Avaya honoured in European quality awards

Avaya, the former Enterprise Networks Group of Lucent Technologies to be spun off September 30, has announced that its subsidiary Avaya Ireland Ltd. has won the European Quality Prize in the Small and Medium Enterprise Subsidiary category. Presented by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) at its forum in Istanbul last night, this award recognises Avaya Ireland as a European organisation demonstrating the highest level of commitment to improving business performance and increasing competitiveness.

"To win this Prize at this time seems rather auspicious as Avaya is about to be launched as a new company entirely focused on the enterprise market. As we are committed to providing solutions which improve other businesses` processes, it is an honour to be named one of the top companies in Europe committed to improving the quality of business performance within our own organisation first," said John Byrne, managing director of Avaya Ireland.

The EFQM recognised Avaya`s strong customer focus and its ability to foster an environment which encourages employees at all levels to be highly committed to continually improving and optimising the company`s processes. Improving business operations is not only what Avaya does internally, through its enterprise communications systems and software solutions, it helps other companies of all sizes improve their own business processes as well. Avaya`s offerings include voice, converged voice and data, customer relationship management, messaging, multi-service networking and structured cabling products and services.

Each year EFQM presents Awards and Prizes across several categories. This year`s four categories are large businesses and business units, public sector, independent SMEs, and SME subsidiaries of large organisations. Amongst the nominated companies are companies from different industries, including the IT industry, the automotive industry, banking, road building, public employment services and a dental practice. The EFQM was established in 1988 with the support of the European Commission to promote outstanding performance in European organisations. Its mission is to be the driving force for sustainable excellence in organisations in Europe through the systematic identification and promotion of best business practice.

Avaya Ireland Ltd. entered along with over 18 other European companies in the SME subsidiaries of large organisations category, requiring a rigorous assessment process by a team of jurors made up of European business leaders and representatives of the European Commission, the European Foundation for Quality Management and the European Organisation for Quality. All entrants were already the most successful applicants of their respective National Quality Awards. Avaya Ireland entered the competition after winning the Irish Business Excellence Award in 1998. The other nominated companies named as Finalists were the French Dexia Sofaxis, the Hungarian Burton-Apta and Colombian Tiszai Carbon and the British Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Avaya Ireland is the first Irish company to receive this prestigious Prize. Avaya Ireland is based in Bray and represents Avaya`s Connectivity Solutions Business, manufacturing SYSTIMAX Structured Cabling Systems and it is the largest supplier of these types of enterprise networking products in Europe. Avaya Ireland previously achieved external certification in all three key systems of its operations: ISO9002 for quality management, ISO14001 for environmental management and OHSAS18001 for safety management.