An official release from Avaya claimed that the Virtual Agent removes this complexity, enabling organizations to quickly deploy Avaya-designed, pre-built, cloud-based self-service agents instead of building them from scratch. It leverages the Avaya OneCloud Experience Platform, which reimagines communications composability, providing customers with the option of constructing their own workflows or subscribing to pre-built experiences.

Simon Harrison, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Avaya said. “Avaya Virtual Agent makes it easier for organizations to rapidly compose the interactions that businesses need to ensure more engaging and memorable experiences.”

Key capabilities:

• Easy-to-configure use-case templates accelerate business-specific self-service design and deployment without coding
• Single, easy-to-navigate user interface eliminates the need for scarce development resources and training
• AI capabilities can be easily added/incorporated, enabling more human-like conversations
• Support for 20 languages

It is a particularly attractive business model for SMEs today as many are moving away from resource-intensive, in-house operations to cloud-based systems that offer on-demand access to solutions traditionally only available to larger organizations. The Avaya solutions being provided by Pixcom support SMEs to deliver voice, video, data, and web communications applications and services to their teams, whether they’re in the office or on the go.

Khalid Khan, Director of Cloud & Midmarket Segment at Avaya MEA, South Europe and Asia-Pacific, said: “Digital transformation is radically redefining how organizations do business. For small and medium-sized enterprises, cloud-based communications tools make it even easier to connect and empower employees so that they can focus on organizational growth. Our partnership with Pixcom underscores Avaya’s commitment to serving the SME community as a significant driver of the Middle East economy today.”

Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President of Avaya Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Asia-Pacific, made the announcements at an event in Riyadh, organized by Avaya to help regional businesses achieve their digital transformation goals. Speaking to key clients in the Kingdom, Abou-Ltaif highlighted the most outstanding regional achievements with Saudi organizations. He also discussed how Avaya is assisting public and private institutions to develop communication and collaboration technologies and transform their business outcomes.

The ambitious and aspiring vision of Saudi customers is motivating Avaya to continually innovate and build the company’s presence in the country, Abou-Ltaif told attendees.

As Country Manager, Hisham Al Sheikh will work closely with customers and partners in the Kingdom to help them in their digital transformation journeys. He will work under the leadership of Fadi Hani, Avaya’s Managing Director for Saudi Arabia.

“With digital transformation being key to achieving Saudi Vision 2030 and companies increasingly aligning themselves to this vision, Avaya has a vital role in making this strategy a reality. I look forward to helping customers become digital businesses as a true business partner by delivering the next generation solutions from Avaya to address their specific business needs,” said Hisham Al Sheikh, Country Manager for Avaya in Saudi Arabia.

The partner engagement events enabled Avaya to communicate its latest innovations and solutions to its Saudi technology partners, giving invaluable insight into the trends and technologies helping organizations to align themselves more closely with Vision 2030, and create growth opportunities for Saudi businesses, leading to the creation of more jobs for Saudi citizens. Avaya is currently working with leading customers across the Kingdom, supporting more than 10,000 contact center agents across key industry sectors including banking and finance, government, healthcare, and retail.

“Our strong focus on the needs and direction of the Saudi market is brought to life by our partners in the Kingdom. To have a strong, innovative partner community that is closely integrated with the Government and business community is a prerequisite in our industry, and I believe that Avaya is particularly fortunate to work with some of the most creative and proactive technology solution sellers in the Kingdom. I congratulate the winners and all of our partners and look forward to a much more productive and successful year ahead,” says Fadi Hani, Managing Director, Avaya Saudi Arabia.

The partner awards were the highlight of each event, with Avaya recognizing best-performing partners in different regions and technology areas – United Technologies and Tawasol from the Western region, and Converged Generation Communications and Aflak Solutions from the Central region.

United Technologies was honored as best mid-market partner after doubling growth and seizing a full 15 per cent of the overall mid-market, with considerable success in the construction and retail segments. Avaya’s Hospitality partner of the year is Tawasol, having delivered mega projects for the Shaza and Sheraton hotel chains, growing by more than 100 per cent, and achieving the highest level of Avaya partnership.

Converged Generation Communications, already an Avaya platinum partner, has received the Contact Centre Partner award for successfully managing and growing the Avaya customer base in large and medium enterprises contact centers. Aflak Solutions, a new Avaya partner, received the Public Sector partner award for their outstanding achievements and innovations to some of the prestigious government projects. As a result, Aflak continued to establish itself as a major player in government ICT projects.

