Reliance Communications, Avaya Ink Rs 500 Crore Deal: Report

New Delhi: Reliance Communications has signed a multi-million dollar deal with Avaya under which the technology solutions provider will transform the telecom major's existing call centre operations.

Though the companies declined to disclose the exact deal size, the transaction is believed to be in the range of Rs 450-500 crore, according to sources.

Sources also said that about 500 people have been moved to the payrolls of Avaya as part of the process.

With over 106 million subscribers, as of November 2014, Reliance Communications is the country's fourth largest telecom service provider, after Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.

Under the terms of the deal, Avaya will transform Reliance Communications' existing call centre operations to digitally-enable customer engagement. It will modernise tools, processes and best practices resulting in operational efficiencies by managing cost through consolidation.

New-age solutions and services include interactive voice response or IVR, seamless customer experience, workforce optimisation, payment gateway integration along with social media and analytics with an omni-channel approach.

"The objective is to provide an enhanced and consistent customer experience across all their customer touch points and help enhance the customer life-time value," Avaya global growth markets president Nidal Abu-Ltaif told PTI.

These mobile engagement environments, tailored to the needs of India, are set to accelerate the country's value-creation build up through effortless engagement between citizens and government, customers and businesses and citizens to citizens, he added.

Avaya has won the services contract to implement and manage the new call centre technology for the next five years, he said.

A large number of the solutions that Reliance Communications is investing in were developed in Avaya's R&D lab in India.

The firm has over 2,500 people in India, including sales. Avaya will also invest in long-term training and support of Reliance Communications' technical team and its call centre agents, protecting the company's workforce and upgrading their skills.

"We want our customers to be able to reach us via any channel (ACD, IVR, social media, chat, video) at any time, using any device, and avail a consistent experience in any urban or rural location," Reliance Communications chief executive-consumer business Gurdeep Singh said.