What does the future hold for support and management of communications environments? It’s a question we often hear at Avaya, from our clients, our business partners, analysts and the media. They want to understand how the rapid introduction of new technologies, the relentless demand for communications availability and reliability, and the constant pressure to do more with less will shape the communications support and management world in the months and years ahead.

To get a fresh, informed view of the services landscape, we turned to

Michael Runda, Avaya senior vice president and president of Avaya

Client Services. Here, Mike offers his thoughts on the forces at play in

the marketplace for support and management of communications

environments, the types of services that businesses will need and expect,

and the capabilities that will distinguish world-class services organizations.

Mike, what market dynamics and business needs will shape world-class communications support and management going forward?

First, ongoing technology development will continue to provide organiza-

tions and individuals with new, more powerful communications capabilities.

But the complexity that accompanies these innovations is making it harder

for IT leaders to keep up. Finding people who have the talent and training

to manage these new environments is a growing challenge. And IT budgets

are likely to remain tight amid ongoing economic pressures, even as users

demand the latest and greatest capabilities. As a result, any deployment

of new technology will include aggressive goals for return on investment,

including the mitigations of ongoing support and management expenses,

including both hard and soft costs.

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Communications services: Challenging the status quo

A vision for the future, a path to get there

Any deployment of new

technology will include

aggressive goals for return

on investment, including

the mitigations of ongoing

support and management

expenses, including both

hard and soft costs.

Another major factor is the growing user demand for features and functions

that were barely imaginable just months ago. A prime example of this is

the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. Employees in organizations of all

sizes are taking their own tablets and smartphones into the workplace and

using them to collaborate and handle business matters. This presents both

opportunities and challenges for organizations. On the plus side, like social

media, BYOD can contribute to creating a highly collaborative environment,

involving both employees and customers. At the same time, you need

to wrap these new devices into your overall support and management

structure in a way that minimizes the effects of the added complexity and

keeps the electronic environment safe and secure from intrusions, hacks

and unauthorized information access.

Also influencing the communications management environment is the rapid

adoption of video. High-definition video communications with colleagues

and customers is no longer expensive, bandwidth-intensive, and only found

in conference rooms. Instead it’s right there on our smartphones, tablets,

laptops and desktops. Video demand is soaring as people realize the potential

to communicate more fully by sharing facial expressions, body language and

other nuances. And instead of gathering people physically, personal devices

allow it to happen virtually, which leads to greater participation. Also, IT

doesn’t need to get involved, and the business enjoys substantial savings

in time, travel and cost.

Finally, the growing complexity of communications technology increases

the need for advanced diagnostics. Technology stacks are getting thicker

and more often include elements from different suppliers. Organizations

will need better diagnostic tools and techniques to stay up and running

and respond to outages quickly in these multivendor environments.

Technology stacks are getting thicker and more often

include elements from different suppliers. Organizations

will need better diagnostic tools and techniques to stay

up and running and respond to outages quickly in these

multivendor environments.

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Given these dynamics, what types of support and management capabilities will businesses look for from service providers?

If you think about trends described above — growing complexity, increasing

budget constraints, BYOD, the emergence of video, and the need for

faster problem diagnosis and resolution — the first line of defense from

a communications support and management perspective is a company’s

IT organization. Of course, those organizations have varying types of skills

and expertise. So they’re trying to figure out how to meet the growing

needs of the business by leveraging their strengths and bridging skill gaps

in areas of weakness. This dynamic is driving their needs and expectations

for support and management — they want to buy only what they need.

That’s one reason we keep evangelizing for the Information Technology

Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standard. An IT organization’s capabilities

may vary by application or by segments such as communications, core

infrastructure and business systems. The end-to-end service definitions

in ITIL provide an instruction manual that can be applied to all of these.

Based on their identified needs, businesses will then decide what type of

communications support and management services they require. Can they

get by with just core maintenance services, calling in help when something

is broken and needs to be fixed? Do they enter into a broader support

agreement in which a vendor plays a more proactive role in infrastructure

support, maintenance and upgrades? Or do they opt for a managed services

arrangement, turning over part or all of their communications infrastructure

to a service provider? This last approach is rapidly gaining traction as

organizations recognize the risks of investing in infrastructure to stay current

in the technology arms race. Rather than incur these capital expenses and

continue to battle the expanding skills gap, more organizations are shifting

to an operating expense model and turning the whole process over to a

provider that can absorb the costs of technology upgrades and maintain

the skills needed for more complex communications environments.

A key factor influencing client decisions will be multivendor environments.

With devices, equipment and services coming from several sources — think

of BYOD and video as rapidly emerging examples — it will be increasingly

Managed services are

rapidly gaining traction.

Rather than incur these

capital expenses and

continue to battle the

expanding skills gap, more

organizations are shifting

to an operating expense

model and turning the

whole process over to a

provider that can absorb

the costs of technology

upgrades and maintain

the skills needed for more

complex communications

environments.

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important, and challenging, that clients have a single point of contact for

problem diagnosis and resolution. Service providers will need either to

develop the ability to work across platforms and vendors or to cede the

role to someone else.

Another client requirement isn’t new, but the refrain is growing stronger:

Know me. Few things are more frustrating for clients needing support than

having to repeatedly describe a problem to different people. Instead, they

want a provider to understand their environment, know what they have

installed, recall the last questions they asked, and be ready to make the

upgrades they want in the future.

Along with understanding their environment better, customers want service

providers to deliver faster, more accurate problem diagnosis and resolution.

As technologies become more complex, problems are more likely to be

system-wide rather than in a single component. They can emerge from the

network, an application, an end user or a configuration file — and from any

vendor’s product. Because of this, a product specialist often can’t resolve

a problem alone, but may also need the involvement of system architects

and other specialists who have application or multivendor knowledge and

capabilities.

