Avaya looks to the channel

Clive Sawkins, the network vendor's new managing director for UK and Ireland, spoke to Sara Driscoll about his plans to tackle the market.

Clive Sawkins became Avaya's vice president and managing director for the UK and Ireland in May. Sara Driscoll caught up with him in London to discuss convergence, the channel and, of course, the World Cup.

Since coming to Avaya, what has been your main challenge?
I would say getting the partner network on board and getting the confidence and belief that Avaya knows what it's talking about.

Also taking the time and effort to communicate that message and making sure that people understand it, so it isn't just me standing up on the pulpit preaching.

We're going out and visiting the channel, checking, listening, changing, and then doing that all over again. They are looking after my customers. I'm there to fulfil a need and supply product, but there are always a few other things I need to do.

The toughest thing is twisting the organisation to be partner-centric. It's easy to say, and very hard to do.

But in less than two years we have changed the focus of the organisation. Have we finished? No. Is it perfect? No. Have we got things to learn from some of our competitors and our partners? Yes.

In fairness, it has taken us a while to get used to having an indirect model. You're relying on the fact that they are representing your brand correctly, know your technology, and are capable of implementing it without adverse effects on your brand.

That's a leap of faith and it does take a while to build that level of belief both ways. They have to believe that I'm there to help them add value and close business, and vice versa.

I have to believe they're good for my brand and that a typical customer, especially at the small end of the market, may not even know who Avaya is.

I have to believe and I have to put the skills in place to allow my channel to do all that, and know when they want me, and what I'm going to bring to the party for them.

How is your channel programme going? What sort of response have you been getting?
Some customers will always want you to touch them directly, and we have a high-touch team, but that doesn't mean you have to fulfil directly.

With some of the early adopters of technology, when it's brand new and there is risk involved, they want to deal with Avaya, but later on why should they? It's all about how to have the skills and the channel accredited at the right place at the right time to support the customers.

As we've gone from Avaya year one to year two, we've understood more channel metrics. We've tweaked it, put more resources in place and more focus, to make sure we don't counteract what our channel is doing, but complement it.

That has been a learning curve for us and there has been some noise in the channel about how we've supported them. Well, we've listened, we've changed the programme, we've added resources technically, and defocused from salespeople in the channel, because that's what the channel does.

We appointed more distribution partners because the market is about to change. We've had the data market with one model, and we've had the voice market with one model, and a couple of false starts getting to the converged market space.

Convergence, from a technology standpoint, is definitely here. I can't tell you who is going to win yet, whether the data channel will go to voice or whether the voice channel will go to data, so I am backing both horses.

I think there will be a period of consolidation, when people start to realise it isn't an 'either/or', it's a 'both'.

I appointed some distributors because I felt the market was ready, that my products weren't over-distributed. In the case of Caltell and Northamber, they added something to my route to market.

A number of distributors are starting to specialise more, or split their businesses into volume and enterprise. Is this something you would recommend at the moment?
It is because there are different values, different needs and a different philosophy that needs to be applied. One of the lessons that we learned at Avaya is that one size does not fit all. We tried that and failed.

We could never satisfy anyone at the right time. Customers want different things from you at different moments. If you are someone who is going to buy the cheapest box, you're not worried who the manufacturer is.

If you want a high-end integrated solution and full 24-hour service wrap, then it's a different model again.

As you grow, will you continue to grow your distribution model?
I doubt if I will increase my distribution model any more. I have the coverage I need in the marketplace, provided nothing daft happens such as one of my competitors buying my distributor or something. I'm a firm believer that you mustn't over-distribute your products.

The reason we appointed Caltell is that it was always a distributor of ours for some products, such as network alchemy, but when we started with IP Office we felt that for the UK and Ireland marketplace, five routes to market was enough.

They each have different skills and verticals, which was what I wanted, and it looked pretty good coverage. When Landis ceased trading, I thought it addressed a piece of market that was very good to us, and Caltell filled that. I'm not of a mind to appoint any more distributors, but never say never.

As for appointing new resellers to buy from those distributors, yes, definitely. We have a recruitment programme which is always running. There are some large people in there, high street names you would recognise, and there are some smaller guys.

In the reseller community you always go through some churn at some point. I've been lucky that my churn has been kept to very low levels, but as time moves on other players come into the marketplace.

Some of them will choose to change the way they do business, and that's fine. I understand that, which is why I'm always looking to recruit more companies, especially as the market consolidates.

The one thing that has surprised me as the market has slowed down is that we haven't had that much partnering or consolidation yet.

So is there more consolidation to come? And, if so, will it be in IT in general or just the convergence sector?
I think both. IT as a whole needs some consolidation. We all know that prices and margins have gone down but, more importantly, I think the one thing that will drive consolidation is convergence being accepted in the marketplace by end users.

