74970X study - Avaya Oceana Solution Support exam Updated: 2024

The Enterprise eDemand portal is a lead generation/deal registration platform that feeds partners sales leads, while enabling them to register their own, said Greg Kalman, sales vice president for channel strategy and programs at Avaya, a communication networking vendor in Basking Ridge, N.J. The portal was launched in July.

Avaya partners who have used the new portal say they like the way it doles out leads to partners in relatively equal portions on a daily basis.

Leveling the playing field for all partners to give each a chance to share sales opportunities was a major driver behind the portal, Kalman said. "It's all about opportunity sharing," said Kalman.

Though partners are pleased to have the new system, some said it still needs refinement. In particular, these partners are looking for it to do a better job at explaining just what type of job lies behind a certain lead before they commit to choosing it from the system.

In addition, partners are looking for more information about registered leads that were rejected. The current system does not specify whether the lead was already taken by another partner, one of Avaya's approximately 500 named accounts, or the subject of another conflict.

Additionally, partners would like to see the eDemand portal do a better job of communicating to end-customers why a partner who picked them from the portal's lead offerings may have decided to pass on their particular job. This notification currently is being done by an automatically generated e-mail.

Avaya, which does about 62 percent of its business through a channel of about 125 partners, is still in the process of polishing Enterprise eDemand, said Kalman. He said Avaya is monitoring feedback from partners concerning the platform.

Arno Poissonier, marketing manager for Altura Communications Solutions, an Avaya partner in Anaheim, Calif., has been using the eDemand portal. Poissonier said he likes the idea of Avaya moving away from "the good old boy network" where the vendors' direct sales team often played favorites by tapping the same integrator partners instead of spreading the opportunities around. He also likes the 3 point uptick Avaya offers partners who register a deal through the portal and then close that deal within six months.

But Poissonier said picking a lead through the eDemand portal is difficult and prone to sending the wrong message to the customers behind those leads.

When daily leads arrive through the eDemand portal, partners scramble to claim leads based solely on a prospective customer's name, location and contact info. Only after a lead is claimed can a partner view details of the opportunity, and by then they are stuck with it, said Poissonier. Then, if a partner, for whatever reason, decides they cannot fulfill the lead they have picked, and "dump it back into the system," the eDemand portal "sends an e-mail to the customer saying there is no interest," said Poissonier.

"We don't like the fact it's a blind pick," said Poissonier of the leads. "After you pick a lead, only then can you look at the details of the actual lead… So what's happened is we haven't even talked to the customer, and we dump [the lead], and the customer sees an e-mail saying we are not interested. It makes Avaya and business partners look like fools."

Kevin Nugent, vice president of sales at Gee! Communications and Networking Solutions, Lansing, Mich., and another one of Avaya's partners who has used the eDemand portal, also offered mixed feedback.

He praised Avaya's efforts with Enterprise eDemand. "I like the chance to register the opportunities that we discover, and it's nice to have a central place to do it," he said. But Nugent said he also would like to see improvements in the way the system explains what is behind a lead before a partner picks it as their own. "It's easy not knowing what you're getting when you pick a lead from the shark tank," he said.

Poissonier added that he would like to see eDemand offer a more detailed explanation when a lead registered by a partner is rejected. "We only get a rejection notice, and it's very frustrating," he said. "We are hoping they will fix that, because if all we get is a rejection notice then we have a rep running after it to try and figure out why it was rejected. We want to know why," he said.

BlueRoads, San Mateo, Calif., software-as-a-service-provider, is hosting the portal.

British banking and insurance holding company NatWest Group serves 19 million customers across 12 banking and financial services brands via its network of call centres. To deliver the best possible service to customers while also protecting their data, NatWest relies on cloud-native biometric security solution Nuance Gatekeeper to monitor incoming calls and verify individuals’ identities.  

The Nuance solution streamlines the verification process. This allows contact centre agents to identify customers through natural conversation, removing the need for them to ask specific questions or request security codes or secret answers, and helping to verify customers quickly.  

