YMCA Victoria Increases Access To Community Services With Move To Avaya Cloud Office

Avaya (NYSE: AVYA) today announced that YMCA Victoria (‘The Y’) will standardise collaboration for its 5,000-strong workforce with the Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral communications and collaboration platform, strengthening community ties, allowing support services to ensure consistent, reliable communications during periods of external disruption, and reducing operational costs.

The Y is a not-for-profit (NFP) organisation that has brought essential services and support to communities in Victoria since 1853. As part of its continued growth, the organisation has expanded to more than 150 sites in Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and Queensland, including youth services, swim schools, early learning centres and recreational facilities, connecting with more Australians than ever before.

The addition of the new venues, some of which have allowed it to launch new services, saw the Y inherit multiple disparate administration, collaboration and contact centre technology systems from previous venue operators which risked operational silos across the facilities impacting around 5,000 staff and volunteers. The introduction of all-in-one communication solution Avaya Cloud Office has enabled the Y to centralise its teams and processes, which has boosted productivity and subsequently increased access to its services for the community.

The Y’s General Manager, Technology and Strategy, Shane Riddle, is leading the organisation’s digital transformation.

“Our mission is to provide the opportunity for each person to be healthy, happy and connected. A collaborative workforce is essential in achieving this goal and ensuring communities have easy access to our youth, fitness and support services particularly during challenging times such as lockdowns,” said Riddle. “Avaya was a natural fit for us as the outcomes offered by its systems align with our mission. Through better connected teams, we can increase our visibility within local communities and provide more ways for people to connect with the Y at their convenience, bringing us together even when external challenges force us apart.”

The Y recognised the need to create a consolidated communications environment to enable collaboration for its workforce, whether in offices, community facilities and increasingly from home. Further, the organisation decided to consolidate its communication and collaboration workflows to improve operations and reduce costs.

The cloud-based Avaya Cloud Office platform has proven the ideal way for the Y to meet these requirements. Avaya Cloud Office is an all-in-one, ‘office-in-a-pocket’ that provides the Y with one unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) app that enables collaboration across multiple channels, allowing employees to call, message, meet, video conference, file-share and more within one environment.

Avaya Cloud Office has already provided the Y with reprieve for managing both internal and external disruptions, including lockdowns, by streamlining communication and collaboration capabilities. Staff are now able to work from anywhere across devices, including iPads, iPhones and iOS, ensuring uninterrupted productivity and connectivity.

Tech-enabled community support and services

Looking ahead, Riddle said streamlined communication will bring various day-to-day advantages to the Y and local communities, with less administrative work meaning that staff will have more time to engage with community members face-to-face.

“The delivery of our services will improve significantly this year, which, due to heightened demand on the back of the pandemic, has never been more important. Our teams will experience less of what we don’t want, which is time spent completing excessive administration, and more of what we do best – efficient and personalised access to youth, fitness, recreation and health programs and activities.”

“For example, getting kids into the pool and teaching them to swim will become a much smoother process with all bookings, cancellations and payments being consolidated,” said Riddle.

Avaya Cloud Office was implemented for the Y by Australian managed services provider (MSP) and long-term Avaya partner, Fixtel, which delivered system integration and staff training across more than 81 sites.

“The Y plays a foundational role in the lives of Australia’s young people and their families, and with Avaya Cloud Office, it’s easier than ever to get in touch with teams across the Y through a range of different channels,” said Craig Taylor, Director at Fixtel. “That means those seeking youth services and programs to keep healthy and connect with others will find it easier. This is helped by equipping the Y with call routing and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, which make its employees even more responsive.”

Jeremy Paton, Team Engagement Solutions Lead Asia-Pacific (APAC) at Avaya, said, “More than nine million Australians across three states accessed the Y last year for a wide range of services and support, even during periods of lockdown. With Avaya Cloud Office centralising its workforce and support teams, the organisation will provide these services both more personally and efficiently, and navigate the immediate challenges during uncertain times, while setting itself up for the long-term by boosting productivity and bringing down costs by removing the need to maintain multiple technology systems.”

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