— CEO highlights customer interest in AI-powered innovation, migration “at their pace to the cloud,” and customer experience solutions, and reports positive business performance —
Avaya, a market leader in customer experience solutions, announced today that the market has been gaining strength ever since the company successfully completed its financial transformation in May 2023. Avaya has delivered financial progress, added key executives, and attracted third-party recognition for its business and leadership. It has also driven strong innovation for products that are actively in demand by customers.
With more than six million contact centre agents using Avaya solutions, more than 90 million unified communications seats, an extended ecosystem of 4,000+ partners and 120,000 developers, and an unrivalled customer base that includes 90 percent of the largest US companies, including more than 90 governments, as well as each of the top 10 global airlines, automakers, and financial services firms, Avaya’s market momentum is built on a foundation of global breadth, scale, brand, and ecosystem. In the three months from April to June, Avaya added 599 new logos along with 39 deals with total contract values exceeding $1 million and four deals exceeding $5 million.
“Avaya is executing every day to take full advantage of the hard work done over the last year to transform our operations, business strategy, culture, and balance sheet, which is now a genuine competitive advantage,” said Alan Masarek, CEO of Avaya.”We laid the groundwork for expansion and have already seen the results of our dedication. The resurrected Avaya is making investments in and delivering cutting-edge technology with a “innovation without disruption” philosophy that is well-liked by customers and luring the top talent as a desirable place to work. By utilising AI-powered cloud solutions from Avaya, today’s top businesses and organisations are able to differentiate themselves from their competitors and take the lead in their respective industries. This is generating customer momentum that we anticipate will only intensify over the coming months and years.
Financial Performance Indicators Demonstrate Positive Momentum
The company emerged from its financial restructuring in May in a strong financial position, having paid off the vast majority of its debt and substantially recapitalizing with new investment. Important financial indicators as of September 1, 2023, consist of:
- Cash and cash equivalents of greater than $600 million.
- Debt of approximately $830 million, which is 75 percent lower than pre recapitalization, and with no maturities due until 2028.
- An adjusted pro forma net leverage ratio of less than 1x.*
Another significant step was taken today when Avaya filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2022 as well as its quarterly reports for the third and first quarters of FY22 and FY23. Avaya removed the significant doubt that had previously existed regarding the company’s ability to continue as a going concern as a result of its financial restructuring, as noted in the footnotes of today’s filing.
Amy O’Keefe, chief financial officer at Avaya, said, “We are very happy to have fulfilled our remaining SEC reporting obligations, with no material impact to previously disclosed financial results for fiscal 2022 or prior periods. The most recent recapitalization has given Avaya the financial flexibility it needs to carry out its strategic growth plans.
AI-Powered Innovation, Customer Experience, and Cloud are Driving Customer Demand:
Customers across the globe are interested in Avaya because it enables cloud-based innovation built on top of current communications investments. This is because many businesses are moving their solutions to the cloud but don’t want to disturb their tried-and-true on-premises systems.Customers and partners are responding favourably to Avaya’s strategy of assisting customers in moving “at their pace”. Businesses increasingly see their contact centres as the tip of the spear in creating unique customer experiences. Customers are turning to Avaya to assist them in bringing massive innovation into their contact centres as AI innovation turbocharges CX solutions. As more customers turn to ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies, they need an integrator to bring everything together. As the market leader in contact centres, Avaya is well-positioned to fill that role.
Strong customer and partner attendance at Avaya ENGAGE, the company’s international customer conference, held in June in Orlando, Florida, served as evidence of this interest. With nearly 2,000 in-person registrants and roughly 3,500 virtual registrants, representing 104 countries, attending 90 breakout sessions, the event marked a successful return to in-person exhibitions of Avaya innovation, solutions, and its partner ecosystem. Avaya announced a number of solutions and services at ENGAGE, including:
- Avaya Enterprise Cloud Enables Global Organizations to Future-Proof Communications
- New Avaya Integrations, Capabilities, and Alliances Empower Enterprises to Adopt Cloud “Their Way”
- Avaya Unveils Reimagined Professional Services, Prioritizing AI, Cloud, and Digital Transformation Through Avaya Customer Experience Services
Customer interest in these solutions is fueling new client engagements and renewals, which include Victory Auto Group’s 50 locations throughout the US, Acadia University in Canada, BNEXT, a fintech company in Spain, G-Star RAW, one of the most recognisable clothing brands in the world, GRUPO LOMAS, a tourism services and property company in Mexico, the National Social Security Fund of Uganda, Ignite Telecom in Australia, some Canadian Tyre locations, and 28 locations of St. Mary’
Avaya’s quarterly accomplishments include the hiring of key executives and industry recognition.
In order to advance Avaya’s strategy and operations during the quarter, Masarek refreshed his executive leadership team, which is a sign that his efforts to make Avaya a desirable place to work are succeeding. Announcing the hiring of three C-suite executives with extensive experience at top brands, the company named Amy O’Keefe as the Chief Financial Officer, Omar Javaid as the Chief Product Officer, and Josh Mueller as the Chief Marketing Officer. To support its efforts in cloud engineering, the company additionally announced Sagi Dudai as a Board Advisor.
A variety of third parties have recently recognized Avaya’s momentum and leadership:
- In June, Avaya received two Stevie Awards (American Business Awards) for both Emerging Technology (for Avaya’s media processing core) and for its Avaya Experience Platform for the Customer Service Solution category.
- In July, CEO Masarek was named as the UC Leader of the Year for leading Avaya’s business and financial transformation by UC Today.
- In July, the NORNS Awards highlighted Avaya for its work with AI in the Contact Center.
- In July, Avaya was given the Readers’ Choice Award for the Avaya Cloud Office from Connect Professional: Cloud Telefonie Awards.
- In July, Avaya was awarded Gold in Brandon Hall Group’s Human Capital Management awards in the category of Best Use of Video for Learning for the Avaya Experience Platform™ for Agents and Supervisors.
The business also disclosed the following in this quarter:
- One of the top buying groups in North America, Sourcewell, has given Avaya a contract for unified communications and contact centres.
- Avaya premise-based contact centres will be able to use Journey.ai’s suite of capabilities to offer biometric agent authentication, enhancing security and agent experience, for Avaya premise-based contact centres. This announcement was made in August.
- Avaya announced in June that it would be in charge of the Give Kids the World Village’s guest experience communications.
