Having established a strong reputation in London and key regions throughout the UK as providers of flexible, high-quality, non-branded serviced office space, Avanta decided to enter the Indian market. In 2007, it opened its first service centre in Delhi.

Since then the company has been offering Indian enterprises office space with competitively priced and tailor-made technology to meet requirements.

“Our entry into the India market is a part of our international expansion plan. We are sure that Avanta-serviced offices will rapidly set a benchmark in this category of business in the country. In addition, despite the downturn, Indian economic growth trends looks promising and has been attracting businesses of all kinds to invest and grow in this market. This presents a perfect opportunity for us to offer flexible serviced office space,” remarks Sean Morgan, Managing Director, Avanta India and Middle East.

Early this year, Avanta simultaneously opened two business service centres in Mumbai. One service centre was opened at the Oval House located in Fort, South Mumbai with 20,000 square feet of office space while the other is at the
Bandra-Kurla Complex spread over two floors with 50,000 square feet of space.

Creating a connected culture

While Avanta made its foray into the Indian market, it also realised the need for creating a converged communication infrastructure that met its expansion goals. In 2007,
the company sealected Datacraft to build a converged communication infrastructure for its business service centre in Delhi.

When Avanta decided to expand in Mumbai, Datacraft was again chosen for the installation of the IP Network and IP Telephony (IPT) platform for the two new centres. Avanta also needed its new telephony infrastructure to be secure so as to ensure the privacy of each customer. The company signed a $1.4-million contract with Datacraft to set up a converged communications infrastructure for the Mumbai business service centres.

The team from both sides rolled out a five-month process and worked closely to understand the business plan and the range of advanced communications services that Avanta wanted to offer to its customers. A converged strategy was developed that provided a clear view of the optimal options to meeting these requirements.

Post the analysis, Avanta used an IPT Deployment Methodology (IPTDM) that ensured better quality, smooth implementation and timely delivery of the IP telephony network. Avanta also deployed IP phone systems that provided it with one-touch connectivity with business contacts. Elaborating on the solutions deployed, Morgan says, “An end-to-end IPT solution was installed at each of our new business services centre in Mumbai, covering several components such as the foundation network infrastructure, hardware including IP-end points, VoIP phone system, and high-speed Internet access.”

In addition, Avanta deployed Cisco’s Call Manager, which is a software-based call processing component that extends enterprise-grade telephony features and functions over an IP network to devices such as IP phones and media processing equipment. Also, as part of the solution was Cisco Services that offers 24x7 support to Avanta’s new business centres to ensure high availability of service and converged communications capability.

Avanta also integrated its call billing solution, called ‘Elephant’, to the IPT solution and EVOT, a call attendant solution for incoming call management. All three centres are today equipped with modern communications technology, including VoIP telephone systems, scalable Internet access and dedicated client server rooms and offers a complete range of business services ranging from call answering to meeting and state-of-the-art telecommunications facilities. “With these solutions in place, we have been able to integrate new technologies with existing communication channels to offer flexibility and efficiency in communication across multiple channels to our corporate tenants,” says Morgan.

The use of these solutions has "page1" helped the company to place all important contacts on a single device and provide local language helpdesk support to resolve any technical issues along with providing greater cost efficiency and improved competitiveness. Commenting on some of the other benefits of the deployed solution, Morgan adds, “The solutions by Datacraft also support both our IP as well as traditional telephones and fax machines thus ensuring versatility and the ability to have VoIP technology while still supporting devices with traditional interface.”

Further, the deployment of these solutions has also provided a strong platform for Avanta to implement Unified Communications applications in the future.

“On the RoI front, we have reduced telecommunication costs over a standard time-division multiplexing (TDM) deployment using an IP telephony network. Moreover, the technology will support our future expansion plans by providing an IP-based infrastructure, which would be needed to extend support for our new locations by ensuring provisioning of endpoints and base network infrastructure. With this, we will achieve nearly 20 percent cost savings in our future projects,” informs Morgan.

Essentially, the converged communications technology has enabled Avanta to expand its service portfolio and usher in  greater level of customer service and satisfaction. “This, in turn, has helped us set a new benchmark in the business services property market in India, and maintain our leading position,” says Morgan.   

Expansion calling

Avanta plans to expand its service office centres from three to 12 in key metro cities in the next three to four years in India. “The initial focus will be to consolidate our existing business along with developing new serviced office centres in Mumbai and New Delhi,” remarks Morgan.

Commenting on the solution that the company plans to offer Indian enterprises, Morgan says, “The two most important factors for occupiers when acquiring office space from us would be capital expenditure and flexibility. In the current economic climate, occupiers do not want to commit to lengthy and costly leaseholds. Serviced offices provide an attractive proposition, offering flexibility and transparency with pricing.”

While these are challenging times for Indian businesses, Avanta understands that it needs to meet the changing needs for workspace by delivering office solutions that will deliver on cost and flexibility and which stay unified.