Latest News and Events

January 2023

Avaya, Five9 and RingCentral Named as Leaders in Aragon Report

Aragon Research has just named Avaya, Five9 and RingCentral as leaders in its inaugural report for Conversational AI (CAI) in the Intelligent Contact Centre (ICC). 

Conversational AI is one of - if not -  the biggest talking points around contact centre innovation right now. Its not that surprising considering the potential cost savings and improvements to customer service that can take place when properly implemented. Avaya, Five9 and RingCentral’s recognition is another indication of their leadership and continued innovation in the contact centre market. 

Aragon’s Research Globe is a market evaluation tool that depicts Aragon Research’s evaluation of a given market and its leading component vendors. Of the 7 vendors named in the leaders Quadrant, West Pier Telecom is a business partner with 3 of those (Avaya, Five9 and RingCentral). We believe this reinforces the notion that we only work with best-in-class providers. 

December 2022

RingCentral and 8x8 named as Leaders in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant for UCaaS

RingCentral and 8x8 have recently been named as leaders in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Unified Communications as a Service Report. The Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ is the IT and communication industry’s most respected report for determining the most trusted and best solutions on the market. Ring Central’s inclusion marks the 7th year in a row where they have been named a leader, and 8x8’s inclusion makes it the 10th.

There are only five vendors that have been named as leaders in the 2022 Magic Quadrant so we are delighted to be partners with two of them. The recent news is a testament to our commitment in offering the very best solutions on the market, keeping our customers’ businesses running smoothly despite the recent changes in employee and customer behaviour. 
 

October 2022

8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams Surpasses 100,000 Users

We were delighted to hear that one of our main business partners, 8x8, has recently hit a huge milestone in their efforts to lead the way in providing enterprise telephony integration with Microsoft Teams. The coronavirus Pandemic has seen many organisations adopting Microsoft Teams as their primary collaboration solution. This adoption has largely been driven by the necessity of homeworking. Whilst Teams was a good option for many organisations in the short term, the solution did not provide the reliable enterprise grade telephony, messaging, and video features that many organisations require. 

8x8 have been continuously developing and evolving their efforts to integrate seamlessly with Teams for a number of years, allowing users to gain use 8x8’s premium messaging, video and cloud phone directly from within their Teams user interface.

August 2022

8x8 named a challenger in the new 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ For Contact Centre As A Service

8x8 has once again been named a Challenger in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service. This is the seventh consecutive year 8x8 has been recognised in this report. In addition to this accolade, 8x8 has also been recognised as leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service for the last 9 years, making it the only vendor to consistently appear in both reports.

“We believe being recognised in the Magic Quadrant absolutely validates our commitment to the four pillars of great customer service,” said Dave Sipes, Chief Executive Officer at 8x8, Inc. “What’s more, it showcases the value of our single platform, and our ability to uniquely address enterprise contact center and unified communications requirements to power all employees globally.”

Gartner’s recognition follows on from the great news we had in July regarding our Five9 contact centre solution and Aragon Research’s announcement (see below new item).

July 2022

Aragon Research Globe names Five9 as a leader for the fourth Consecutive Year

At West Pier Telecom, we pride ourselves on our portfolio of industry leading communications solutions. That is why we were delighted to learn that today Five9 announced that it has been named a Leader in the 2022 Aragon Research Globe for Intelligent Contact Centres. This recognition marks the fourth consecutive year Five9 has achieved a leadership position in the report.

The Aragon Research Globe for Intelligent Contact Centres (ICCs) evaluated 15 contact centre providers based on three dimensions: strategy, performance, and reach. The report notes that providers positioned as Leaders have comprehensive strategies that align with industry direction and market demand, and effectively perform against those strategies. Aragon Research analysts positioned Five9 higher than any other vendor on the Strategy scale, listing as strengths its cloud offering, inbound and outbound focus, and omnichannel features, among others.

When selecting to work with Five9, we were sure that their solution offered a premium omnichannel experience. Five9s latest accolade is just the latest in a long line of industry awards.

May 2022

West Pier Telecom and 8x8 Partnership

West Pier have recently become an official 8x8 partner and will be selling the vendors industry leading unified communications products and services. 8x8 integrates voice, chat, video, contact centre and enterprise-class API solutions on to a secure and highly reliable platform.

The vendor has been recognised as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant in consecutive years - making it the second unified communications provider (in addition to Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral) in the West Pier portfolio to have done so. West Pier are delighted to have 8x8 on board and look forward to providing many businesses with their world class communications solutions.

March 2022

RingCentral recognised as a Leader in two IDC MarketScape reports

RingCentral has added 2 more accolades to their name by being named as a leader in 2 IDC MarketScape reports for UCaaS. The UCaaS specialist picked up the title in both the SMB and Enterprise market segments that focus on organisations with fewer and greater that 1000 employees, respectively.

You can review the new IDC MarketScape reports here:

• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide UCaaS Service Providers for Enterprise 2021 Vendor Assessment
• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide UCaaS Service Providers for SMB 2021 Vendor Assessment

The latest announcement from the IDC is the latest in a long list of industry recognition and praise that has been received by RingCentral, including leadership in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for UCaasS 6 years in a row. This success does not come easy and is evidence of RingCentral commitment to staying at the forefront of technological innovation in the UCaaS space.
 

