Study confirms Avaya’s leadership in providing solutions for growing Caribbean call center market

Miami, FL- Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, announced that a recent report by the Zagada Institute, an influential market research firm that focuses on the Caribbean predicts that Avaya will continue to be the preferred solutions provider for the growing number of companies choosing to establish or expand call center operations in the Caribbean.

According to Zagada Caribbean Call Center Report 2005, Avaya is growing faster in the region than its key competitors, as a result of its advanced communications solutions increasingly based on Internet Protocol (IP). This technology helps to reduce costs and delivers voice, data and video efficiently enabling agents to provide faster and enhanced customer service not only via telephone but also by email and chat.

Avaya is currently the leading provider of call center technology in the Caribbean with a 31 percent market share according to the most recent study by Frost & Sullivan. Among its customers are UNO in the Dominican Republic, El Dia Directo and Atento in Puerto Rico and e-Services Group in Jamaica.

Due to the Caribbean’s proximity to the United States and a well educated work force, many companies have opened inbound and outbound call centers in the region. According to the study from the Zagada Institute, from 2002 to 2004 the number of call centers in the Caribbean almost doubled. At the same time, the call center agent population increased at roughly the same rate, from 11,000 to 25,000 people.

This employment boom has added an additional US$ 1 billion in annual regional economic impact, which will increase sharply if, as projected, the number of agents reaches 50,000 by the end of 2006.

At the end of 2004, the Dominican Republic had the region’s greatest number of call centers at 27, followed by Puerto Rico, 20, and Jamaica, 16. When measured by agent population, Jamaica had the most agents with 8,000. The Dominican Republic had 6,670, and Puerto Rico tallied 4,000.

“We hope to use our position as the leading supplier of call center solutions in the Caribbean to help our customers make the transition to a new era of Intelligent Communications, which seamlessly connects communications applications and business applications, giving workers, customers and processes the ability to be linked to the right person, at the right time, by the right medium – voice, text and video – over any network,” said Carlos Triviño, acting managing director for Avaya in Venezuela, Ecuador, the Caribbean and Central America (VECCA).