They won't ring their voice company and their data company, they want to ring one company that does everything, from your integration to your apps, back office and everything else. Those are the people who are going to win.

Some resellers are confused by the mixed messages out there about whether they should be specialists or try to cover everything. What would you say?
I don't think you have any choice. The customer is going to demand that you have a very strong breadth of knowledge, otherwise you can't implement the solution in the first place.

But you have to pick a couple of disciplines, maybe in the verticals, that you go deep into. That's your specialisation. You have to be broad because the technology demands it. You have to understand voice, data integration, business management, process management, and then pick a couple of disciplines to go deep.

We are seeing more success where some of our partners have vertical knowledge. They can piece together a solution, take it to a vertical and say: 'This is what we can do for you. We can do this integration with these products, we understand your customer base, we understand your marketplace.'

When they have done all that, the sales will start coming in. Education is a key market for this.

Do you think the public sector is a key market at a time when corporates are not spending so much?
Most definitely. We've seen a lot of our success and a lot of our resellers' success in local and national government, and education: schools with desktops, and laptops, universities putting in large networks.

We've also had a success in the Premier League. We've had a number of [football] clubs wanting to update their technology.

With the advent of sports academies, wireless technology has started to take off. In the gym and out on the field, where they train every day, the coaches can have a wireless device with them and have each player's individual personal fitness record in front of them.

We've done things like that for West Brom and Aston Villa, although I doubt that Accrington Stanley would have the cash for something like that!

You mentioned earlier that the market is about to change. In what way?
I think the market is about to go through a major shift in the way technology is assessed and implemented. If you look back, voice was over here, and data was over there.

In large organisations they typically didn't go together, not because the technology couldn't but because people didn't want it to.

But now technology has moved into the convergence space, where IP and voice brought it together and you can deliver the quality.

It's not the IT departments making the decisions, it's the customer services directors and the financial directors saying: 'If this technology is going to save money and make us more efficient, then let's bring it together.'

Where are you seeing the biggest take-up of convergence?
You can't look at the market as just one market. We tried that at Avaya and it didn't work. The SME market is driven by very different dynamics from the enterprise market.

We honestly thought that the large enterprise market would be the first to switch. If you look at the business case for why you could collapse down your network and move to convergence, save yourself money, build a single infrastructure and increase the efficiency of your business, at the large end of the enterprise, it's a no-brainer.

The trouble is that politics take over. There are too many things besides implementing convergence technology that need to be changed. So we've seen it pick up quicker at the bottom end of the market.

Do you think voice over IP commoditisation will put off data resellers?
What's wrong with commoditisation if the model works? Margins don't necessarily have to drop. The voice market commoditised a long time ago and the markets didn't drop. The computer industry commoditised and the markets did drop, but that's because the industry let that happen.

Now if the industry is daft enough to let convergence commoditise too quickly, then no one is going to win out of it.

The business proposition for convergence is so strong, why commoditise it too quickly from the point of view of the price? Commoditise it in terms of the technology being available. I have no issue with that. But let's not go out there and do things with the price because we are all going to fail.

Which companies do you consider your biggest threat in the market?
The one that worries me more than anyone else is Cisco. It has some good technology - not great but good - and a brand that is very strong, and there is a belief in the market that if Cisco can't make it work, then it must be really tough.

Well, actually, we just installed the World Cup network, the biggest converged network ever. So Cisco doesn't worry me any more at all. I know from a technology standpoint I can beat it hands down if it is up for the challenge.

That doesn't mean we're going to win the battle. It is a very strong brand, there is a lot of loyalty in its channel, and Cisco gives its channel a lot of business because of the brand it has built up.

So it's a brave reseller that says: 'Actually, Cisco, I'm not going to go with you, I'm going to go with Avaya.'

It's more likely that resellers would go with Cisco and Avaya. I allow it because I believe that Cisco does have some very good networking technology and my MultiVantage sits very nicely on top of its boxes.

As long as we can get that new technology to work, I believe Avaya will deliver the value on top of the Cisco network. Obiously, I doubt that Cisco would agree with me, but that's life.

Can you give us a snapshot of convergence in five or 10 years' time?
I can't tell you in five years because the market moves far too quickly. In two years I think convergence will be the standard way of doing business.

There will still be an immense amount of legacy out there because that legacy still works, and why just change it if it's working and it's solid?

That's the good thing about our industry: whether you come from data networking or from voice, the technology is reliable, robust and it works. But as people move offices or companies, and as they merge, then convergence will take over.

In the battle of convergence, who is going to win: voice resellers or data resellers?
That's a million-dollar question. I think in different segments of the market, some data resellers have already got it and are getting there, and some voice resellers have got it and are already getting there.