NSC signs up Avaya rival Genesys

Telecommunications specialist NSC has signed a deal with contact centre software vendor Genesys -- which competes in the Australian market against main NSC partner Avaya.

Craig Neil, managing director at NSC Group, confirmed that the integrator had signed a deal with Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories to resell and deploy that company's contact centre software.

“We can connect it to an NEC or Nortel or whatever switch. You don't need to have an Avaya infrastructure there, which was what we were limited to before,” he said.

However, Neil said that the Genesys deal would not change NSC's long-standing partnership with Avaya. The new relationship built on NSC's existing partnerships to allow the integrator to target a broader range of customers, he said.

“Interestingly enough, the collaboration of Genesys and Avaya was something our customers did have but they bought the Avaya from us and the Genesys from someone else,” Neil said. “There's some cross-over.”

He said Avaya sales had grown solidly this year. NSC had closed a couple of Genesys deals already and was looking forward to the greater opportunities the new partnership might bring in the new year. “We're locking arms and going hand-in-hand into battle,” he said.

Neil said Genesys focused more on the enterprise space, while Avaya was much more SMB-targeted. NSC-- which is divided into NSC Carrier Technology and NSC Enterprise Solutions -- would sell and deploy Genesys products using resources across the whole group.

NSC had already employed five more staff and would investigate deploying 10 to 20 more dedicated to the Genesys range next year as the products ramped up, he said.

“They have very good network applications as well, mainly in hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications,” Neil said.

The integrator would be looking at extending and developing further partner opportunities -– but with carriers and integrators rather than other vendors -– in the new year, Neil added.

James Brooks, managing director at Genesys Australia and New Zealand, said that NSC understood contact centre packages. “They are clearly a very professional organisation with a strong customer base,” Brooks said.