Avaya aiming to drive growth via partner programme

Avaya is looking to a planned range of enhancements to its partner programme as the key to drive growth through the channel this year.

The firm has taken feedback from partners and looked to make sure its Edge Channel Partner Programme is meeting their needs. The main conclusion from the vendor is that the programme needed to be more inclusive and reward a wide spectrum of indirect business models.

The vendor will update the channel with the full details of its plans for the partner programme at its ENGAGE event in a couple of weeks. But there are indications already that the hope will be that a simplified programme will encourage more of its channel base to take further steps into the cloud.

“Much of the coming year’s focus will empower channel partners to easily deploy cloud-based products as cloud adoption continues to skyrocket, for example, Avaya has grown its public cloud seats 300% in the past year,” said Dino Di Palma, Avaya president, Americas sales and global accounts.

“With offerings for small-medium businesses (SMB), mid-market and enterprise, Avaya’s range of cloud-based services continues to expand and is expected to provide significant growth opportunities for all channel partners in 2019," he added.

This time last year the firm was about to exit Chapter 11 and rejoin the New York Stock Exchange and throughout that process made it clear that the channel was a big part of the plans to get back on track.

Since then the firm has seen the business generated through its Edge programme increase. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of partners eligible for rebates increased by 281%, with a 159% increase in the number of partners with more than 10% growth.