NatWest Group is just one of many financial services organisations investing in Microsoft-powered technologies to empower customer service workers to work more efficiently and productively.  

“Contact centre agents who are properly trained on company policies and equipped with the right tools are able to deliver improved customer satisfaction and efficiency,” says Chris Caile, director of product marketing at Microsoft, and former director of solutions marketing and intelligent engagement at Nuance Communications, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2022.  

At the same time, customers have grown accustomed to personalised service in other industries and expect no less from their financial services providers.  

“As consumers, we are all similar,” explains Caile. “When issues arise with our bank, investment or insurance company, we call customer support and expect great service from the agents. Contact centre agents are the frontline to millions of customer interactions every day. Agents who lack the training and technology to instantly – and correctly – assist customers run the risk of hurting customer satisfaction and the business.”  

A study commissioned by Microsoft found that some UK customers are waiting for an average of eight minutes and 27 seconds to speak with a financial services representative when phoning a call centre. This is 25.35 times slower than the industry’s optimal standard for call centres, which requires agents to answer calls within 20 seconds, as reported by callcentrehelper.com. Caile suggests that financial services organisations should develop approaches to better engage and empower call centre agents for improved productivity.   

“Beyond traditional employee onboarding and training for contact centre agents, the leading financial institutions look closely at their technology strategy and ask themselves if they have siloed departments or data that prevents agents from serving customers,” says Caile. “If so, they need to work with a technology provider to find a solution that will successfully surface the right data to agents at the right time.  

“Other considerations include how to effectively gather and share information with context from different departments, encouraging agent collaboration, and ensuring that customer data is secure and has the right biometric authentication at the frontline to build confidence that the customers are who they say they are.”  

For example, public finance organisations are using Nuance Gatekeeper to authenticate callers. The Australian Tax Office has significantly enhanced agent productivity by using the Nuance solution to validate the identities of Australia’s eight million citizens whenever they call its contact centre. “The office’s previous authentication process required customers to provide personal details or have the correct documentation available,” says Caile. “This was time consuming for contact centre agents, amounting to a total of 75,000 agent hours annually. We’re helping to reduce every call by an average of 48 seconds, allowing agents to get on with assisting citizens.”  

Partnering for enhanced productivity  

To provide frontline financial services staff with the contextual data they need to serve customers, firms need to streamline their information retrieval processes. They must also implement advanced technology solutions that enable seamless access to real-time customer information.  

An open architecture enables banks to interact with their data better, according to Dmitri Sedov, global head of data intelligence at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), who explained how LSEG and Microsoft aim to reshape the future of finance at global financial services event Sibos in September 2023. Sedov highlighted how the two firms will deliver intelligent analytics solutions, available in Microsoft 365, to help financial services organisations Boost the customer experience. In addition to developing artificial intelligence-driven self-service solutions to reduce incoming calls, banks will be able to unify their data by connecting with counterparts through Microsoft Teams and having access to data intelligence via Microsoft 365 Copilot.  

According to Microsoft, Copilot combs across an employee’s entire work data, including emails, meetings, chats, documents and more, along with the web, to provide a comprehensive view of their world. “Like an assistant, Copilot gets to know the employee, their job, and how they like to communicate," says Caile. “Copilot then saves time in areas such as summarising a meeting, searching for information and drafting emails. Contact centre agents should see improved efficiency with real-time coaching and prompts for the next best action, freeing them up to engage with customers.”  

One bank benefiting from Microsoft 365 Copilot is the United Overseas Bank (UOB), which is trialling the solution to increase the productivity of 300 of its employees. As part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program, UOB has begun to use the generative AI-powered tools to streamline processes for staff working across departments such as branches, customer service, technology and operations. The bank is already using Copilot capabilities to summarise documents and email threads in Microsoft Outlook and understand data in Excel.  

Alongside Nuance, LSEG and UOB, Microsoft has partnered with over 50 technology solution providers to empower workers in the financial services sector. Trade Ledger, for example, has developed a new AI-powered application, powered by Microsoft Azure, to provide financial services organisations with data quickly and effectively. Users will be able to ask simple natural language questions and the copilot will transform them into queries about the business and respond with the answers that they need.  