February 2022

Another Successful ACO Webinar

West Pier have recently co-hosted another successful webinar/online demonstration with Avaya. The webinar took place towards the end of January and saw businesses from around the UK attend, including some international enterprises. 
The webinar was intended to demonstrate the award-winning Avaya Cloud Office unified communications solution. The feedback from the demonstration was positive and several attendees have been quoted. Many thanks to Ash Gavin from Avaya for joining us again and presenting his section of the webinar.  If you are interested in joining us on our next webinar, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
 

January 2021

West Pier wins 250 seat Avaya Cloud Office contract

Sapphire Systems - a worldwide IT support specialist for SAP & ServiceNow – has recently chosen West Pier to provide their new unified communications solution. Following on from a successful Avaya Cloud Office (ACO) demonstration, Sapphire decided that ACO best catered to their complex needs and chose West Pier to supply and support the solution. The solution highlights include:
 

• ACO solution with 250 users including 41 global licenses across multiple sites around the world. They include: The Shard, The Chrysler Building (NYC), Australia, India, Manilla, Manchester, Guadalajara, LA, Irvine USA, Cordoba (Mexico), Houston and Chicago.
• 5 highly featured bridge operator consoles.
• API integration with ServiceNow.
• West Pier help desk for support calls (24-7, 365 days a year).

December 2020

Five9 wins Aragon Research Innovation Award 3 years running

West Pier were delighted to hear that one of our technology partners – Five9 Contact Centres – has yet again being recognised with a well-respected and sought-after industry award. The recent announcement means that Five9 has now won the award 3 years running.

The Aragon Innovation Award seeks to formally recognise technology providers that leverage a visionary use of technology not only to adapt to changing markets, but to actively disrupt and inform how their markets will evolve. The award was presented to Five9 during Aragon’s virtual awards ceremony on the 3^rd December 2020.

We were delighted to hear that Five9 had again been recognised by Aragon as it highlights the firm’s commitment to innovation and is yet another accolade picked up by one of technology partners.
 

November 2020

Avaya Spaces makes Gartner’s Magic Quadrant less than a year after its introduction

Gartner – a leading and well-respected industry analyst and IT consultancy firm– has recently appointed Avaya Spaces to its 2020 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions. This is a huge achievement for any solution but the fact that Avaya Spaces was only launched in 2020 makes the accomplishment even more impressive.

Avaya spaces is Avaya's cloud-based collaboration tool that has been designed to increase productivity and ease collaboration in the modern office. Spaces combines your online meeting tool with video conferencing, voice, messaging, file sharing and more.

Simon Harrison, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Avaya had this to say following the announcement: “Customers and employees need the right tools to elevate their work-from-anywhere experience, as well as a fundamental shift in thinking when it comes to using those tools - moving away from the idea of ‘just’ video meetings to collaborative, cloud-based work spaces. Avaya Spaces enables businesses to excel at the usual day-to-day tasks, but also the unplanned and new-priority work that arrives nearly every moment of every day. For Avaya, being named in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions once again is indicative of the progress we continue to make in customer-led innovation.”

September 2020

Another feather in the cap for Avaya

The leading association for today's technology and services organisations, TSIA,  has recognised Avaya for their innovation, adding yet another accolade to Avaya’s portfolio. Avaya picked up the award for Innovation in Migrating to Selling Subscription Offers. As with all recipients of the STAR award – Avaya underwent a vigorous evaluation process before finally being selected by TSIA’s research practice advisory board members. Since its inception in 1990 - the TSIA STAR awards has been a much after sought after prize for just about every technology company that is eligible. 

August 2020

Five9 recognised yet again for its leadership in the Cloud Contact Centre space

Leading global research firm, Omida, recently announced that Five9 has been recognised again as a leader in their Multichannel Cloud Contact Centre Decision Matrix, 2020-21.

Omida evaluated 9 vendors to form its Matrix. Five9 performed exceptionally well in the technology and execution categories whilst customers gave top marks for usability, professional services, deployment time, security, and administration. This announcement comes off the back of Garner announcing Five9 as a leader in their Contact Centre as a Service matrix.

Ken Landoline, Principal Analyst (Customer Engagement) at Omdia - had this to say about Five9, “Five9 has one of the longest legacies in the cloud contact center market, and has made great strides in technology and execution in the last three years”.

“We are honored to be recognized as a leader in the Omdia Decision Matrix,” said Ryan Kam, CMO, Five9.

At West Pier, we were delighted by Omida’s announcement, as we pride ourselves on selling the best technology available. Our RingCentral, Avaya and Five9 cloud solutions have all been recognised as a leader by Gartner.
 

July 2020

Avaya Launch Avaya Cloud Office

Telephony and UCaaS leaders, Avaya Inc have recently launched their flagship cloud offering.

Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral is a modern and feature rich UCaaS solution with a feature rich and reliable PBX phone system. Avaya Cloud Office lets you communicate through multiple channels from any location, without having to leave the Cloud Office interface.

Visit our Avaya Cloud Office page for more details.
 

June 2020

RingCentral Teams Integration

Unified Communications and telephony specialist - RingCentral - announces new Microsoft Teams Integration.

Gartner leaders, Regental have invested heavily in Microsoft Teams Integration – and its set to pay off. 

