For the first half of 2006, and for the second straight year, Avaya's call centre products have dominated the space with a 40 percent share of call centre agent licences across all of Europe. According to MZA's October report, "The Global Telecommunications Market: The European Call Centre Market," Avaya's nearest competitor held just a 14 percent share of that market.
The call centre products driving Avaya's market leadership position form part of the MultiVantage Customer Interaction Suite. Avaya Call Centre 3.0 and Avaya Call Centre 3.1 (introduced in June 2006) continue to enjoy strong adoption as enterprises seek a complete solution for handling customer and sales needs. Call Centre provides more consistent, personalised customer service by matching agent skills with caller needs, and it delivers enormous flexibility in routing decisions. The suite also reduces costs while increasing efficiency and effectiveness by supporting agent specialisation and consolidation.
Avaya say their lead in the market was also supported by the company's various marketing initiatives, including involvement in FIFA World Cup Germany 2006. Avaya was one of the event's main sponsors, and also built, developed and secured the largest converged communications network - voice and data - ever created for a sporting event. Many of the leading technologies, as well as the Avaya name, were on display throughout the event, building brand recognition and demonstrating the capabilities of the company's products and services. In Q4 2005, Avaya also pursued an aggressive marketing campaign to target new European customers, showing clear progress in the first half of 2006.
"We are proud to continue our commanding hold as the leader across Europe in the call centre solutions market," says Carlos Sartorius, President of Avaya, EMEA. "Despite increasing and developing threats, Avaya contact and call centre systems deliver the capabilities that allow call centre agents to handle greater volumes more effectively and efficiently. It is clear we are delivering on the ability to increase call centre capacity at lower costs, and we will work hard to develop more systems and solutions to better serve call centre needs."
Probably with a smile on their face Avaya points out that their clear lead in the call centre market comes during a 'turbulent time' in the European telecommunications space. Consolidation is occurring at a rapid pace, led by a merger between Philips and NEC in Q2 2006 to create NEC Philips Unified Solutions and Aastra's acquisition of EADS Telecom and DeTeWe during 2005.
The MZA report analysed the European call centre market for the period January to the end of June 2006 based on total number of call centre agent licences shipped during that span. In addition to Avaya's commanding principal position across the continent, the company grew its Eastern European share to 69 percent. Avaya also led the market in all countries except Sweden and France, and the company grew its share in France by four percentage points. Avaya's 40 percent share across Europe was followed by Alcatel with a 14 percent share, by Nortel at 9 percent, Cisco Systems and Aspect Software both at 7 percent, and a number of other providers sharing the remaining 23 percent of the call centre market.