Dear Mr. Masarek,
Most of us are very pleased that you were not only willing, but enthusiastic about taking on the significant responsibility to lead Avaya during this very challenging time. Now that we are one week into the new FY, we feel compelled to share our observations, concerns and questions. As impacted employees, we fear the window is closing for Avaya to have a chance at succeeding. And it is important that you review some concerns, just in case some of these are news to you. It begs us to inquire,
Is Avaya CoMPoSaBLe or CoMBuSTiBLe?
Customer Perception, Avaya Posturing and Reality
- Customer Perception/Reality
You have been the only Avaya leader who has ever properly synthesized the core Avaya client base reality. If clients can avoid a rip-and-replace, while building toward a more nimble, agile application friendly environment, they will not leave Avaya. Avaya clients have always been Avaya’s to lose. Avaya in recent years seemed to be in total denial of the reality of their base. They made a universal decision to force as many clients as possible to subscription, no matter the long term value for the client or Avaya.. Why was this foolish to force without a careful bridge strategy? Because Avaya’s bread-and-butter clients are not the type of clients that can just flip a switch to cloud. Because the ONLY reason these clients even remained with Avaya was to delay a rip-and-replace. The greatest consequence that was not baked-in to forecasting? Avaya eliminated the clients option to continue with maintenance, which led to A) lost upsell options for account revenue generation over past 3 years; and B) Provoking the client who was long avoiding a rip-and-replace to go to RFP. Avaya’s overreaching personality was one of rude arrogance. They believed clients needed Avaya and would not be able to depart. Not to mention the ever elusive cloud offerings. The broad market belief that Avaya is a SaaS organization is troublesome. They may be SaaS-esq or SaaS-like, yet Avaya is not SaaS. Had previous leadership accepted that, maybe they wouldn’t have gone down the ill-fated myopic forced subscription rabbit ho-e.
- Avaya Employee Posturing/Reality
Per your promise of honesty, transparency and direct communication on the state of the business, products, solutions, etc, we have all been very hopeful for an immediate pivot in the style of communication coming out of Avaya. Avaya is not a consumer-brand company. Many Avaya employees have doubled down on their gratuitous pro Avaya jabber, which is more painful to hear and read than it was even before. They not only lack a foundational skill set to be strategic, mindful, meaningful, purposeful and succinct in each and every external communications opportunity, they lack basic maturity, etiquette, humility, professionalism and class. Being ‘nice’ does not equate to having the optimized qualifications that will drive Avaya’s success. No one is buying or doing business with Avaya as a result of learning something more about Avaya employees personal proclivities.
This brings us back to Avaya’s bread-and-butter clients, they are in sectors in which such behaviors are not acceptable for their own internal employees, so why would they accept such from a vendor trying to sell into them? The core business is conservative and regulated. The Avaya messaging is focused on small, nimble start-ups (and is even dated for that community. It’s 2012-type of messaging for the sole proprietor and small business start-up). Just look at client testimonials. Analyze the key markets where Avaya wants to retain market share. Do they have quotes from CIO’s or are most the quotes from a “project manager”, a “telecom manager” or the commercial side of the business? Exactly! The messaging does not match the business Avaya has or the business Avaya wants. Avaya needs to retain its existing clients, while also bridging the message to the C-Suite. The messaging should align with that in mind. That can’t be achieved by the established cycle of trade publications who, like clockwork, all post their exclusive interviews with you. Do you really think the regulated industry CIO’s read “Channel Futures”, ‘CRN’, ”UCToday”, “Silicon Angle” etc etc? Do they care about the ambiguous awards? They just know Avaya is not on the magic quadrant. No circle-the-wagon press will prevent the CIO from asking his team “Are They on the Quadrant?”. Avaya’s established cycle is speaking to a small group of telecom inner-circle, who does not need the message. The repeat of the cycle of the 3-5 same trade pubs also invalidates the message entirely.
(See Comments for remainder of letter)