The new integration allows has many options for users – one of the most chosen is the ability to use RingCentral for video and voice from within the Teams User Interface, allowing for employees to get the voice and video quality you would expect from a Gatrtner Magic Gartner leader. 

You can watch our RingCerntral homeworking webinar (with MS Teams integration) here.

In addition, they will also then have access to RingCentral telephony features, as well as their reporting and analytics.

This teams integration is also available on the soon to launch, Avaya Cloud Office platform, more info here.

May 2020

Our UCaaS homeworking webinar was a smash hit

We were delighted to host our first homeworking webinar with our UCaaS partner, RingCentral.

The webinar had a specific focus on cloud communications and how they can help businesses thrive during the lock-down. The webinar is a collaboration between RingCentral and West Pier Telecom. If you are interested in Microsoft Teams integration, then this webinar is for you as it goes in to depth regarding RingCentral and MS Teams integration.

RingCentral is the #1 cloud phone system used by over 350,000 businesses and recognised as a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader.

You can watch our latest webinar hosted in July here or by clicking the thumbnail below.


 

April 2020

Five9 Contact Centres Launch FastTrack Program Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

One of our technology partners, Five9, today announced the launch of the Five9 FastTrack Program to help enterprises quickly transition to a safe and reliable work from home contact center solution as COVID-19 continues to push businesses to a remote work model.
 
“Five9 is proud to launch our Five9 FastTrack program to deliver unwavering support to businesses, their customers and their employees,” said Dan Burkland, Five9 President. “Our sales and services teams are committed to rapidly deploying contact center agents to the cloud with our all-in-one work from home solution – allowing people to keep working, stay connected and be safe.”
 
With the Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center, enterprises are prepared to meet service level agreements and allow core business functions to operate efficiently while protecting the health and well-being of their customer support teams.
 
The Five9 FastTrack Program offers:
 
 

• Rapid remote implementation and deployment in as little as 48 hours.

• Affordable monthly pricing on monthly reoccurring charges and license fees.

• Flexible contracts allowing for expedited ramp up and ability to scale back down to normal levels without contract changes.

• Seamless Zoom Phone integration.

 
“Five9 gives us control and the ability to communicate with customers no matter where the agent might sit,” said Rebecca Arwood, Director of Customer Service at Under Armour.
 
Existing Five9 customers were able to easily move to a work from home model. Five9 has already assisted tens of thousands of agents in their transition to remote work and  will continue to deliver uninterrupted service to their customers during these trying times.
 
If you are interested in the Five9 Fast Track Program, them please give us a call. 0344 264 5522.
 

March 2020

Avaya are supporting healthcare organisations across the globe in the fight against Coronavirus and Covid-19

Healthcare has always been a massive priority for Avaya. Evidence of this can be found in the number of healthcare firms that choose Avaya as their communications solution. Avaya works with 80% of the Health and Life Sciences Fortune 500 Companies. In addition to this - 12 of the top 20 U.S. hospitals rely on Avaya communications solutions. 

As the Coronavirus crisis has unfolded, Avaya have been working flat out to support healthcare systems and providers across the world. An example of this is how Avaya has been working side by side with numerous healthcare agencies across the USA to get pop up contact centres up and running – in record time. 

In addition to working directly with national and global health bodies, Avaya has also made much of its licencing free, in particular - home working licences and Avaya spaces – which is Avaya’s flagship unified communications product.

The free software Avaya is providing for healthcare organisations includes:

Complementary homeworker licences during the Covid-19 crisis*

In addition to Spaces, Avaya are also offering telephony and contact centre home worker licences at no cost for 3 months.* This covers homeworkers on the following Avaya platforms: Avaya Aura, Avaya IP Office, Avaya CS1000, Avaya Call Center Elite, Avaya Oceana Solution, Avaya Aura Contact Center, Avaya Contact Center Select.

Avaya Spaces™ for Education and Non-profit*

Through August 31st, 2020, Avaya is providing the business edition of Avaya Spaces™ to educational and eligible non-profit organisations worldwide at no cost.

Avaya Spaces™ for Regular Businesses*

Avaya is providing the business edition of Avaya Spaces™ to organisations worldwide at no charge for a 60-day period.

Complementary homeworker licences during the Covid-19 crisis*

In addition to Spaces, Avaya are also offering telephony and contact centre home worker licences at no cost for 3 months.* This covers homeworkers on the following Avaya platforms: Avaya Aura, Avaya IP Office, Avaya CS1000, Avaya Call Center Elite, Avaya Oceana Solution, Avaya Aura Contact Center, Avaya Contact Center Select.

*Terms and conditions apply
 

February 2020

Avaya appointment is clear evidence of the firm’s commitment to cloud based unified communications

Unified Communications leader Avaya has hired Telecoms veteran – Jon Briton as their channel chief (for North America). The reason this appointment has got so many in the channel talking is because of Briton’s previous role. Until recently Briton served as President of Mitel's cloud division, and over the course of 11 years oversaw the business segment from its inception through expansion to a global market share leader in the UCaaS space. Avaya have (for many years now) been shifting their business model towards the cloud based UCaaS space. This appointment will no doubt fill Avaya users and shareholders with confidence.
 

