Avaya sub-Saharan Africa gleans insight into UK technology trends

Avaya sub-Saharan Africa recently held a conference to provide insight for the South African financial sector into future trends in call centre technology.

The event focused on the latest initiatives that are leading the way in the UK towards advanced SIP-enabled technology and complete unified communications. The conference was held on 29 May at the Westcliff hotel in Johannesburg and played host to keynote speaker Bruce Everest, Director for Emerging Technologies for Avaya UK.

"It is always worthwhile to look to trends in the global market to predict where our home-based trends are heading. South Africa may have some catching up to do but we are not far behind in terms of a market that has advanced more in the last five years than in the last hundred," says Leslie Forsman, Business Development Manager for Avaya sub-Saharan Africa. "It is really exciting to see the ingenious and creative ideas that Avaya global is working on to lead the way into emerging markets and meet technology needs."

Interestingly, Everest highlighted that the unimaginable technologies synonymous with science fiction movies are not as far off as we all may think. Ranging from virtual money loaded onto cellphones to head up displays on contact lenses, the future holds many exciting and often unbelievable breakthroughs in technology.

In terms of call centres, industry leader Avaya is exploring better methods of achieving three goals, namely: workforce productivity, reducing complexity and investment protection. Avaya recognises that market competitors, all with similar prices and products have to have outstanding customer service to differentiate themselves and become market leaders, and this is the exact goal of Avaya call centre technologies. Improved call centre technologies enable better customer service and can provide competitive edge that makes the difference between good and exceptional customer service and ultimately spells company success.

With more technologies being developed everyday, the need for a unified system becomes essential. This is where the latest technologies from Avaya, like its One-X solution, can provide an answer to simplifying work environments as it works across technologies to allow unified access to all your data from any medium using SIP. Another extension of the Avaya solution is the Avaya Intelligence Presence Server that allows you to set your availability, visibility and interuptibility across three platforms that differentiate between personal contacts, outside public and internal colleagues in what is termed federated availability.

When it comes to call centre technology, Everest highlights the need to move away from information in silos towards a unified communication system that gives call centre agents the power to research, get answers from anywhere, and allows them to extend their up-selling and cross-selling capabilities. And all this can happen from one unified Avaya interface that is completely compliant with existing solutions.

"The minute we can achieve complete unified communications, we can move towards managing our technologies in a simplified and direct manner, which is a big concern in a world where new technologies are developing constantly. There has never been a more exciting time to be involved in the emerging technology market. It is amazing how productive and easy your day can be when you own the right tools to work efficiently," ends Forsman.