Avaya, channel partners, expect strong growth in 2012 in APAC

Though the world is grappling with the fear of being hit by another cycle of economic disaster, Avaya and its channel partners are hopeful of strong growth in 2012 in Asia.

Avaya is a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, and is one of the top players in the region in unified communications (UC) and contact centre (CC) solutions business.

Addressing about 200 representatives of Avaya's Asia Pacific (APAC) channel partners in Bangkok on Wednesday (19 October), Francois Lancon, president, Asia Pacific, Avaya, said, "In 2011, we saw business confidence returning in Asia Pacific in a big way, just as our channel partners had predicted this time last year." Lancon was referring to the survey results of its channel partners that were made public at the conference in Bangkok to kick off the company's 2012 financial year.

Prior to arriving at the conference venue, the delegates were asked (between 13-18 October) to comment on the general business environment and their sentiments for Avaya's business segment of the economy. It turns out that 90 percent of the respondents predict a stronger year for their business in 2012; 47 percent are forecasting strong single and double digit growth.

"Based on these results, the market looks set to be buoyant for our business and that of our channel partners across APAC in 2012," Lancon said. In APAC, Avaya is no 1 or no 2 in the UC and CC solutions market in the region, according to him.

Strong performance expected

"2011 was a year of success," he said during a presentation in the conference. "We had a great performance against a tough 2H (second half of the year) environment-there was Q4 market slowdown, there were exchange rate fluctuations, a natural disaster in Japan and capital restraint in India."

In the new financial year, Lancon said that he expected 10 to 11 per cent growth in China, India and Asean markets and about 4 per cent growth in Japan. "The Euro crisis will have an impact on APAC but recovery is expected in 2012," he said.

There are reasons why Lancon feels gung-ho about Asia. "APAC has a trade surplus," he said. "Fifty percent of foreign exchange reserves are in APAC, and APAC is relying more on domestic cycles, led by China, and is no more primarily dependent on demand from the West. In countries like India, the market has strong access to capital. All these factors promise to give us another good year in APAC."

FSI predicted to be biggest growth vertical

along with healthcare, hospitality and education are anyway Avaya's main pillars of business growth.Interestingly, as the survey results showed, multinationals are not going to drive the investment in business communications solutions. Growth is going to come from midsize companies and large national enterprises.

According to the Avaya survey results, verticals investing most in business communications solutions are financial services and insurance (FSI), telecom and IT, and government. These three,

Technology investments that help drive customer service-and therefore support customer retention- and productivity remain key strategies for Avaya customers.

The consumerisation of IT and how best to leverage pubic and/or private cloud environments to enhance communications also scored highly with respondents of the survey.