When Fari Ebrahimi joined Avaya, Inc., he was “asked to transform how the business gets transacted.” The senior VP and Chief Information Officer runs a “20k partner community” and seeks a “seamless experience” for his customers.

Ebrahimi explained to theCUBE’s John Furrier and Dave Vellante that Oracle helps Avaya “deliver the solutions that customers are looking for.” Ebrahimi called his business a “partner engagement management” with the goal of engaging the customer from the beginning, when the lead is generated, all the way through service.

An overall Cloud solution

During an interview at the Oracle Platform Launch Event, Ebrahimi declared, “We want to be Cloud native. We want to be Cloud first.”

Throughout this transition, Oracle played multiple roles in streamlining the partner management system for Avaya. Ebrahimi stated that Oracle was willing to work with Avaya to map out requirements and needs, as well as look at the roadmap and include requirements in that roadmap.

“Oracle brought in the idea of Oracle Java Cloud that we can use to build our solutions and connect the dots … as well as integration Coud services,” he said. This allows Avaya connect to other applications in an “overall Cloud solution.” Ebrahimi said Oracle “acts like a fusion middleware.”

Reducing costs by 30%

Using Oracle, Avaya hopes to eliminate 80% of customization within the Cloud, consequently reducing costs by 30%. Ebrahimi described the cost-cutting process as “reducing the costs of multiple apps on different Clouds to bring it together into one place. Our goal is get near-real-time and eventually real-time,” he said.

Ebrahimi advised others to “put your customer at the center of your thinking, and build processes all around them.” He also advised to “leverage partners that give you standards,” and “don’t be afraid to fail … small failures are OK.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Oracle Cloud Platform Launch.