Avaya revenue slump expected to continue in 2020
Avaya shares closed down 5% last Wednesday after the company failed to hit its financial targets for the fourth fiscal quarter and predicted that revenue would likely decline again in 2020.
Avaya brought in $723 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, despite projecting revenues between $735 million and $755 million. The quarter capped a year of disappointing returns, with the company generating just under $2.89 billion after initially telling investors it would sell between $3.01 billion and $3.12 billion worth of products and services.
Avaya attributed its underperformance in the fourth quarter in large part to a delay in executing a 10-year $400 million deal to sell phone systems and contact center software to the Social Security Administration. A competing vendor has challenged the contract, sparking a procurement review that Avaya expects will further delay revenues at least through the current quarter.
Meanwhile, the Avaya revenue slump is projected to continue in fiscal 2020, which began Oct. 1, with the company forecasting receipts of $2.81 billion to $2.89 billion. But analysts credit Avaya for at least significantly slowing the rate of its revenue decline in the two years since emerging from bankruptcy in late 2017.
Company executives said 2020 would be a transformational year for Avaya as it finally introduces unified communication as a service (UCaaS) offering in partnership with RingCentral. The product will plug a gap in the vendor's portfolio, which cloud-based competitors had exploited to steal the longtime customers of Avaya's on-premises gear.
But Avaya is poised to face a significant challenge in a few years, said Steve Blood, an analyst at Gartner. Many large enterprises aren't ready to replace on-premises communications gear because they spent a lot of money on it. But, eventually, that calculation will change.
In the meantime, Avaya is selling maintenance and other services to those customers. The company has highlighted the growth of its software and services segment, which now represents 83% of total revenue, up from 71% in fiscal 2015.
"Avaya will talk about that as having loyal customers," Blood said. "We will look at that differently. We don't think they are so much loyal as they need a stop-gap to hold off while they build their strategy with other providers."
Avaya's answer to that impending problem has been to invest in a single-tenant cloud product called ReadyNow. It gives each customer a separate instance of the software on servers in an Avaya data center. The architecture allows for a higher level of security and customization than would be possible in a multi-tenant cloud. Avaya said its large enterprise customers prefer that approach.
Partnerships have emerged as another critical aspect of Avaya's cloud strategy. Avaya is now relying on vendors like RingCentral and Afiniti to deliver innovative products and features. Just last week, Avaya announced it would partner with Google to bring a suite of AI capabilities to contact center customers in 2020.
Avaya plans to begin reporting to investors the percentage of revenue attributable to cloud, partnerships and emerging technologies combined. As of last quarter, that figure stood at 15%, but Avaya expects it will reach 30% once the RingCentral partnership ramps up.
The cloud alone accounted for 11% of revenue in fiscal 2019. That's up from 10% last fiscal year but below the company's original estimate of 12% to 14%. Avaya has sold nearly 4 million licenses for cloud telephony and contact center software, up from 3.5 million at the end of fiscal 2018.
Meanwhile, Avaya is retooling its executive team. On Tuesday, Avaya announced that its top cloud executive, Gaurav Passi, was no longer with the company.
Anthony Bartolo will become chief product officer overseeing on-premises and cloud portfolio next month. He is currently a top executive at Tata Communications, a networking and communications service provider, and previously spent four years with Avaya.
As part of the shuffle, Chris McGugan, currently senior vice president of solutions and technology, will become CTO.
source searchunifiedcommunications
Industry: Unified Communications
Latest Jobs
-
- Data Privacy Lead. Client Facing London. Permanent.
- London
- N/A
-
Data Privacy Lead. Client Facing London. Permanent. London based client facing. Must be eligible to undergo UK Security Clearance (SC) Key Responsibilities: Lead and support client facing data privacy projects. Assess compliance, define and deliver strategic projects / implement privacy solutions. Manage project teams and develop business opportunities. Required Experience: Experience in data protection and privacy standards. Background in consulting. Skills and Qualifications: Business consulting experience IAPPPrivacy Manager / Privacy Technologist Location Greater London UK based role. Not able to provide VISA sponsorship.
-
- VOIP / SIP App Developer. Contract. SIP | VOIP experience needed. SC Cleared Outside IR35 Contract. London
- London
- OUTSIDE IR35
-
SIP | VOIP Developer. SC Cleared Contract. London Looking for a SC Cleared SIP / VOIP Developer to develop an application that interacts with a set of voice and video signalling API’s You will also work on developing in-house applications, browser plugins and automated tooling to support secure communication systems. Responsibilities Develop an application that will manage number mapping and associated identities using commercial SBC API’s. Develop new user-facing features using React.js or other modern JavaScript frameworks. Build reusable components and front-end libraries for future use. Collaborate with the design team to translate UI/UX design wireframes into code. Work closely with backend developers to integrate front-end code with server-side logic. Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members. Stay up-to-date on emerging technologies and industry trends to continuously improve our front-end development practices. Troubleshoot and debug issues that arise during development and in production environments. Maintain high coding standards and practices and ensure code is well-documented. Requirement Experience of developing specialist applications using REST API’s. Good knowledge of Go, Java and Python (open to alternative combinations of languages). Proficiency in front-end languages and frameworks such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React.js, etc. Strong understanding of web standards, responsive design, and cross-browser compatibility. Experience with version control systems such as Git. Knowledge of RESTful APIs and asynchronous request handling. Familiarity with UI/UX design principles and tools.
-
- Senior Data Privacy Consultant. Client Facing | London
- London
- N/A
-
Senior Data Privacy Consultant. Client Facing | London Senior Data Privacy Consultant needed for a key client facing opportunity. Must be willing to undergo SC Security Clearance. Hybrid role- onsite with customer / office 2-3 days a week. London Key Responsibilities: Lead and support client facing data privacy projects. Assess compliance, define and deliver strategic projects / implement privacy solutions. Manage project teams and develop business opportunities. Required Experience: Experience in data protection and privacy standards. Background in consulting. Skills and Qualifications: Business consulting experience IAPP Privacy Manager / Privacy Technologist Location Greater London UK based role. Not able to provide VISA sponsorship.
-
- Security Analyst - Internal role. London commutable. Permanent
- London
- N/A
-
Security Analyst - Internal role. London commutable opportunity. Operational Security - Investigate, escalate and proactively work to ensure household name remains protected. Project Security - Coordinate, log change requests with project delivery teams to meet security requirements Policy / compliance - work with team to aid in uplifting these as and where needed This role is role to investigate, escalate and proactively work to protect a globally recognised brand. You must have current hands on operational analytical security experience with Microsoft technology stack Someone with a SOC Analyst / security engineering background would be well suited. This position will join a small team and would suit someone that has broad experience across the security threat landscape. Experience / knowledge across industry GRC standards such NIST, ISO27001 etc very advantageous and a priority. You will work across multiple teams proactively working to secure the business. Must be able to commute to Central London 3 days a week. Visa sponsorship not available Apply today to find out more.