César Rodríguez

TBY talks to César Rodríguez, Director Andean Region for Avaya, about strengthening partnerships, cloud solutions, and prospects for the regional market.

Avaya’s primary goal is to maintain their reputation as a provider of excellent customer service in the industry. What is Avaya’s strategy to strengthen its presence in Colombia?

To consolidate its position as a leading provider of solutions for improving customer service in Colombia, Avaya has developed a comprehensive strategy. Initially, it has engaged in an in-depth analysis of the Colombian market, adapting its solutions to meet the specific needs of local companies and, through strategic alliances with local companies and trade associations, the company effectively had introduced its solutions in the market, establishing itself as a leader in the CX industry. This is especially around verticals such as education, healthcare, government, BPOs and financial. Avaya identifies key partners in Colombia, who have the profiles to make effective use of our Avaya Experience Platform (AXP) solutions. We then perform the customization of their services, along with a proactive focus on the customer experience that forms the basis of their strategy, with the objective of ensuring that each customer benefits from solutions tailored to their individual requirements.

The company serves various sectors, including government entities, the financial sector, and BPO businesses, aiming to provide better customer service. What are Avaya’s plans to further strengthen relationships with its business partners in Colombia?

We aim to carry out a joint work with our partners, to demonstrate how technology has opened the possibility to create intelligent communication experiences, understanding that each customer is different and unique, so each one requires a unique and personalized strategy. Avaya currently has more than 400 allies, including customers and partners, to whom it conducts a rigorous study on their current methods of information management and CX, to establish how to unify the internal efforts that companies are already making and add the benefits of Avaya solutions. Through one-on-one meetings with customers and spaces to work together on strategies for 2024, we seek to establish a closer relationship with our business partners, offer innovative solutions and services, and support them in the development of their capabilities.

Avaya invests heavily in cloud solutions while following a gradual approach to cloud adoption, helping clients innovate without disrupting their operations. How has Avaya used generative artificial intelligence to enhance customer service and process automation?

From Avaya we seek to be an ally and companion in the process of adopting solutions and integrations, enabling companies to achieve optimization and automation in all their processes. Generative Artificial Intelligence comes as a key tool for the improvement of customer service, facilitating the implementation of remote work, as it contributes to the improvement of the three main challenges of contact centers. The elimination of noise in calls and external factors that can make it difficult to convey the message, support for the reduction of churn by providing valuable information and a database that facilitates queries, and the automation of processes through bots that use this new technology focused on the generation of original content from existing data. This Generative AI technology represents an enhancement to the Avaya Experience Platform, a powerful cloud platform that helps create memorable experiences for today’s customers, and the employees who serve them, from anywhere. It enables organizations to easily connect voice, video, chat, messaging and more to deliver effortless experiences at every touchpoint in the cloud while preserving their on-premises solutions and systems. It makes every interaction a exceptionally positive experience for customers and employees by embedding AI along the way to deliver intelligent experiences and deeper connections.

What are Avaya’s main areas of investment and product development in Colombia for 2023-2024?

Avaya’s main areas of investment are directed to its Cloud and Hybrid Cloud solutions. From our team of Avaya Costumer Experience Services (ACES), we make an investment of time, effort, and capital, to understand the priorities of each of our customers. This with the objective of becoming trusted partners who understand the importance of combining the working methods with which the company has worked, technological investments, and the adoption of cloud technology allowing companies choose their own journey. Avaya, as a company dedicated to the constant pursuit of customer service improvement, finds significant opportunities in several key areas of investment and product development. The adoption of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and chatbots, enables automation of routine tasks and improved operational efficiency, and the implementation of data analytics and business intelligence solutions provides a deeper understanding of customer behavior, facilitating the identification of trends and informed decision making. By early 2023, Avaya worked on its financial restructuring and a new business model based on five key steps: A new product strategy whose main objective is to help companies innovate without disruption through the Avaya Experience Platform, simplified reporting and organizational structures, revitalization of its internal culture, new cost structure, and a new capital structure, which helps it become a privately held company by providing agility.

What are the prospects and future of Avaya in the Andean region market?

Overall, the outlook is very positive. Economic growth in the region presents opportunities for increased demand for customer services, while increasing digitalization opens the door to innovative technological solutions. However, intense competition in this sector highlights the importance of differentiation through service quality, adaptability to local needs and constant incorporation of innovations. At Avaya, we have identified that the greatest opportunities for implementing new technologies and optimizing processes around the Costumer Experience are in Colombia. This is since the country is in its biggest transition towards digitization and process automation, which means that more and more companies are looking for innovative solutions to implement in their processes. In addition, the region is increasingly positioning itself as an outstanding market niche in the implementation and adoption of new technologies. In Peru we already have four government projects, in Ecuador we have started implementing cloud-based solutions, and the Bolivian market is also picking up strongly.