Avaya (News - Alert) and the International Avaya Group presented the 2012 Avaya Customer Innovation Awards recognizing companies that changed their business processes by employing innovative business communications and collaboration technologies.

Awards were given to inspire cost savings and productivity gains that enterprises can experience by using Avaya business collaboration solution. The awards also stressed the commitment to bring “The Power of We” to customers to drive faster collaborations, smarter decisions and better business results.

Six visionary companies were chosen for creative use of unified communications and commitment to excellence:

Technology Innovation Best Practice for Parkview Health (U.S.) reportedly saved valuable time by streamlining communications, operations and travel time between nurse stations, patients, labs and other facilities with the Avaya mobility solutions. Parkview was also able to reduce operating costs and improve the patient experience.

Business Innovation Best Practice for Agoda Services Co. Ltd. (Thailand) – A combination of Avaya contact center solutions with Avaya Desktop Video Device and other unified communications technologies led Agoda to realize a cost-efficient and effective connection with their global branch offices to accommodate their triple-digit business growth.

Enterprise Transformation (more than 1000 employees) for Deutsche Bank (Global) – the Avaya IP telephony platform helped Deutsche Bank consolidate its global telecommunications infrastructure, cost savings with frequent calls between dispersed locations were achieved. The bank also deployed a single telephony solution to achieve synergies for scale and standardization and consolidate the managed services helpdesk under a single provider.

Enterprise Transformation (less than 1000 employees) for Minnesota Wild (U.S.) increased its customer base and productivity in the sales team by using the Avaya Social Media Manager. The Avaya mobility solution helped Minnesota Wild’s staff to stay connected around the arena.

Sustained Excellence for Comcast (News - Alert), Inc. (U.S.) – After a company restructuring, the need to update and re-align its customer service operations was met by consolidating the data centers on Avaya Experience portal which has helped Comcast to reduce the network costs by 40 percent.

Small Business Excellence for FitFlop – Blending FitFlop and its sister brand Soap & Glory (cosmetics) on an Avaya IP Office system common platform helped reduce costs for roaming mobile calls between U.S., U.K. and other locations.