January 2020

Five9s to speak at 22nd Annual Needham Growth Conference

It has just been announced that Five9 – a leading provider of cloud contact centre solutions – will once again speak at this year’s annual Needham Growth Conference. This is the second year in a row that the technology company has been asked to present at the conference - a sure signal to the market that the Five9 product portfolio is performing well.

Five9 Inc’s (NASDAQ:FIVN) share price has grown by a massive 1477% in the last 5 years, with the companies revenue growing 22% per year over the same period. The Five9s success story, has been in part, down to the growth of the Contact-Centre-as-a-Service (CCaaS) market, which has seen rapid growth as it eats into the traditional on-premise market. The solution has been ranked as a Gartner Leader in the CCaaS space for the last 2 years, a sure sign of its technological superiority. 

West Pier Telecom are one of just five Five9s partners in the UK. If you are interested in the solution, please get in touch as we would love to advise you on you contact centre options moving forward. 

November 2019

We are now a Five9’s and RingCentral Partner

November 2019 is a very exciting month for us at West Pier Telecom, we have officially partnered with two industry leading vendors, expanding our portfolio to offer our customers some of the best technology available. Both vendors are Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders.

Five9’s is a cloud based omnichannel contact centre solution that offers a rich feature set and a high degree of flexibility. No big investment required, you just pay a low monthly subscription.

RingCentral are the #1 cloud PBX/ VoIP communications provider worldwide offering an award-winning cloud phone system. Centralise your billing and get the unified communications package you want by adding on the services you feel you need.
 

October 2019

Avaya-RingCentral Partnership

Avaya and RingCentral, two industry leaders in the Telephony, Unified Communications and Contact Centre spaces, have announced an exciting strategic partnership that looks set to strengthen the position of both companies. West Pier Telecom are an Avaya and RingCentral partner, and will be well suited to provide the new solution later this year.

The communications industry has seen a massive shift towards Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) in recent years and the Avaya and RingCental announcement looks set to harness the strengths of both companies in order to gain more market share.

Every credible study to come out in recent years has shown that more and more businesses are relying on UCaaS. Similar studies have shown that businesses that operate a Contact Centre are increasingly relying on cloud-based solutions over on-premise ones. It is for these reasons that the Partnership makes a lot of sense and looks set to shake up the market, offering a product engineered by two industry leaders.

West Pier Telecom were very excited when we heard the announcement. If you have any questions about the partnership please feel free to give us a call and we will be happy to answer any questions, together with any opportunities that you may have.
 

September 2019

Dorset Police Force 999 control room goes live

After a lot of detailed planning and testing, we are delighted to announce that the Dorset Police Control Room implemented by West Pier Telecom using virtualised Avaya technology has recently gone live. The control room which receives emergency calls from across the county is a modern multichannel contact centre. Resilience and failover contingencies are of the upmost importance to the emergency services so selecting a trustworthy partner is vital. West Pier Telecom were chosen as the Avaya specialist based on our customer portfolio, engineering credentials and recommendation by Avaya.

June 2019

West Pier Telecom wins 3-year telephony maintenance contract for local Council

We are delighted to announce that we have recently been awarded the telephony maintenance and support contract for a local council who due to confidentiality reasons cannot be named. West Pier were initially awarded a 12-month contract in 2018 as the council were unhappy with their existing suppliers’ performance.  After 12 months with West Pier, the council was obliged to put their new 3-year contract out to tender. After evaluating several competitive bids West Pier were awarded this prestigious contract.

 

May 2019

West Pier reaches 50% milestone for Avaya IP Office pre version 10 software end-of-sale upgrades

Earlier this year Avaya announced that it was ending the support and sale of IP Office Telephone Systems running pre 10 software. The announcement had potential significant licensing hard hardware implications for most IP Office users. West Pier were quick to act on this announcement and we contacted our customers running pre 10 software and explained their options to them (including the Avaya led upgrade offer on a R11 upgrade licence). West Pier are delighted to have recently upgraded 50% of thier IP Office customer base to Release 11. West Pier have extensive knowledge and experience of upgrading IP Office systems and of R11 software as a number of clients already use release 11 in on premise and cloud-based solutions.  These clients now have peace of mind that their system is fully supported they can purchase licences to add capacity and have access to the new release 11 features including Avaya’s Equinox Unified Communications application.

 

 

March 2019

Avaya ends sale and support of IP Office pre-R10 licences

Avaya has put out an urgent announcement stating that they are ending sale and support of Avaya IP Office pre-R10 licences. West Pier can still support you though. Please contact us for details about how to get support.

Please click here for details: 

https://www.westpiertele.com/business_telephone_systems/avaya_ip_office/avaya-ip-office-end-of-sale-and-support-for-pre-R10-licences.asp.
 

West Pier Telecom sponsor and attend the APD Control Room Awards


The West Pier Telecom Team were delighted to attend the  APD Control Room Awards on the 7^th March 2019, to help celebrate the unsung heroes who serve the public hour after hour. WPT were  a sponsor of the awards and enjoyed an evening spent with control room operators from across the county representing ambulance, police and the fire services. Congratulations to all those who were recognised for going above what is normally expected of the emergency services!


 

November 2018

Gamma Horizon hosted network goes down

Hosted Telephony provider Gamma experienced massive issues across its telephony service last week starting on Wednesday the 14th November. From around 9.30 in the morning, Gamma Horizon customers were left without their telephony service which caused disruption to hundreds of business goes down accross the UK. The provider said that by midday it had identified the problem and would be rolling out patches to resume service as soon as they could.

