INTERVIEW Steve Joyner - Avaya
“You would be right to think that many of our channel partners blinked when they heard
of our RingCentral announcement.” Steve Joyner, MD of UK&I, Avaya
New Channel Chief at Avaya
Comms Business Magazine met up with Avaya’s newly minted Managing Director for UK and Ireland Channels
Steve Joyner only to fi nd he’s a twenty plus year veteran of the company who began his career with Nortel
Ever since the
announcement that Avaya
had concluded a deal with
RingCentral to supply
customers with their cloud
based uni ed communications
solutions much of the talk in
the channel has been centred
around how this will work for
Avaya reseller partners so our
rst question to Avaya’s new
Managing Director for UK and
Ireland Channels, Steve Joyner,
had to start somewhere near
there.
Comms Business Magazine
(CBM): How do you see
the deal with RingCentral
impacting the market? In
what ways will it give you
competitive advantage?
Steve Joyner (SJ): After the
US, the UK is one of the rst
markets to take on ACO –
Avaya Cloud O ce and launch
it to channels. ACO plugs the
gap in our portfolio for a public
cloud o ering – our private
cloud solutions are well known
and established. Yes, these are
RingCentral applications, but
you can already see Avaya DNA
within them.
Many observers had thought
that this was going to be an
SME solution, but we see many
segments who want a choice
between public and private
cloud o erings. With Avaya’s
enormous customer base, the
ACO provides that second
option.
Our transition to ACO has
begun, you’ll see that complete
by the end of June.
With regards to competitive
advantages, it’s clear that we
had a very strong private cloud
o ering in UC and now we
are the complete article when
it comes to having a choice
between public and private,
from smallest to largest we
are now a serious player in the
market.
CBM: Do you think the
RingCentral deal will be seen
as a positive move by your
channels and if so in what
ways?
SJ: ere will be di erences
between ACO and
RingCentral O ce (RC) but
you will see an evolution in
our version.
You would be right to think
that many of our channel
partners blinked when they
heard of our RingCentral
announcement. e
arrangement will be that our
partners will continue to own
the customer relationship, but
RingCentral will carry out the
billing which will be Avaya
branded.
Today, Avaya partners are
starting to see the value of the
proposition – the APIs and
professional services can then
be added on top to build value
and it would right to say that
our partners have gone from
anxious to delighted with the
outcomes.
It would also be correct to
say that interest is growing
Steve Joyner, Managing Director for UK and
and that we are building a
large pipeline for ACO with
our partners.
We have learnt a lot from
the US and have established
a signi cant ACO team
here; alongside this we are
undertaking a major education
and enablement program with
partners ahead of a big UK&E
partner launch this quarter.
What would success look
like 12-months ahead? Avaya
being recognised as having a
fully launched public cloud
UCaaS o ering with success
stories and partners making
economic gains.
Ireland , Avaya
CBM: What do you see as
the key challenges and
opportunities ahead?
SJ: I see arti cial intelligence
being a big driver and playing a
signi cant part in the Contact
Centre world.
With regards challenges I
think customers will have to
address the number of personal
applications being brought into
the o ce. is situation needs
bringing together in a way that
the company is on top of. is
is especially so when it comes
to personal and business data
security – enterprises just can’t
let this go unchecked.
ED SAYS…
I’m no corporate guy these days but to me it makes a lot of sense to put a fresh but
experienced pair of hands on the tiller at a time when there is the possibility of partner
issues such as those surrounding the RingCentral deal.
It looks like Avaya is making the right investments at the right time with the almost
parallel appointment of Simon Harrison as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing
Offi cer. Harrison has joined from Gartner and will drive adoption of the company’s
softwar e solutions and support Avaya to be a leading player in a dynamic digital
communications market.
52 | Comms Business Magazine | March 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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