Avaya partners welcome channel conference shake-up

Long-standing EMEA summit canned for virtual conference and local events

Avaya partners have reacted positively to the vendor's shake-up of its partner conferences this year, with the long-standing EMEA summit cancelled.

The EMEA partner conference would normally take place about now, but this year a virtual summit is being held on 4 December, with a UK-specific event being held in Birmingham the following day. Additionally, some partners were invited to attend the channel get-together in the US earlier this month.

Stuart Legg, sales and marketing director of Proximity Communications, claimed his firm had been happy to go out to the US.

"It was good for us as we work with some of the US partners," he added.

Peter Hannah, business unit director for unified communications at Avnet Technology Solutions, was another not to mourn the cancellation of the EMEA summit. He welcomed the implementation of an event solely for UK partners.

"I'm not sure the EMEA summit got close enough to the partners in each territory to understand the local business issues and be entirely relevant to everyone," he said.

"Personally, I think [having a UK event] is better as it means that partners can spend more time with people in the country and get closer to the individuals that directly influence their business, such as the Avaya UK exec team and support functions that can make a difference to their day-to-day business.

"It also gives the distributors more of an opportunity to spend more time with the partners, so overall I don't see the lack of an EMEA conference as a negative."

Michelle Jones, director of EMEA channel marketing at Avaya, claimed the implementation of a virtual summit with country-specific events "struck the right balance". But she declined to rule out reinstating the EMEA channel conference in future years.

"I don't think we'll ever do away completely with physical events," she said." They are a great networking opportunity and our partners and Avaya staff enjoy the opportunity to catch up and build relationships. But we're definitely getting the message from partners that there is a market for virtual learning and conferencing."