Nortel Concerns Cast Long Shadow Over Avaya's Channel Ambitions

From a new global channel program -- Avaya Connect -- to updated services offerings, Avaya hopes it finally has the tools to counter long-held criticism that Avaya's channel programs are cumbersomely constructed and its certifications and training are difficult to navigate.

Avaya also wants to change its reputation for not doing enough to manage channel conflict with its direct sales force.

But if there were a lingering feeling in Nashville this week, it was that the biggest Avaya-related news of 2009 -- that Avaya was the winning bidder for Nortel Networks' enterprise business for $915 million -- is upstaging, if not outright stealing, the spotlight from Avaya's channel revamp.

A number of partners told Channelweb.com during the conference that until a product and portfolio road map is established and clearly articulated to partners, all bets on Avaya's channel success going forward are off.

They haven't seen enough yet, in other words, to convince them that Avaya will embrace the channel and make the integration of Nortel's portfolio as smooth as possible, and that the ball is in Avaya's court to make it smooth as soon as the Nortel acquisition passes muster with Canadian regulators.

"What's Plan B if this all blows up in their face?" asked Sammy Seo, president of NetSpeed Solutions, a San Francisco-based solution provider. "I mean, if they're too focused on making it work with Nortel, do we go to Shoretel? It's hard to say. We don't know anything right now."

Seo's concerns were the same as a number of other partners. With no Avaya-Nortel product road map to go on yet, it's hard to be confident the transition will be smooth.

And Avaya needs things to be as smooth as possible if Avaya Connect and the company's pledge to be serious about its channel business -- a goal of 85 percent indirect sales by 2012, said President and CEO Kevin Kennedy -- are to be successful.

"What they rolled out was very 30,000-foot level," said Jeff Hiebert, president and CEO of ROI Networks, a San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based solution provider. "I think they're going to hurt some partners because a lot of the rewards seem very skewed to the platinum-level partners. I think they're going to see a lot of harsh criticism. Long term, it's the right thing to do -- it's just painful because it's all going to happen at once."

Avaya Connect, which Avaya announced this week but will launch as of Feb. 1, 2010, seeks to simplify the way Avaya rewards its partner tiers, the way it trains and certifies partners, and the way its price lists are structured. Among other changes, Avaya has dramatically cut down the levels of certification and number of training courses, and plans to ramp up the financial incentives for its top partners.

Avaya partners -- classified as Platinum, Gold, Silver and Authorized -- will also be able to see rebates processed much more quickly as it moves from a system of postsales rebates to point-of-sale credits when VARs buy through distribution.

Vice President of Worldwide Channels Jeremy Butt used his Wednesday keynote to describe how Avaya had failed its channel in the past and hopes to chart a course for better channel engagement going forward. Part of that was the confusion the programs themselves created.

"We knew we had to rework our program around the world. We had a fragmented program," said Butt. "You can be a platinum in the SME [small and medium business] program and a platinum in the enterprise program. We had some of you who were extremely creative and put out press releases announcing yourselves as double platinum."

That line brought a few chuckles, but Butt's suggestion that Avaya is simplifying its channel program seemed to resound -- especially when Butt addressed the long-held perception of Avaya as a disaster in how it manages conflict between its direct and indirect businesses.

"Given that we can't get much harder to do business with, I think we'll make improvements on that," he said. "It is not the job of any Avaya salesperson to give your price to the end user. We need to make sure our people are out of that. It's your deal, you give the price, not us."

Next: Avaya's Channel Vows