Speaking about Optimus Academy, Ms. Meera Kaul, Managing Director of Optimus, said, “Optimus has grown significantly over the last three years. We have been investing in channel development programmes and initiatives and the result has been stronger sales and market share for our vendor partners. This year, we created Optimus Academy for continued alignment with the Channel training and education requirements of our vendor partners. Through Optimus Academy, we aim to hold regular product training sessions, certification workshops, seminars and sales workshops for our Middle East channel base. We are confident that both, our vendor partners as well as our channel partners will benefit from this programme.”

As part of the Optimus Academy initiative, the distributor already held an Avaya training workshop in Qatar last week, where participants were able to qualify for the Avaya Professional Sales Specialist (APSS) certification and a special ‘Channel Day’ event, where channel partners from Qatar got an overview of Avaya’s products, launches and roadmap for the region.

“Our Avaya training programme and Channel Day in Doha last week were a success with a number of partners attending and certifying as Avaya Professional Sales Specialist. The participants were trained by experts on Avaya’s product range, sales, design and support and received the APSS certification. The Channel Day event, a separate event, gave our channel partners insights into Avaya’s roadmap, product launches and benefits of using Avaya’s feature-rich products. The workshops in Qatar were just the beginning of many such events we plan to organize across the Middle East and North Africa throughout this year,” added Mr. Nehul Goradia, Manager Channel for Optimus.

The two-day training workshop provides participants in-depth insight into Avaya’s product range and enhanced their abilities to create basic solution designs. Optimus provides an intensive training course to prepare candidates for their APSS certifications. At the end of the workshop, delegates take the Avaya Professional Sales Specialist (APSS) examination to qualify for the APSS certification, which is a mandatory requirement for all Avaya’s partners. The key benefits that delegates get from this workshop are training from specialists, interactive learning process, enhanced knowledge about Avaya products and instant certification exam on end of program.

Avaya Professional Sales Specialist (APSS) is an opportunity for channel partners to develop their sales and competency. The certification focuses on skills and knowledge required to assess customer needs and effectively describe and sell Avaya Unified Communications Solutions to meet customer requirements. The APSS helps the candidates protect customer assets, increase productivity and reduce costs.

Optimus’ ‘Channel Day’ event, an initiative of Optimus Academy, which is organized in workshop style, offers partners an opportunity to learn what’s new with Avaya. The event answers critical questions put forth by channel partners and covers topics from Data session, hospitality market, tech ops to SMEs. “At the ‘Channel Day’ experts from Avaya and Optimus shared their strategies for the year and helped channel partners identify opportunities on target accounts. We also covered different vertical market segments with case studies to help our partners take the right approach and offer the solution that best suits the customers’ requirements. Avaya’s vision and strategy as well as market trends are shared with the participants including the roadmap and solutions for Small and Medium enterprises,” explained Mr. Deepak Chhabra, Senior Consultant, Services Division, Optimus.

Optimus is a multinational VAD serving solution integrators, solution providers and the value-added partner community. The company offers its channel partners across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan a single window solution for a wide spectrum of products catering to their entire technology and telecom needs. Optimus is the only distributor in the MENA region to offer its channel partners a wide range of value added services and support with local stocking options. The Distributor recently enhanced its logistics capability and support to its partners in Egypt, Qatar and Pakistan by maintaining local stocks for some of its products including Avaya, enabling the company to respond faster to their partners’ requirements and enhance service deliveries to customers.

-Ends-

About Optimus Technology & Telecommunications:
Optimus is a channel development and distribution company that helps leading technology and telecom vendors to develop and create business revenue streams in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Regions.

Headquartered in Dubai & with on ground stocking and presence in Qatar, KSA, Egypt & Kuwait, Optimus has been able to provide its vendors and channel partners the most efficient presales, sales, marketing, channel acquisition, channel management, implementation services and support services bundled with its core operation of supply chain and inventory management of technology and telecommunication products.
For further information, please visit http://www.optimusdistribution.com

For further information, please contact:
Ms. Sharnali Jani
Optimus Technology & Telecommunications:
+9714 3252557
sjani@optimusdistribution.com

“There are three key benefits that Dubai Islamic Bank has already realized by moving to IP telephony from Avaya – improved customer service through a centralized communications system, enhanced employee productivity as all DIB staff can now be reached by their own extensions, and a reduced telecoms cost of almost 50% in less than 6 months,” said Mr. Ali Al Basti, Head of Admin Affairs, Dubai Islamic Bank.

“The new IP telephony infrastructure has given the bank its fastest-ever return on investment for an IT/telecoms deployment, which is important at a time when the financial services industry is making every effort to maximize its technology spend.  IP telephony has also empowered the bank to centrally manage, control and administer our communications, including a disaster recovery option should we experience any downtime.  All of these elements combine into a more cost-effective communications strategy for the bank which also benefits our customers,” he explained.

Olive, an Avaya partner in the Middle East, delivered the new IP telephony system to Dubai Islamic Bank, including a seamless integration of a multi-vendor voice messaging system to a single Avaya modular solution.  Opting for IP telephony means that all of the banks calls from branch-to-branch are via extension, or ‘internal’ calls on the Avaya network, delivering substantial cost savings.  Customers can also reach Dubai Islamic Bank’s different service groups, including retail and private banking, business and corporate banking, investment banking and real estate finance, more quickly and easily via the new network.

“The banking sector is facing rigorous pressure to reduce costs and optimize its technology solutions while maintaining and even improving customer service.  By moving to IP telephony, Dubai Islamic Bank can now more accurately forecast its telecoms costs while benchmarking savings from the new system, and benefit from increased staff productivity and customer service delivery,” Nidal Abou-Ltaif, area vice president of Emerging Markets for Avaya

This marks the second year in a row that Avaya has held the leadership position in this space.The Frost & Sullivan leadership awards is based on the consulting firm’s recent reports, which analyze market drivers, restraints, competitive issues, growth opportunities and key vendors for the global audio conferencing bridge market. This report shows that Avaya’s leadership in unified communications solutions is evidenced by its dominance in shipments and revenue generation for 2007-2009.

According to Frost and Sullivan, the worldwide audio conferencing bridge market earned revenues of $116.3 million in 2007, up from $109.6 million in the previous year which represents a 6.1 percent growth. In revenue generation, Avaya maintained the top position with 27 percent of the global audio conferencing bridge market.

“Avaya maintains its competitive position in the messaging and audio conferencing markets through a clear and non-disruptive migration path to its current portfolio and robust messaging and audio conferencing offerings,” said Elka Popova, Program Director, Unified Communications, Frost & Sullivan.

Avaya’s audio conferencing capabilities are found in Avaya Meeting Exchange, Avaya Web Conferencing, Avaya one-X® Portal and one-X Communicator.

“Audio conferencing is a key element of any unified communications strategy,” said Roger El Tawil, director for channel and marketing for Avaya MENA, Greece and Turkey. “For companies evolving their communications infrastructure, building on Avaya’s flexible, market-proven solutions will provide them with significant return on investment and increased employee productivity.”

Frost & Sullivan previously recognized Avaya for other achievements in the unified communications market, including Enterprise Communications Applications Company of the Year.