While emerging technology trends such as mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing promise incalculable opportunities, they also make it almost impossible to determine an organization’s boundaries. In today’s everywhere perimeter, it is critical that security is an end-to-end component of a network architecture that extends from any potential access point – be that in the cloud, a mobile device or a sensor unit to the core and back again.

Avaya’s networking solutions enable organizations to create stealth, hyper-segments within their networks that are invisible to hackers and provide the elasticity needed to protect the everywhere perimeter. Avaya SDNFx and identity technologies eliminate the tradeoff between security and complexity by automating the onboarding and access of devices, users, switches and servers to make protecting and managing everywhere access effortless.

Intersec is taking place from January 22-24 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. Avaya will have a presence on the Axis Communications stand S1-H12.

“We believe security should not only be at the core of the network but wherever the business needs it to be – and wherever hackers will try to be. Avaya’s hyper-segmentation, native stealth and automated elasticity capabilities create safety zones that hackers can’t see, and therefore can’t access,” says Maan Al-Shakarchi, Head of Networking, AMEA and APAC, Avaya.

The Avaya Awards celebrate the role Avaya Connect channel partners play in driving Avaya’s success across the combined geographies. As customers’ needs and challenges evolve, Avaya’s partners are central to its strategy of delivering services-led, outcome-focused engagement.

More than 1,500 industry leaders, technology innovators, key decision-makers, and senior Avaya executives came together at Avaya Engage from more than 70 countries. Partners were given invaluable insights into key technology trends and the opportunities they present, in addition to Avaya’s strategic vision for the upcoming year.

“Avaya ENGAGE is focused on innovation – we aim to highlight the importance of innovation in driving companies’ success and to celebrate how our customers and partners are delivering innovation every day, helping their customers and partners to achieve their digital objectives. The Avaya Awards showcase how we are helping organizations of all sizes achieve better collective outcomes – and how these organizations are helping us in our own transformation journey.” Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, AVAYA International.

Avaya Partner Award winners were across the categories of Customer Innovation Award, Innovation Partner of the Year, Growth Service Provider of the Year, Distributor of the Year, Midmarket Partner of Year, Cloud Service Provider of the Year and Partner of the Year for the EMEA region. Regional winners from the Middle East were:

Winners of Growth Service Provider of the Year categories were
Batelco, North Gulf and Etisalat, South Gulf. APTEC – Ingram Micro was awarded Distributor of the Year. Visiontech Systems LLC, UAE and Al-Mehwar, KSA were awarded Midmarket Partners of Year.

Viva Bahrain was awarded Cloud Service Provider of the Year and Partner of the Year was MDS PACC, Middle East and Africa

“The Avaya Awards celebrate and recognize the role our partners play in driving Avaya’s growth and customer-centric strategy. We are investing and developing our partner ecosystem to enable more companies to implement business communications solutions that help drive their digital transformation journeys. Avaya ENGAGE provided the perfect platform for us to drive innovation and deliver industry leadership across the combined regions,” said Fadi Moubarak, Channel Leader, AVAYA International.

The highlight of Avaya ENGAGE, a four-day forum hosted at the Atlantis the Palm hotel in Dubai, the Avaya Awards celebrate the role the company’s partners have played in driving Avaya’s success across the combined geographies of Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. As customers’ needs and challenges evolve, Avaya’s partners are central to its strategy of delivering services-led, outcome-focused engagement.

Avaya ENGAGE is the premier thought leadership event combining the networking experience of the Avaya Partner Forum with the educational content of the Avaya Technology Forum, under one roof. More than 1300 customers and partners from across the combined regions interacted with Avaya global executives, solutions leaders and industry experts at keynote addresses, seminars and expert sessions.

“The Avaya Awards celebrate and recognize the role our partners play in driving Avaya’s growth and customercentric strategy. We are investing and developing our partner ecosystem to enable more companies to implement business communications solutions that help drive their digital transformation journeys. Avaya ENGAGE provides the perfect platform for us to drive innovation and deliver industry leadership across the combined regions,” said Fadi Moubarak, Channel Leader, AVAYA International

“Avaya ENGAGE is focused on innovation – we aim to highlight the importance of innovation in driving companies’ success and to celebrate how our customers and partners are delivering innovation every day, helping their customers and partners to achieve their digital objectives. The Avaya Awards showcase how we are helping organizations of all sizes achieve better collective outcomes – and how these organizations are helping us in our own transformation journey.” said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Avaya International

Bahaa Salah, Managing Director of Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, commented, “We are happy to receive the award, it is a reflection of solid team work and great partnership.”

