platforms they choose.

Avaya emphasizes in being a true multi-experience enabler through its commitment in developing an environment that is blending unified communications, contact centre and collaborations capabilities to empower teams and improve customer engagement. Through its flagship products, Avaya is listening to the concerns of companies and institutions that are in the midst of the crisis, and provide the best technological solutions that suit their needs and requirements – transforming remote places to digital work hubs and offering a converged environment of meetings and team collaboration. It has undertaken a series of initiatives to assist companies during the crisis like – deployment of remote agent solutions and to Other Service Providers (OSP), complimentary licenses to contact center agents, cloud-based solution (IX Spaces) for free to educational institutions and NGOs, 24/7 technical hotlines to address questions about the solution stack, etc.

The company is also providing audio and video equipment to frontline health workers and medical facilities and working with govt. health departments and other institutions to rapidly set up emergency contact centers. The organization continues to work with customers on use cases for our technologies that enable their organizations to operate effectively despite the challenges due to the outbreak.

In light of your experience in running your own business and that of your customers remotely, what will be the top tips on remote working from an Avaya perspective?

Document Remote Work Policies and Procedures
A written policy should already be in place that governs remote workers with clear and uniform rules. Focus on job responsibilities, organizational and departmental goals and objectives, customer impact, and employee’s work performance.
Keep Your Security Game on Point
Reinforce your policies and practices regarding protection of customer sensitive information. This is especially important for employees in customer-facing and customer support roles who may have access to sensitive data.
Automate Security Where Possible
Protecting customers’ sensitive data is and (always will be) the first priority. Support this by enabling automated software updates into the applications your remote workers use, without requiring any human intervention.
Select the Right People for the Job
Some good workers may not be best suited to work-at-home, so be prepared to work around any inabilities to fill a certain role remotely. Be open to organizational changes, monitor performance, and promote the people who thrive in the new remote environment.
Keep Your Workers Connected
Ensure that your remote workers have sufficient internet access to connect to corporate resources. Many employees, but certainly not all, have internet connectivity that could be available for work use. For those who do not, you may need to provide connectivity for work use.
Help Employees with Their Home Working Spaces
Based on your own experience, a written policy should tell employees what works, and spell out what you expect of their workspace. These guidelines should be carefully discussed with every remote worker. Almost any room can serve as an office but selecting the right work area is essential to success.
Equip Your Workers to Succeed
Remote workers generally need a hard phone or headset (noise canceling headset is best) and a computer. If your company provides the PC or otherwise enforces system requirements up front, your Help Desk will thank you later.
Ensure Access to Business-Critical Applications
Remote workers need the same access to applications, tools, and peers as they do when in the office. For contact center agents, the same access to supervisors as in-office agents. And supervisors working remotely need access to their contact center management tools for their agents.
Are You VoIP-ready?
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) eliminates the costs associated with analogue telephony — as well as toll charges for remote workers – but may require voice connectivity via or virtual-private network (VPN) support. Provide employees with easy-to-use documentation and job aids regarding how to log into remote network services like VPN, telephone services, etc., including password procedures.
Make Experts Readily Available
Remote workers need access to the same subject matter experts and support as if in the office.“Presence” is a technology that is familiar to users of instant messaging, where a list of names is accompanied by icons indicating whether each person is logged in. Finding an expert for support should be just as easy for the remote worker as for the in-office worker.
Manage and Monitor
Remote workers need to meet the same productivity goals as in-office workers. Predictable management check-in times are reassuring to remote workers. Remember to keep training and mentoring remote workers, and reward good performance.
Record Meetings Wherever Possible
With everyone working remotely, accountability becomes more important than ever. Recording meetings (and transcribing minutes in a timely fashion) is one way to ensure this – helping everyone work towards the same objectives.
Take Advantage of Your Cloud Storage (And Collaborate)
Most organizations have access to huge amounts of cloud storage – whether it’s through Avaya Spaces (which offers unlimited data storage space), or another provider. Put that online storage to good use and encourage your workers to keep everything stored on the cloud to make collaboration easier.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Cloud
Cloud-based productivity solutions can solve business challenges quickly and at scale when used correctly. Enable your teams to trial solutions for their specific problem-sets – and support them if and when they need to roll them out more widely.
Keep Lines of Live Communication Open
Colleagues may not come across in the same way through text or email as they do in person, so regular contact through audio and video helps keep a friendly tone of voice.
Use Video Wherever Possible
When speaking to colleagues over video, you can pick up on crucial body language that you won’t see during a phone call. Video keeps your teams engaged and stops them slipping into bad habits.
Use Chat spaces open to Quickly Respond to Issues
When you have a team collaboration chat room, such as a Space hosted on Avaya Spaces, you can quickly flag issues and spot priority incidents, and respond to them quickly before they become big business problems.

Megapixels Matter
For video-conferencing every now and then, built-in laptop cameras do the job just fine. But when video-collaboration becomes a daily and important part of working life, it’s worth investing in a high-quality camera. The better your camera, the better you’ll look to colleagues.
The Sound of Success
When working from home, you’ll likely have to jump on a lot more conference calls. Keep your lines of communication clear with a high-quality microphone headset that carries your voice crisply over the line.
Lights, Camera, Action
Stay professional and productive with a high-quality lighting set-up in your home office. You’ll not only look better on video calls, but you’ll also be more motivated and alert for completing work.
Don’t Forget the Office You’ve Left Behind
No longer working at the office doesn’t mean your office no longer works for you. Enable remote access to your network and IT environment to ensure you’re still getting the most out of on-premise technology.
Keep Your Business Agile
With so many now working from home, demand will shift for the offerings in your product mix. Deploy resources accordingly, and work out how to streamline the processes in getting your in-demand offerings to market.
Keep an Open Mind on Policy and Procedure
Some workers thrive in a remote environment, but others may struggle, so consider how you apply policies and procedures. Regular training and guidance is a key part of successfully introducing and managing homeworking or other forms of remote work.
Be Aware of and Manage Risks
Safety and security can be key issues for remote workers. Consider whether homes offer adequate security for both the employee and any equipment or other valuables, and have procedures in place, ensuring that remote workers know what to do in case of an emergency.
Teach Your Teams Video Conference Etiquette
To keep video conference calls productive, have your teams follow simple rules that benefit everyone on the call. Actions like muting when not speaking, being on time, wearing work-appropriate clothing, framing the camera correctly, and paying attention to speakers can go a long way towards a successful video call.

What are the contingency plans you have put in place if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

In these unprecedented times, the epidemic has changed how businesses and lives operated daily leaving the global world with uncertainty and anxiety. Workers have undergone a significant shift in user experience, adapting new ways to interact, perceive and communicate as the need of the hour is a model that connects people with more nuanced information as well as each other, regardless of location, device or communication platform. Although a global crisis due to such pandemic is a difficult time for businesses but it also brings opportunities with itself.

While Avaya has continued to deliver on its commitment to provide a seamless, intuitive and intelligent engagement for users across digital and human touch points, the company stays focused on enabling the increasingly distributed, mobile and digital workers driving the next wave of workforce during the recent times of pandemic. The sudden shift to lockdown and shutting of organizations has called for innovative strategies and effective communication.

Avaya is enabling the Digital Experience economy to the company’s work teams around the world suffering as the epidemic spreads, and therefore the priority in marketing and communication plans is the human being. The company is empowering organizations and businesses adopt an effective communication strategy at this hour of crisis ensuring a sustainable ecosystem where the business doesn’t get affected and also ensures the safety of employment and health of the workers who stand tall during challenging times.