JEDDAH – Avaya, a global leader in business communications, held a roadshow at Park Hyatt Jeddah on Sunday to address directly the small and medium size businesses in Saudi Arabia on how to become more efficient and customer-focused. The roadshow described how to access information faster, bring people together more easily, make decisions more quickly, and communicate across different devices - anytime, anywhere to change the way of business collaboration. Avaya's roadshow focused on empowering the Kingdom's SMEs to collaborate with customers, colleagues and suppliers through a range of collaboration, video and networking solutions. It offers a new suite of solutions that can allow companies with less than 1,000 employees to enjoy enterprise class collaboration features on midsized business budget. Nidal Abou-Ltaif, VP of Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Avaya, said “according to the IMF in 2012, Saudi Arabia's SME sector includes more than 90 percent of organizations within this market, and it is essential that they are properly equipped to achieve their business and growth objectives. The days of complicated IT solutions, intended for larger enterprises, have come to an end. SMEs are busy expanding their core businesses, and need simple solutions that embrace innovation.” “SMEs are agile and constantly growing – they invest in new technology because they understand that in order for their organization to thrive, they need to take informed decisions about which solutions can make them more competitive and customer-centric,” he added. Under the theme “The New Big”, high-net-worth individuals, executives & businessmen, professionals, corporate – CEOs, decision makers, engineers, and technicians from different companies were among the visitors in the event. They learned how Avaya has simplified the complexity of business communications systems, while retaining vital collaboration features. The roadshow also illustrates Avaya IP office suitable for SMEs with as few as five employees, but now scales up to 1,000 users. This solution gives mid-sized companies in Saudi Arabia as well as the wider Middle East, Africa and Turkey a more cost-effective, simplified way to manage growing staff on a network across one or multiple sites. The Forum showed that Avaya IP Office can also be paired with Avaya's recently introduced ERS 4000 series switches and Wi-Fi solutions to automate network set-up. A demonstration showed that one simple command automatically configures the switches and enables collaboration features – a time-saving, straightforward process that's ideal for SMEs, which may not have dedicated IT staff. In addition, Avaya has showed their more mobile video, accessible and affordable to mid-size enterprises – customers no longer need to confine themselves in expensive video conferencing rooms to stay visually connected with their customers, peers and partners on their device of choice being an iPad, laptop or an android device. Eng. Zeeshan Bajwa, senior engineer at AlFalak Distribution electronic equipment and supplies company, said “the whole event was fine and the technology they demonstrated was terrific.” In addition to the Kingdom, Avaya's forum on “The New Big” will have stops in Dubai, Istanbul, Nairobi, Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.
