12 March 2007

Agile and innovative thinking from a New Zealand information technology company impressed US-based multinational Avaya so much it bought into the business and changed the way it addressed a growing market.

Avaya, which has had a New Zealand presence since the early 1990s, provides internationally acclaimed telecommunications and contact centre solutions for large enterprises.

Its local distributor, Agile New Zealand, recognised that the gap between Avaya’s large-scale existing products and the needs of New Zealand’s mid-market economy could prove a constraint to local sales of a great product.

To remove that constraint, Agile set about developing software applications that both utilised Avaya’s equipment and met the needs, in terms of scale and cost, of medium-scale enterprises that make up the majority of New Zealand businesses.

The combination of world-class equipment and a software application targeted at the medium-enterprise level proved very successful. So successful, in fact, that Avaya noticed a sales growth curve in New Zealand not reflected in any of its other mid-tier global markets.

When it investigated further, Avaya discovered New Zealand was the only market that had taken this approach. It saw it offered an opportunity to grow sales in other similar-sized markets and rigorously assessed the software that Agile had developed.

Avaya was so impressed with the solution Agile provided that it became a 23 percent owner of Agile’s software company. Avaya then used its global distribution networks to market the jointly owned products, opening up new markets in 50 more countries.

The New Zealand Government has recognised the important role that technology plays in economic growth, and in Agile’s case support through the Government’s Technology for Business Growth scheme was pivotal in the software development that caught Avaya’s attention.

It also helped Agile to expand its scope from voice products to the broader context of handling web-based interactions within Avaya-powered contact centres.

Agile’s innovative approach to solving a business problem perfectly reflects the innate ‘can do’ attitude of the New Zealand information and communications technology sector, and the intelligent and well developed market proved an ideal test-bed for a software application that has achieved success globally.

For more information, please contact:

martin.brendling@investmentnz.govt.nz

+64 9 302 5474