Avaya to Export Sales System to Asia
After success domestically and in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, Avaya Inc. is hoping to export a streamlined sales system to Asia in 2003.
Overall, the $5 billion telecommunications giant has cut marketing costs by about 30% and reportedly pulled in at least $250 million of additional revenue through its automated lead-qualification system, B-to-B Refinery. First implemented in late 2000, the system also enabled the company to centralize its sales efforts, standardize direct mail copy and raise the response to its mailings.
Before the system’s installation, Avaya’s more than 20 departments would do their own marketing and maybe one out of 10 leads given to the sales force would be usable and possibly convert. Now that number has moved up to about one in three, said director of response marketing Tom Reid.
Not all is rosy, however, for the Basking Ridge, NJ firm, which split off from Lucent Technologies about two years ago. In late July, Avaya cut 2,500 jobs, according to news accounts. And as of March 31, the company reported a quarterly net loss of $39 million, compared with net income of $24 million last June 30, according to a 10-Q statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The firm spends more than $10 million each year on sales and marketing, including direct mail, online efforts and telemarketing, as well as a field sales force, said Reid. Avaya’s lead-generation mailings typically get response rates of around 2%, compared with some 1% or less before the system was in place.
Avaya’s average sale is $100,000 and the selling cycle runs for about a year. The firm makes voice messaging, call center, CRM and other networking systems, with prices ranging from a few thousand to several million dollars. Customers run the gamut from small mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 firms.
Avaya spent nearly $24 million on the Refinery system, said Dave Green, a partner in PipeAlign, a Woodenville, WA database company that developed Refinery along with Avaya and direct marketing agency Kern Direct of Woodland Hills, CA. The system allows Avaya to send out as many as 300,000 prospecting letters each month to current and potential customers. The letters promote solutions to business problems rather than individual products or services, and go to nearly 16 million companies. Refinery targets mailings to whether prospects are ready to buy right now or need to be nurtured, and in the process also dedupes and performs other list hygiene functions, noted Green.
The mailings invite recipients to register online at www.avaya.com/now. Some incentives for replying include a free
