Avaya
Company: Avaya, Basking Ridge, NJ
Entry Submitted By: Visualize
Company Description: Avaya is a global leader in business communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Global Sales Team of the Year
Nomination Title: Avaya's Global Sales Team
Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July 2010 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Avaya, a global provider of business communications systems, had declining
revenues between 2008 and 2010. Economic conditions decreased Avaya’s customers’
willingness to spend on information technology, and particularly enterprise
communications technology, decreasing demand for Avaya’s products, and as a
result, their revenue. It was crucial that Avaya increase year-over-year
revenues and increase earnings through higher margin products or sales channels.
Enter Joel Hackney, Avaya’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing
and President of Field Operations. Despite declining revenues when he assumed
leadership of Avaya’s Global Sales Team in mid-June 2010, Joel quickly focused
his new team on achieving profitability levels and investing in his team’s
future results.
Joel created a sales-driven culture for his team in which he realigned Sales and
Professional Services on value and function. A greater level of focus was placed
on top accounts as well as the high ROI underpenetrated market space. Joel also
made a strategic decision to engage ValueSelling Associates to enable his global
team to uncover critical business issues and challenges faced by Avaya’s customers.
“We used to express our advantages in terms of feeds and speeds of a feature
set,” Hackney said. With the help of ValueSelling, their global sales force has
learned how to link Avaya solutions to their customers’ problems, to discover
and articulate the business and personal value of working with Avaya, and to
deliver presentations that prompted their clients to act.
Avaya’s President of the Americas reported that when Avaya was in any given deal
in 2011, it won 50 percent more often than the deal going elsewhere. Avaya
Global Sales representatives who completed ValueSelling training in 2011 had the
following rock solid results:
• 18 percentage points higher achievement on quota = $252M business impact
• $1.7M more in overall funnel per rep = $415M business impact
• 7.5 percentage points more of their overall funnel was booked = $105M business
impact
• For deals greater than $250K, deal size was $132K larger with ValueSelling and
eValuePrompters = $18M business impact
Over the past year, Avaya also focused on driving profitable growth and evolving
as a company to deliver solutions, training, tools, programs and resources for
its channel partners to exceed customer expectations. 10,000 partners have now
been aligned with Avaya. The indirect sales channel represented 76% of Avaya’s
product revenues for fiscal year 2011, up from 71% for fiscal year 2011, and 53%
for fiscal year 2009. Customers served by Avaya and a partner team are more
satisfied than if Avaya alone had supported them. This expansion into Avaya’s
indirect channel favorably impacted Avaya’s financial results by reducing
selling expenses, allowing Avaya to reach more end users and to grow their
business.
With these fundamental changes in place, it is not surprising that Joel Hackney
and the Avaya Global Sales Team was able to reverse its downward revenue
pattern, and has now had a year of profitable growth.
List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:
Joel Hackney is the Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, and
President, Field Operations. Avaya is a leading global provider of business
communications applications, systems and services.
In his role, Hackney leads global sales as well as field marketing, an alignment
of resources to drive demand and serve customers with excellence.
Hackney has a passion for developing future business leaders and currently
serves on the board of directors for INROADS, whose mission is to develop and
place talented minority youth in business and industry.
Hackney holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of North
Carolina.