As companies look to implement digital transformation strategies and leverage technology trends like the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and mobility, organizations struggle to find workers with the required skills to implement these technologies safely and securely. Lack of skills and resources was cited by 53% of organizations as one of the biggest barriers to implementing digital transformation projects, according to research by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The ACE-Fx program was created to bridge this skills gap between traditional, hardware-intensive networking technologies and next-generation, software-defined fabric-based networking. It enables engineers and IT professionals to deliver the transformational networking capabilities provided by the innovative Avaya SDN Fx architecture.

Avaya SDN Fx provides a complete next-generation networking solution that delivers, now, on the promise of SDN, allowing for “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity to more easily add devices and users at the network edge. SDN Fx enables advanced strategies for smart architectures and the IoT. It eliminates the tradeoff between security and complexity by automating the onboarding and access of devices, users, switches and servers to make protecting and managing every-where access effortless.

With the extraordinary exponential growth Avaya’s SDN Fx architecture has witnessed in the last 24 months, ACE-Fx II builds on the progressive structure of the ACE-Fx program, which is structured to provide a continuous journey for networking professionals to develop their career and enhance their skills on an ongoing basis. Since the program was launched last year, over 450 networking professionals have become members of the ACE-Fx community, with the training being successfully delivered in 50 cities worldwide.

“Today we are seeing unprecedented demand for networking connectivity, driven by key technology trends including digital transformation, the Internet of Things and smart infrastructures. This is driving the need for the next-generation networking skills that are required to leverage these technologies securely and reliably. Networking professionals need a training and certification program that will grow with them and enable them to stay ahead of the digital curve. By expanding the ACE-Fx certification program Avaya is continuing to help our customers and partners achieve their digital objectives.”

Maan Al-Shakarchi, Head of Networking, AMEA and APAC, Avaya
The extended program allows individuals to deepen their knowledge and experience of advanced networking technologies under the Avaya SDN Fx umbrella, covering Fabric Connect, Fabric Extend and Fabric Attach, as well as advanced integration of IP Multicast and IP Routing. The intensive five-day training program includes designing and implementing an Avaya Fabric solution including Fabric Extend and Fabric Attach technologies.

ACE-Fx II also recognizes existing network industry certifications from other entities, allowing networking professionals to directly enter the ACE-Fx class without reinvesting in other Avaya courses.

Avaya is continually expanding and refining the ACE-Fx program, with the company introducing virtual training for Part I and Part II training. Professionals who successfully complete the courses become members of the Ace-Fx community, which allows them to attend Avaya industry events, and receive additional support and resources from Avaya.

ACE-Fx II was announced at the Avaya ENGAGE event, taking place this week at Atlantis the Palm, Dubai, with more than 1,500 executives, customers and partners from over 70 countries attending. The four-day event is bringing together senior Avaya executives, industry leaders, technology innovators and key decision makers, delivering invaluable insight into key technology trends and the opportunities they represent.

Avaya ENGAGE will be held at Atlantis the Palm, Dubai, from 5th to 8th December and will bring together more than 1,300 customers and partners from over 70 countries. Avaya ENGAGE is the premier thought leadership event combining the networking experience of the Avaya Partner Forum with the educational content of the Avaya Technology Forum, under one roof. For the first time ever, Avaya customers and partners from across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) regions will attend the same event, giving greater opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange.

With organizations globally facing challenges to evolve digitally and move agilely in today’s competitive markets, CEOs are increasingly putting digital transformation and customer engagement at the top of their corporate agendas. Avaya ENGAGE will showcase how suppliers, partners and customers can create the right platform for innovation, leveraging their combined strengths to create seamless communications experiences using emerging technologies including mobility, Cloud, Big Data and analytics. Avaya ENGAGE will provide a forum for the Avaya International community to share and showcase roadmaps and solutions to help businesses improve operational excellence, enhance customer satisfaction and drive greater competitive differentiation.

“In this age of intelligence, businesses are increasingly recognizing the opportunities created by digital disruption and the need to stay ahead of the digital transformation curve. Avaya ENGAGE presents the perfect platform for our customer and partner ecosystem to come together, experience the future and equip themselves with innovative engagement solutions, delivered by the latest technology,” says Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific, Avaya.