 

August 2018

Adur and Worthing select West Pier to modernise cloud infrastructure

Adur and Worthing council have selected West Pier to upgrade 3 separate legacy telephone systems and the accompanying infrastructure. The Council’s technology strategy recognises the need for the organisation to adapt so it can thrive. To do so, it needs to make the best tools available to staff and be able to redesign and digitise ser-vices using flexible and reliable cloud-based technologies. Through 2018 an in-flight project will move the vast majority of on premise services to an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider. The Strategy focuses on digital services and shifting to cloud services. The development of digital services is expected to reduce the use of ‘traditional’ telephony as a route for contacting the Councils in the future. Telephony is however, currently the primary contact method and is deemed high priority.

July 2018

Upgrade of telephone system for a leading taxi firm

West Pier are happy to announce the winning of a contract for a firm that is the leader of quality airport transfers in over 125 countries around the world. The contact itself is for the upgrade of legacy call centre and telephony system infrastructure including a transition to the cloud. Other services to be supplied by West Pier include:

•    A mobility app to help employees working on the road use a single number regardless of location and have full access to the corporate directory.
•    Call recordings to be made available to the whole company.
•    A high-speed internet service was deployed to improve inter-site connectivity.
•    The businesses ISDN phone lines were converted to resilient SIP with Call Manager which increased call handling ability and significantly reduced costs.

June 2018

Avaya expand video conferencing portfolio by entering the huddle room space

Avaya have just launched the Avaya CU-360 Collaboration Unit. The new conferencing product offers 1080p HD video with 4K video, at a £700 pricepoint. The Avaya CU-360 offers fantastic value for money as premium features like those offered by the CU-360 are normally a lot more expensive. At the back end of last year Avaya released a web conferencing (pay-as-you-go) service called Avaya Equinox Meetings Online. Avaya now have a VC portfolio that caters to businesses of all sizes whether they are looking for a software or hardware based solution.

May 2018

Avaya hosts partners to launch exciting NEW endpoints and their Equinox

Members of the West Pier Telecom team recently spent 2 days at Avaya’s UK Headquarters in Guilford. They were there for a 2 day event where the telecoms giant was launching their new J100 series of handsets and the Avaya Vantage device. We are excited to see the new opportunities these products bring to Avaya partners like ourselves and we were also pleased with the demonstrations where these devices were shown to be working with Avaya’s Equinox Client. It was impressive stuff and evidence Avaya are really committed to leading the UC market. 

March 2018

West Pier ships 300 handsets around the world off the back of hosted Avaya deal

WPT said goodbye to over 300 Avaya 9608G handsets yesterday as they were sent to offices across the world on behalf of a leading global provider of accountancy and ERP software. West Pier are just 1 of 8 Avaya partners approved to sell hosted Avaya solutions direct to the UK market so we are delighted to be successful in supplying a hosted Avaya telephone solution to a large global business yet again. The relationship between West Pier and our latest hosted customer began when they registered for one of our quarterly hosted telephony events held in conjunction with Avaya at Tower 42 in London. If you are interested in attending one of these demonstrations/learning events then please get in touch with us to register. We also hold similar events in Manchester for any business based in the north that are interested in Avaya.

January 2018

Avaya rings bell to mark listing on the New York Stock Exchange

Avaya Holdings Corp has followed up on the successful rebalancing of its finances with a ceremonial ringing of the bell at the NYSE. The leading communications provider appears to be going from strength to strength following a series of innovative technology launches.
 
Jim Chirico, president and chief executive officer of Avaya released the following statement. “Building upon our history of innovation and expertise in deploying globally scalable solutions, Avaya sits today at the strategic nexus of connectivity for the enterprise—with more than 130,000 customers in 220,000 locations worldwide, 90% plus of the Fortune 100, and more than 100 million users”.
 
Avaya has a range of opportunities ahead of it, many of which relate it it's cloud strategy. Only 10% of its contact centre customers have currently transitioned to cloud and West Pier Telecom are proud to be 1 of 8 select partners approved to sell hosted Avaya telephone systems and contact cenrtre solutions direct to the UK market.

October 2017

West Pier Telecom and Avaya host another successful Event

West Pier have recently held a demonstration breakfast in conjunction with Avaya at their city centre office in Tower 42. The session was attended by 10 UK businesses who were invited to the session by West Pier Telecom as they had expressed an interest in our Hosted Avaya IP Office platform known as Stratus. WPT are 1 of just 8 select partners approved to sell hosted Avaya IP Office direct to the UK market which is a sign our our technical expertise with regards to the Avaya IP Office. Speakers included Garry Bloomfield (Managing Director at West Pier Telecom) and James Turner (Mid-Market Account Manager at Avaya). We will be holding our next Stratus event in January so please get in touch to register.

July 2017

Prestigious Private School chooses West Pier for telephony upgrade

West Pier has been contracted to install an Ericsson-LG  iPECS telephone system at a prestigious school. The solution will provide the school with a full IP system with investment protection from the 5 year software support contract. The system has over 100 extensions with phones ranging from the top of the range touch screen LIP-9071 handset to the basic LIP-9002. All important feature enhancements to the system that the school found crucial or important were voicemail to email, paging and increased DDIs for all teachers. The implementation of SIP helped the school significantly cut monthly telephone bills.