Leading by example  

Microsoft is using its own technologies to support its own customer service agents too.  

“Microsoft employees use the Microsoft 365 suite of applications including Outlook, Word and Excel to be more productive,” says Caile. “Additionally, Microsoft operates one of the world’s largest customer support teams with tens of thousands of support engineers. Its customer engagement is built on Dynamics 365 Customer Service.”  

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service helps employees to deliver faster customer care by drafting contextual and personalised answers to customer questions, and by providing an interactive chat experience over knowledge bases and case history. For Microsoft’s Customer Service and Support team, which assists more than one billion customers worldwide, the Copilot tools reduce the average handle time by 12 per cent to provide faster case resolution without peer assistance. This allows agents to spend more time on particularly difficult cases.  

Beyond AI-powered tools, continuous training enables financial services organisations to empower and engage their staff.  

“Ongoing training ensures employees stay in sync with changing customer and market conditions as well as company policy changes,” says Caile. “For contact centre agents, this is about ensuring their individual desktops surface the latest policy, product and offer update. AI-powered coaching also supports skill building by proactively offering insights into how to handle each situation, enabling the employee to both assist the customer and expand their knowledge.  

“For supervisors and executives, AI-powered technology delivers the latest dashboards and views into queue performance, agent effectiveness and call resolution. This allows them to understand where agents are struggling to meet customer expectations and to Boost processes.” 

Partner perspectives 

We asked a selection of Microsoft partners ow they are using Microsoft technology-powered tools to help financial services organisations upskill employees and boost productivity. 

“Avaya builds on Microsoft Azure to equip financial services organisations with AI-powered solutions that increase workforce productivity and upskill staff,” said Giselle Bou Ghanem, senior director and product marketing lead at Avaya. “By integrating machine learning directly into agent workflows, Avaya transforms customer service representatives into highly efficient ‘bionic agents.” 

“Crestron Desk Scheduling solutions make it easy for financial services organisations to effortlessly transition to hot desking by enabling remote workers to book a space via software on their laptop before they come in to the office,” said Toine C. Leerentveld, director of product management for cloud and controls at Crestron. “Meanwhile, office-based employees can reserve a space by using the compact touch screen or quickly scanning a QR code, with highly visible LED status indicators displaying which desks are available to save them valuable time.” 

“ITSCREDIT provides an omnichannel platform that prioritises the digitisation of credit processes, offering flexibility, rapid time-to-market and complete control of the entire credit lifecycle,” said Paulo Pinto, chief technology officer at ITSCREDIT. “Our entire development is based on Microsoft technology, and we believe that leveraging modernised services such as the cloud, Azure AI and machine learning, security, and compliance tools, are crucial for financial institutions.” 

“Modern businesses are refocusing their attention to meet employee needs by integrating automation technology,” said Andy Birkey, marketing communications specialist at Metafile Information Systems. “Financial services organisations are providing a comprehensive, automated accounts payable solution that works seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365, such as MetaViewer, to empower their workforce, leading to significant gains in productivity.” 

Read more from these partners and others in the Winter 2023 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription. 

Avaya has bought one of its technology partners, CTIntegrations, a contact center software development specialist. Contact center generated 60 percent of Avaya’s cloud annual recurring revenue in the third quarter, Avaya President and CEO Jim Chirico tells CRN.

Avaya has acquired CTIntegrations, a contact center software development specialist and systems integration technology partner, to supercharge its Avaya OneCloud Contact-Center-as-a-Service offering in light of the significant growth the company in seeing in the cloud contact center space.

In fact, 60 percent of Avaya’s cloud annual recurring revenue metric, OneCloud ARR, was generated by contact center customers during the company’s third quarter, Jim Chirico (pictured), president and CEO of Avaya, told CRN following the company’s earnings call Monday.

