Avaya Laying Off Roughly 180 People

A week after Avaya's freshly-appointed CEO Patrick Dennis said he would continue outgoing CEO Alan Masarak's vision of "innovation without disruption," the unified communications conglomerate is undergoing a restructuring that displaced roughly 180 Avaya employees, the firm confirmed on Wednesday.

Job losses span various departments, a source familiar with the matter told Channel Futures on Wednesday. The news of Avaya's recent round of layoffs comes just months after it held an analyst event where it shared with those in attendance, "Avaya successfully delivered on its revenue plan for the past five quarters (across fiscal year 2023 and Q1 fiscal year 2024) and is on track to exceed planned revenue for the first half of fiscal year 2024.”

The source shared that what is even more telling about the amount of Avaya employees laid off is that the workforce reduction impacted myriad business units, with at least one person from marketing impacted.

"The bulk of what I’ve seen to date has been a near elimination of pre-sales technical resources, many of whom were supporting the largest customers of Avaya (each of which typically spends multiple millions of dollars annually with Avaya and makes up the bulk of the topline revenue)," the person source added.

Related:New Avaya CEO to Continue 'Innovation Without Disruption'

Some of those impacted; according to our source, are now ex-Avaya employees who are said to have "consistently met or exceeded assigned quotas for nearly seven years without a single miss, and at the time of his layoff, he was exceeding his assigned quota."

Some Avaya insiders even took to TheLayoff.com to voice their concerns, with one individual writing, "Avaya also canceled various vendor contracts before their term but expected the contractors to stick around to help transition."

Avaya Responds to Recent Round of Layoffs

Channel Futures reached out to Avaya for comment, and the company acknowledged a recent move.

"Avaya has implemented organizational changes within our Go-to-customer function as part of our strategic plan for innovation and growth, and to continue to firmly position the company as the global leader in Enterprise CX for years to come," the statement said.

Specifically, Avaya said it is realigning its "sales operations and resources" to more effectively target enterprise and government customers.

"This started in June with the formation of our Americas, EMEA, and APAC theaters to get closer to local needs and speed up our execution. We also made related operational changes that align our sales, CSR engineering, and services teams," the statement said. "We are positioning the business for success, reinvestment, and growth. Some resources in roles no longer central to our go-forward strategy and coverage model will move to new jobs. Other positions are being created that may be filled by additions to our team who bring differentiated skillsets and expertise, consistent with our transformation as a leader in enterprise CX."

Related:Avaya CEO Alan Masarek to Retire, Company Names Successor

"These changes enable us to (better) support our key customers and partners, which means everyone is positioned to achieve their goals. We have clear roles, reduced complexity, and a path to driving new sales within and outside our customer base. Ultimately, this sets our team and the entire company up for growth, and for driving greater success for our customers and our partners."

Avaya Layoffs Are About 'Keeping Business Afloat'

Others took to the professional networking platform, LinkedIn, expressing their unwavering support for those impacted by this round of Avaya layoffs, with those in a position to extend help doing so, offering jobs, introductions, etc., for those involved in this round of job cuts.

Avaya likewise drew sharp criticism for the company's practices and leadership on the popular networking site – while another source close to the matter said Avaya has a lot of work to do earning new logos and even configuring a new set of SaaS-focused channel partners to come aboard, adding,

"Where is Avaya going to go from here if no one is buying new? All they can keep doing is trimming fat to keep going," they said.

The source likewise told Channel Futures that it Avaya is focused on keeping the business afloat and buying time to understand how to generate new logos.

"I would love to see how much of their business is not from its existing customer base, but I believe if anyone can bring it new customers, it would be Patrick," they said.