"Our go-to-market strategy in India is 100% channel-driven"–Sudhir Nayar, Avaya

Avaya dis-invested from AGC Networks 2.5 years ago, to become a separate entity. In the last 2.5 years it has set up an entire organization to support their multi-channel focus for partners

SPLIT OF BUSINESS UNITS

The sales team is currently headed by Rajeev Mittal, MD, Avaya. The company has divided its departments into top, global accounts and mid-market. The sales leader heads the top and global accounts and the other leader looks after the mid-market sales. This two-pronged sales structure is supported by other functions like operations, marketing, finance, HR and the channels team.

The focus of the channel team is further divided into two parts platinum, gold, silver and authorized partners partner, which are essentially taken to market through their distributors. The responsibility of a channel team is to make capacity and competency. They should do the right business development activities with the deserving partners so that its mutual business grow and they can capture the India growth story ensuring that partners remain loyal to the Avaya brand.

GTM

"Our go-to-market strategy in India is 100% through channels. In the last 2 years we have been focusing on the growth of our multi-channel model. We have an extensive network comprising platinum, gold, silver and authorized partners. In last year alone we have grown our channel capacity by 25%. We also have a host of product based certifications which are available for the partner sales, pre-sale and delivery engineers," says Sudhir Nayar, senior director, channels and alliances at Avaya.

PARTNER PROGRAM

As per the Avaya connect partner model, it has four levels of partnerships; platinum, gold, silver and authorized partners. The national distributor manager's responsibility is to make sure that the company has the right distribution capacity to fuel entire mid-market growth. This growth happens through their silver and authorized partners. Additionally, it has national channel account managers who manage business with platinum and gold partners and partnerships. In addition, it also has channel managers who are responsible to grow business within the silver and authorized partner community.

 

Currently, Avaya works with five large SIs and about 200 channel partners, and operates through a multi-channel model while all its programs are executed under the umbrella of Avaya Connect Program. Nayar says, "We are in the process of building our channel capacity. Along with this, we have rolled out programs for channel enablement and engagement." The training programs are an ongoing activity wherein 90 of its channel partners are already certified.

Nayar added, "We will be providing demo kits to our channel partners. Also, we are looking at adding at least 100 more channel partners this year."

The company has appointed three master resellers, which include DataCom, Fujisoft and Delcom, to facilitate and strengthen its presence in the mid-market segment. As of today, it reaches out to consumers in 22 cities wherein Mumbai garners the maximum revenue and constitutes the biggest market. Plans are in pipeline to penetrate non-metro cities through its channel partners. The company has also rolled out special solution bundles for customers to address this market. In addition, the company has announced incentive schemes for channel partners and even pre-sales personnel.

TRAINING PROGRAM

"We provide a combination of online and hands-on training. Online trainings are available from our partner portal which our partners can access free of charge. These training are available for all the sales, pre-sales and delivery certifications for a variety of product line that we are selling," says Nayar. In addition, it also offers hands-on-training programs which are class room hands-on training for the delivery engineers. The companies co-invest into these training programs along with partners based on the partnership level of the partners.

"We make sure that our partners are excited about our product range. We offer on a need-to-need basis a variety of incentive programs for our partners. These programs are based on differentiated product offerings that we want to offer in various segments. We cover more than 500 partner representatives through various incentive schemes that we are running," concludes Nayar.