Avaya’s always-strong, but recently increasing pipeline of CCaaS deals encouraged the company to bring CTIntegrations, a company that has been part of Avaya’s DevConnect partner ecosystem, into the fold, Chirico said.

“It just made sense to formally bring them in so we can help prioritize the road map and accelerate some of the product development,” he said. “It’s a technology tuck-in, but it’s a pretty unique solution and it’s going to help fuel our CCaaS growth in the market.”

Financial terms of the transaction, which is already completed, were not disclosed.

[Related: Avaya CEO Jim Chirico: 'We Are A Software And Services Company']

The CTIntegrations deal will allow partners to build CCaaS solutions for specific use cases on top of the Avaya platform, Chirico said, adding that partners are playing a big role in how Avaya is rolling out public and private cloud-based contact center solutions. Avaya trained close to 400 new partners to sell its public cloud CCaaS solution during the third quarter.

“We’ve tripled the number of partners that are now selling our CCaaS solution globally,” he said. ”We’re pretty pleased with the traction, and we expect that pace to continue for the next few quarters, at least.”

Avaya OneCloud CCaaS is currently available in over 40 countries. The company said that CCaaS will be available in 60 countries by the end of 2021.

Avaya in 2020 started to see a big change within OneCloud ARR, which was up a whopping 275 percent year over year during third-quarter 2021 to $425 million. OneCloud ARR includes Avaya’s OneCloud subscription, Avaya Cloud Office (ACO), its Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), Device as a Service and the company’s private cloud offering that gives enterprises a hybrid communications option. In fact, the company has once again raised its ARR guidance. Avaya now expect to cross the $1 billion threshold by the end of calendar year 2022, about a year ahead of schedule, Chirico said.

That’s because 95 percent of OneCloud ARR came from customers generating $100,000 or more in annual recurring revenue. About 64 percent of that revenue comes from deals greater than $1 million, Avaya said.

The company’s goal is to grow its recurring revenue to account for more than 70 percent of its business. In the third quarter, recurring revenue made up 64 percent of the company’s revenue, a figure that remained flat year over year. Software and services slipped slightly to account for 88 percent of revenue during the quarter, down from 89 percent a year ago, which Chirico attributed to a resurgence in the company’s more traditional businesses, which included a boost in ACO, or UCaaS sales and accompanying desk phone purchases during the fiscal quarter.

Avaya’s Cloud, Alliance Partner and Subscription (CAPS) revenue continued to tick up during the first three quarters of 2021. CAPS revenue now accounts for 40 percent of Avaya’s total revenue compared with30 percent in the year-ago fiscal quarter, according to the company.

For the quarter ended June 30, Avaya posted revenue of $732 million, up 2 percent compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2020, marking its fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. The Durham, N.C.-based company’s non-GAAP net income was $73 million, or 75 cents a share.

BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) underwent analysis by 4 analysts in the last quarter, revealing a spectrum of viewpoints from bullish to bearish.

The following table provides a quick overview of their recent ratings, highlighting the changing sentiments over the past 30 days and comparing them to the preceding months.

Analysts have set 12-month price targets for BlackLine, revealing an average target of $64.75, a high estimate of $81.00, and a low estimate of $53.00. This upward trend is apparent, with the current average reflecting a 7.02% increase from the previous average price target of $60.50.

Investigating Analyst Ratings: An Elaborate Study

The standing of BlackLine among financial experts is revealed through an in-depth exploration of recent analyst actions. The summary below outlines key analysts, their recent evaluations, and adjustments to ratings and price targets.

Key Insights:

• Action Taken: Analysts respond to changes in market conditions and company performance, frequently updating their recommendations. Whether they 'Maintain', 'Raise' or 'Lower' their stance, it reflects their reaction to recent developments related to BlackLine. This information offers a snapshot of how analysts perceive the current state of the company.
• Rating: Gaining insights, analysts provide qualitative assessments, ranging from 'Outperform' to 'Underperform'. These ratings reflect expectations for the relative performance of BlackLine compared to the broader market.
• Price Targets: Gaining insights, analysts provide estimates for the future value of BlackLine's stock. This comparison reveals trends in analysts' expectations over time.