June 2017

West Pier officially has its very own Rocky

West Pier Telecom were delighted to sponsor our very own Phillip Du Bois (AKA Phidy Da Vibezy Bee) in a charity boxing match.  Phil raised over £400 in total for Cancer Research in a thrilling bout at Brighton’s Grand Hotel. Unfortunately, Phil lost the fight 2 rounds to 1 however he finished strong against a much larger opponent and after a close middle round Phil went on to dominate in the 3^rd. Well done to Phil for raising so much money for Cancer Research and thrilling us all in the process.
 

April 2017

West Pier hosts another successful telephony event

The prestigious Tower 42 played host to our latest cloud telephony event on Tuesday 25^th April 2017. Speakers from West Pier Telecom as well as Avaya hosted a morning of pastries, coffee and learning. The event focused on the benefits of choosing a West Pier hosted telephony platform powered by Avaya and feedback was positive with guests praising the event. If you are considering reviewing your communications or are interested in our next event then please get in touch. We offer on-premise and hosted solutions from a variety of vendors.
 

March 2017

West Pier secures big telephone upgrade with southern based nursing and care home provider

A nursing and care home provider with 600 extensions across multiple sites decided that it would trust West Pier to be its provider of telephony and networking services. The work currently being carried out includes connecting 240 analogue phone lines to door entry systems for separate apartments as well as the installation of multiple phone systems, one of which is bespoke to the companies specific security and networking requirements. West Pier supplied Spectralink 8840 handsets that were connected over the customers wi-fi allowing integration to the nurse call system and allowing staff to use their handsets anywhere on site. The customer is also being upgraded to SIP which will cut costs and improve business continuity.
 

February 2017

Sussex based solicitors with 5 sites chooses West Pier to upgrade its legacy Samsung telephone systems

A respected solicitors based in Sussex with 100 phone extensions spread across 5 sites was looking to upgrade their legacy Samsung telephony infrastructure as well as improve business continuity, mobile working, reduce costs and improve inter-site connectivity. The solicitors chose to work with West Pier Telecom and their proposal. The solicitors had an Avaya IP  phone system installed allowing for free calls between their 5 sites. A mixture of Office Worker and Power User licenses and One-X Mobile allowed staff to work from any location as well as having access to soft phones. The solicitors were moved on to SIP which lowered call costs and a new high speed MPLS network was deployed to improve inter-site connectivity.
 

January 2017

West Pier is hosting the Avaya Stratus Event 2017 at Tower 42 in London

West Pier is hosting the prestigious Avaya Stratus Event 2017 at Tower 42 in London on Thursday 19th January 2017.  Please click here for more information and to register. All attendees are welcome.

November 2016

West Pier Awarded Sapphire Status

West Pier has been awarded Sapphire partner status by the global communications giant, Avaya. This recognition complements the Partner in Customer Excellence accreditation already awarded to West Pier, who are one of only 4 Avaya partners to have been awarded the customer service related accreditation.

The Sapphire status in Avaya’s Edge partner program is further evidence of West Pier’s strong relationship with Avaya and our expertise in supplying Avaya technology.

July 2016

Scotland based mailing house upgrades its legacy Panasonic phone system with Avaya

A mailing house based in a major Scottish city has chosen WPT to upgrade its legacy Panasonic phone system with an Avaya IP Office 500. The mailing house has upgraded the site in Scotland and has future plans to upgrade their Northern Ireland office telephone system to an Avaya IP Office 500, and then link the 2 systems. In addition to the advanced features of the Avaya IP Office, the customer was also able to take advantage of SIP trunking to cut costs. SIP Trunks cut line rental by 50 and can reduce call costs by up to 80%.
 

June 2016

Global engineering firm chooses West Pier to unify its telecoms infrastructure

A world renowned engineering firm with sites and assets across the globe has selected West Pier to unify its telecommunications network, centralise/rationalise its SIP lines and take over the maintenance and support of its telephone systems. West Pier will initially be responsible for 10 sites (6 in the UK), with more being added in the future. West Pier has been tasked with connecting the for mentioned telephone systems on to a single virtualised network. The firm have also had their SIP centralised and rationalised resulting in significant cuts in expenditure.

May 2016

West Pier Telecom upgrade communications infrastructure for leading Autodesk partner

WPT has won a deal to upgrade the communications infrastructure for a leading Autodesk Partner who specialises in design and management technologies as well as project training, consultancy, business integration and professional services. Services provided include replacing the 7 existing on premise IP Office 500 telephone systems with an IP Office Server Edition hosted in the private cloud, upgrading ISDN phone lines to SIP and providing Xima for call reporting and recording. In partnership with Exponential-e, West Pier are also providing a new WAN with a direct connection to Microsoft Azure Services. The solutions and services provided by WPT will significantly reduce costs, whilst standardising the telephony, internet and ERP speed and connectivity for all users across (including remote workers) all 7 sites.