In this demanding environment, what will distinguish great support and management services from the merely good?

First, leading service providers will understand the dynamics of the

marketplace — growing complexity, multivendor environments, the

emergence of BYOD and mobility, and the other trends noted earlier —

and align their services accordingly. A prominent example of this is

multivendor environments. Almost every enterprise client we encounter

has a complex multivendor environment, with equipment of all ages and

often from different manufacturers. A great managed services provider

will offer solutions with service level agreements covering the entire

communications environment. In our experience, not many can do this.

Few things are more

frustrating for clients

needing support than

having to repeatedly

describe a problem

to different people.

Instead, they want a

provider to understand

their environment, know

what they have installed,

recall the last questions

they asked, and be ready

to make the upgrades

they want in the future.

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Leaders will also earn the confidence of their clients. Whether they provide

maintenance, deliver support services or assume managed services

responsibilities, service leaders will become trusted advisors that stay

engaged and serve as an extension of their clients’ IT organizations and

business units.

Great support and management services will also mean a portfolio of offers

spanning the entire continuum of service issues that clients face today and

in the future — issues stemming from the trends discussed here. What will

catapult service providers into the lead will be the ability to help customers

understand where they are on that continuum and the flexibility to deliver

the most appropriate solutions for their problems.

A useful analogy for this is a hospital. A person who comes into the

emergency room complaining of chest pains may have had a heart attack,

or perhaps not. Instead of immediately calling in a heart surgeon, the hospital

staff immediately performs advanced diagnostic workups to pinpoint the

source of the chest pain and quickly and effectively proceeds to the treatment

that provides the best possible outcome for the patient. The same approach

applies in a communications support and management environment. When

a problem arises, a service provider with advanced capabilities and clear

visibility into the client environment can rapidly run a series of diagnostic

checks, which may reveal that the problem isn’t with an application as

suspected, but was triggered by the network. And, by the way, the

diagnostics may reveal other hidden issues that need to be resolved, as well.

The single-point-of-contact approach is critical to making this possible.

But that capability requires work, investment and relationships. The process

is complex and requires upfront investment to troubleshoot problems in

different environments. A service provider has to be willing to reach out

to other vendors and establish rapport with them. Then, when necessary,

a service representative can assemble, or “swarm,” a team of specialists

to quickly assess a problem and suggest a resolution. This approach can

pay off for providers and clients alike, as clients seek to make support and

management activities an operating expense instead of a capital expense.

And, not only do clients bypass the complexity and problems, they have

access to new technologies as they become available.

Great support and

management services will

also mean a portfolio of

offers spanning the entire

continuum of service

issues. What will catapult

service providers into the

lead will be the ability to

help customers understand

where they are on that

continuum and the

flexibility to deliver the

most appropriate solutions

for their problems.

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Another vital trait of leading providers will be customer intimacy — the ability,

when a client says “know me,” to respond “yes we do.” If we know the client

well enough, support becomes more consultative. For example, we should

know enough about a client’s environment through automation and other

advanced systems to uncover a potential issue and fix it without ever involving

the client. But because of that predictive capability, we can recommend

adding services that will prevent such problems from recurring, improve

efficiency and boost performance.

Video can also play a key role in service quality and client relationships.

It can strengthen customer ties by helping clients and the service provider

get to know one another better. And it can be used to resolve issues, an

especially valuable capability for small or midsized business facing support

issues. For example, on-site cameras can be used to diagnose physical

hardware issues without a technician needing to be dispatched to the site.

One of the biggest frustrations clients encounter is hearing that we knew

about that problem and had the answer. The customer may rightly ask,

“Then why did I have to experience it?” Our support vision is to have humans

work on only new problems; let automation and advanced systems resolve

existing problems when they occur. Already, through a new Avaya program,

when a customer contacts a service agent through any channel, the agent

first looks at our knowledge base to see if there’s an answer to the client’s

question. This process eliminates 80 percent of the direct labor required to

address many client issues.

We also see the growing use of avatars to help clients deal with support

issues. Leveraging search technology and artificial intelligence, avatars can

assist clients in finding known solutions to problems. Clients can then rank

the solutions, service agents can review them, and the best ones can be

detailed in articles made available to other clients. The result is a feedback

loop that enables agents to get knowledge out rapidly in a format that’s

accessible and usable by a client base. This makes clients happy and fosters

pride among the agents generating the solutions. Avatars can also be used

to initiate collaborative problem solving, with live experts brought in as

needed. Contextual support, pulling in all data relevant to a customer’s

problem, is a key to resolving issues rapidly.

Our support vision is to

have humans work on

only new problems;

let automation and

advanced systems

resolve existing problems

when they occur.

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A global leader in communications support and management services

Avaya has long been in the forefront of developing, deploying and, importantly,

supporting communications systems. We have contributed to the emergence of

new technologies, including the recent, explosive growth of mobile and

collaborative solutions, and we have become the market leader in communications

managed services,1 offering comprehensive communications infrastructure and

applications management enabled by our state-of-the-art Avaya Matrix

Management Platform.

Learn more

For more information about Avaya Client Services, including Global Support

Services, Managed Services and Professional Services, please contact your

Avaya Account Manager or visit us at www.avaya.com.

1“North American Enterprise Telephony Implementation and Management Services Market,” Francisco Rizzo and Alaa

Saayed, Frost and Sullivan, December 2011.

About AvayaAvaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions,

providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services

to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information, contact your Avaya

Account Manager or Authorized Partner or visit us at www.avaya.com.

© 2013 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all trademarks identified by the ®, TM or SM are registered trademarks, trademarks or service marks,

respectively, of Avaya Inc.

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