Assessing these analyst evaluations alongside crucial financial indicators can provide a comprehensive overview of BlackLine's market position. Stay informed and make well-judged decisions with the assistance of our Ratings Table.

Stay up to date on BlackLine analyst ratings.

Unveiling the Story Behind BlackLine

BlackLine Inc is engaged in providing financial accounting close solutions delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). The Company's solutions enable its customers to address various aspects of their financial close process including account reconciliations, variance analysis of account balances, journal entry capabilities, and certain types of data matching capabilities. The majority of the revenue of the company is earned in the United States.

A Deep Dive into BlackLine's Financials

Market Capitalization Analysis: Reflecting a smaller scale, the company's market capitalization is positioned below industry averages. This could be attributed to factors such as growth expectations or operational capacity.

Revenue Growth: BlackLine's remarkable performance in 3 months is evident. As of 30 September, 2023, the company achieved an impressive revenue growth rate of 12.24%. This signifies a substantial increase in the company's top-line earnings. As compared to competitors, the company encountered difficulties, with a growth rate lower than the average among peers in the Information Technology sector.

Net Margin: BlackLine's net margin is impressive, surpassing industry averages. With a net margin of 7.91%, the company demonstrates strong profitability and effective cost management.

Return on Equity (ROE): BlackLine's ROE excels beyond industry benchmarks, reaching 6.08%. This signifies robust financial management and efficient use of shareholder equity capital.

Return on Assets (ROA): BlackLine's financial strength is reflected in its exceptional ROA, which exceeds industry averages. With a remarkable ROA of 0.6%, the company showcases efficient use of assets and strong financial health.

Debt Management: BlackLine's debt-to-equity ratio is notably higher than the industry average. With a ratio of 6.54, the company relies more heavily on borrowed funds, indicating a higher level of financial risk.

Analyst Ratings: What Are They?

Ratings come from analysts, or certified within banking and financial systems that report for specific stocks or defined sectors (typically once per quarter for each stock). Analysts usually derive their information from company conference calls and meetings, financial statements, and conversations with important insiders to reach their decisions.

Some analysts publish their predictions for metrics such as growth estimates, earnings, and revenue to provide additional guidance with their ratings. When using analyst ratings, it is important to keep in mind that stock and sector analysts are also human and are only offering their opinions to investors.

This article was generated by Benzinga's automated content engine and reviewed by an editor.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A recent report from the Sioux Falls Childcare Collaborative found that most childcare centers in the area are losing money every year. That’s despite low pay. In 2022, the average childcare worker made $11.51 per hour. In many cases, raising rates to increase pay and profits isn’t an option. The report also found that 87 percent of families – who don’t qualify for state childcare assistance – can’t afford tuition.

In June, the group, led by Rana DeBoer and Nicole Futh, presented its findings from an eight-month study. We caught up with DeBoer, who now runs her own consulting company called Volt Strategy. She says day cares, like Apple Tree face many challenges regarding how much they can pay workers and how much they can charge parents.

“In order to get those rates up to a place that does allow that business to flourish, to really profit, that’s also the hard spot of wages, so for those child care workers, those great brain architects that we have in our community, they need a healthy wage so it’s this catch 22 of having those tuition rates that are affordable but also having at a healthy enough rate that the business can be sustainable, said DeBoer.

As for a solution, DeBoer says the study found there is no magic bullet, no quick fix. She urges those involved to read the study, or at the very least read the executive summary, because it will spell out a few sure truths. Solving the problem will take a multi-faceted approach from government, businesses and parents. And we need to start thinking of child care as infrastructure.

“We have to look at it in the same way we do some of our sewers, streets, and our public school systems. That’s the mindset shift we need to start making as a community,” said DeBoer.

Mayor Paul TenHaken has said affordable child care is one of the most complicated issues in Sioux Falls, especially as the city grows.

If you’d like to take a look at the study follow the link. https://siouxfallsthrive.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SFCC-Final-Report.pdf