April 2016

Multinational work-space specialists award West Pier Telecoms contract

Multinational workspace specialists award West Pier Telecoms contract
 
West Pier Telecom has won the right to upgrade the telecoms system in the London office of a global workspace firm that has 15 offices spread across Europe, Asia and North America. The firm have agreed to replace the existing Cisco phones with the renowned Avaya IP Office 500 telephone system. This change will take place in their London office which has 55 users, WPT are currently bidding to carry out further upgrades in the firms Singapore office which will be necessary as they look to go forward with their Avaya Live Connect initiative which will increase communications capabilities and cut call costs.
 

Sussex based college chooses WPT to supply

A community college in Sussex catering to 11 to 19 year olds has chosen WPT to install and supply a new (SIP enabled) telephone system and broadband services. The college is replacing its end of life Nortel system with a modern Avaya solution whilst adding 56 users to the existing network in order to meet new legislative requirements. This educational institution had no budget for this upgrade however they were able to justify the spend based on the expecting savings brought about SIP and broadband efficiencies.

Nationwide charity selects WPT to unify its communications at Coventry sites

A recognisable UK based charity has selected West Pier to move its existing Coventry based telecoms networks on to a single unified platform.  The existing infrastructure is spread across 3 sites and consists of an Avaya IP Office, a Panasonic PBX Phone system and a 3rd system that is part of the rental agreement with the landlord. The new infrastructure will have more extensions and be duplicated across 2 sites with both sites communications networks fully integrated for a seamless user experience regardless of location.  The charity’s new Avaya IP Office 500 will provide SIP Trunking and Avaya one-X® Communicator all of which improve productivity and decrease costs.

March 2016

World`s largest gaming center bets on world class engagement solutions from Avaya

Four out of six casino operators in Macau deploy Avaya solutions to provide first-class guest services, improve operations, and reduce costs.

Macau – Casino operators in Macau, the world’s largest gaming center, face unprecedented challenges to create the unparalleled guest experience their clientele expects. In a bid to modernize their services to deliver the consummate experience, produce new revenue streams, and enhance operational efficiency, four out of the six casino operators in Macau are tapping Avaya, a global leader in business communications software, systems and services, to drive their digital transformation strategies.

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West Pier signs telephony support contract with international Michelin Star restaurant chain

West Pier Telecom’s dealer support team has recently won a contract to provide telecoms support and maintenance for a leading high end Michelin star restaurant group. WPT service team now work with the customers IT provider and are responsible for managing and resolving any telecommunications issues on the customer’s Avaya IP Office server Edition telephone system. WPT are proud to add this established and reputable customer to the list of businesses who trust us to support their telecoms infrastructure.
 

February 2016

Avaya receives Omega`s prestigious NorthFace ScoreBoard Award for the third consecutive year

Santa Clara, Calif.  – February 18, 2016 – Avaya announced today it has received the NorthFace ScoreBoard AwardSM from Omega Management Group Corp. in recognition of achieving excellence in customer service and support in 2015.  Since 2000, the award has been presented annually to companies that, as rated solely by their own customers, exceeded expectations in customer satisfaction during the prior calendar year. Omega is an expert in customer experience management (CEM) strategy and helps companies boost revenue and profits by consistently exceeding customer expectations for service quality. 

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January 2016

West Pier wins major deal with London Housing Association

WPT has won a contract to supply and install a new SIP enabled telephony solution for a Housing Association in London. The client was an existing Avaya Communication Manager user with 200 endpoints in a single site using ISDN for network services. The new solution based on the Avaya IP Office Select Solution will support 230 users across 28 sites and use SIP for network services. The decision to upgrade their existing Avaya solution with the Avaya IP Office Select Edition meant the customer could retain their existing handsets which did not need replacing. These savings allowed the customer to invest in applications such as Softphones, One-X mobile, Avaya Contact Centre Select multimedia contact centre software, Xima call management and voice recording, DECT handsets, integration with Skype for business and Microsoft Dynamics. Upgrading to the Avaya IP Office Select Solution has also allowed the customer to cost effectively switch their existing ISDN lines to SIP.

West Pier launches new website

West Pier has designed and created a completely new website in-house. The objective was to make the new site "cleaner", simpler, more interactive for visitors, and to make it easier to find solutions. The text content is completely new and re-written and much more informative. The website is always changing so please check back regularly.

December 2015

Global engineering firm awards West Pier Telecoms contract

A global engineering firm has selected West Pier Telecom to replace its existing 1,200 extension Mitel SX-2000 with a SIP enabled Avaya Aura Communication Manager running on a Cisco LAN. Other products enhancing the solution supplied by West Pier Telecom are the Avaya Aura Session Manager supporting SIP services, Avaya Aura System Manager allowing increased control over resources and administration, DECT R4 solution which enables seamless feature rich mobile experience across the 20 acre site and VM Ware enabling the running of core software in a virtualised environment.

TECHNOLOGY - Avaya Awarded 2015 Technology Partner of the Year by Axis Communications

Santa Clara, Calif. - December 15, 2015 - Avaya, a global leader in business communications software, systems and services, was named 2015 Technology Partner of the Year by Axis Communications at its 10th annual Axis Connect & Converge Conference (ACCC) held in San Antonio, Texas. Axis, the global leader in network video, presented these annual awards to top channel, software and technology partners. Avaya received this honour for its exemplary success and loyalty, delivering innovative solutions to meet customer needs.

