COMMENT
“Blockchain was
on everyone’s
mind in 2017.”
What developments has Avaya made
this year that you’re most proud of?
it easier to leverage new technologies
such as artificial intelligence, the
Internet of Things and blockchain to
deliver business value.
In particular, blockchain was on
everyone’s mind in 2017 – and for good
reason. Blockchain has the potential
to create new foundations across
economic and social systems, marrying
enormous volumes of historical and
real-time data into actionable insight.
While the technology is still nascent, by
augmenting existing business processes
with blockchain technology, the market
has started to achieve an increased level
of trust and transparency in putting
their data into blockchain systems.
In fact, we showcased a real-world
example of this in 2017 through our
Happiness Index on Blockchain, which
we developed in partnership with Avanza
Solutions in the UAE. By applying
blockchain, data analytics and artificial
intelligence on different data profiles
and sources, the Happiness Index is a
globally unique solution that allows large
Savio Tovar Dias, Senior Director
of Sales Engineering for Middle
East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific at
Avaya International
organisations to measure and manage
sentiment for every single one of their
customers, as it happens. For example,
a tourism dependent city competing
on a global scale can efficiently tap into
service satisfaction data, social media
posts, and other indications of citizen
happiness in order to reward and expand
on its most successful offerings.
Today Avaya is coming back stronger
than ever. We had a challenging start
to 2017 after filing for Chapter 11 at
the turn of the year, but Avaya is now
exiting within a very short timeframe. We
have transformed our business model,
removed barriers to stronger customer
relationships, and embraced technologies
essential to future growth. Even more
important, we can proudly say we have
not lost a single customer throughout
our journey. We’re thankful for the
elevated level of confidence and support
provided by our partners, employees and
longstanding customers. It is a testament
to the importance of relationships. If we
don’t get those relationships right, the
technology is meaningless.
What tech developments do you
predict emerging in 2018?
The cloud and the as-a-service market
is increasingly taking a front seat
among IT decision-makers. On-premise
communications solutions have started
to change towards more data and
outcome centric solutions, while cloud-
based unified communications are
growing 20% year-on-year globally,
due to simplification of delivery, user
adoption and business models. Contact-
“On-premise
communications
solutions have
started to
change towards
more data and
outcome centric
solutions.”
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