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November 2015

INNOVATION - Avaya Named a Top Bay Area Innovator by Thomson Reuters

Avaya continues to celebrate its Silicon Valley presence as Thomson Reuters names Avaya to its inaugural list of Top San Francisco Bay Area Innovators.

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October 2015

GARTNER - Recognized in 2015 Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure Report

Santa Clara, Calif. - October 20, 2015 - Avaya has announced that it has been recognized by Gartner with the third highest product scores in two use cases out of six in the September 2015 Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure Report. Avaya scored 3.64 out of 5 in the Enterprise Unified Wired and WLAN Access Use Case category and 3.62 out of 5 in the SMB and/or Mall or Remote Branch Office Use Case category.

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INNOVATION - Avaya Wins TechTarget`s Network Innovation Award

Santa Clara, Calif., October 29, 2015 - Avaya announced it has been named the winner of the Fall 2015 Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) STAR Award for Best Practices in the Delivery of Customer Success & Support, Enterprise Level. The award was announced on October 21 at the Technology Services World (TSW) 2015 Service Transformations conference in Las Vegas.

The TSIA STAR Award for Best Practices in the Delivery of Customer Success & Support recognizes the company that embraces best practices in people, process, and technology to increase agent productivity, service levels, or customer satisfaction; increase problem avoidance; or effectively handle more interactions using unassisted channels.

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September 2015

INNOVATION - Avaya Garners Fifth Thomas Edison Patent Award for Innovation from the R&D Council of New Jersey

Santa Clara, Calif. - September 17, 2015 - Avaya today announced that it has won the 2015 Thomas Edison Patent Award for information technology from the R&D Council of NJ. The award is being given for work completed by four engineers at Avaya Labs in Basking Ridge, NJ, which enables workers to easily and quickly access enterprise conference calls in a manner that can increase productivity, mobility and safety.

Avaya`s 2015 winning patent for "A System and Method for Joining Conference Calls (U.S. Patent 8,483,375)" was developed by Venkatesh Krishnaswamy, Krishna Kishore Dhara, Xiaotao Wu, and Eunsoo Shim. The team will be honored at the 36th Patent Award Ceremony & Reception, which will take place at the Liberty Science Center, appearing in a tribute film discussing their invention, the impact it has had on the market and the inspiration that drove their careers.

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August 2015

West Pier Telecom develop and launch industry leading help desk portal

As of August 2015, customers who have a support and maintenance contracts with West Pier Telecom have the option of reporting a fault or raising a query on our new industry leading portal developed in-house. Our new portal is easy to use and intuitive and fully integrates with our own in-house developed CRM system. Customers simply log their fault, query or other issue and our team is instantly notified. Customers can of course still contact us via phone or email but our new portal allows them to receive automatic updates and query progresses of faults. Future developments for the portal will encompass sales, pricing and technical queries, and when the customer is in the portal technical information including handset user guides and technical tips will be available.

GARTNER - Gartner 2015 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

Santa Clara, Calif. - August 19, 2015 - Avaya announced today that it has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications* for 2015. This is the seventh consecutive year that Avaya has been placed in the Leaders Quadrant and recognized as an industry leader in the unified communications (UC) and collaboration market. It is also the third Gartner Magic Quadrant report in 2015 in which Avaya has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant.

According to the Gartner report, "UC offers the ability to significantly improve how individuals, groups and companies interact and perform. The primary goal of all unified communications (UC) solutions is to improve user productivity and to enhance business processes as related to communications and collaboration. UC products integrate communications channels (media), and networks and systems, as well as IT business applications and, in some cases, consumer applications and devices." The report also cites six UC characteristics that will have an important effect on the success of a UC product and the satisfaction of users: User experience (UX); mobility; interoperability; cloud and hybrid, broad solution appeal and developer network.

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CLOUD - Avaya Receives 2015 Cloud Computing Excellence Award from TMC

Avaya was recognized by TMC for having effectively leveraged cloud computing in its efforts to bring new, differentiated offerings to the market through its Customer Engagement On Avaya Powered by Google Cloud Platform offering.

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June 2015

GARTNER - Gartner 2015 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide

Avaya named a leader by Gartner in 2015 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure.

This year sets a new benchmark for Avaya as the only vendor to be consistently positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure for 15 consecutive years, a position held since the report`s inception in 2001.

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May 2015

GARTNER - Gartner 2015 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsize Enterprises, North America

Avaya positioned as a Leader by Gartner in the first Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsize Enterprises

Avaya has been positioned as a Leader by Gartner in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications for Midsize Enterprises as measured by ability to execute and completeness of vision.

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April 2015

NETWORKING - Open Networking Adapter (ONA) from Avaya Named a Hottest Product at Interop 2015

Interop 2015 features products from networking, cloud, virtualisation and security vendors; names Open Networking Adapter from Avaya a Hottest Product at the show.

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March 2015

SERVICES - Avaya Receives NorthFace Scoreboard Award for Delivering World Class Customer Service

Avaya recognized by the Omega Corporation for the 3rd consecutive year for excellence in customer service.

The award is presented annually to those companies who are rated by their own customers as exceeding customer satisfaction. Companies who receive the award are rated at a 4.0 or better on a 5 point scale. The rating by Avaya`s own customers indicates that the improvements made in our Services model are on the right track, and the award demonstrates the value add of using Avaya services.

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