Boulevard Holdings Thai unit ties up with Avaya

Listed holding firm Boulevard Holdings Inc. (BHI) is strengthening its foothold in Thailand’s information technology industry as its Thai subsidiary has tied up with Avaya Systems of the US as a business partner.

BHI corporate information technology industry as its Thai subsidiary has tied up with Avaya Systems of the US as a business partner.

BHI corporate information officer Ana Maria Katigbak said Alliance Technologies Thailand, a 70-percent subsidiary of BHI, was granted business partner status effective Nov. 4, 2002 by Avaya Systems, one of the world’s leading providers of telecommunication equipment.

Katigbak said based on the agreement, Alliance Technologies Thailand will purchase not less than $125,000 worth of telecommunications equipment from Avaya’s Thai unit. There will be three areas of concentration: Customer relations management software (CRM); enterprises plus Internet protocol solutions (ECLIPS); and Cajun data products.

For their first year of partnership, Alliance Technologies has committed 75 million baht in forecast sales of Avaya Thailand.

Alliance Technologies Thailand is 51 percent owned by BHI and 19 percent of Alliance Technologies Corp., BHI’s Philippine based subsidiary, with the remaining 30 percent held by various Thai companies. It is capitalized at 10 million baht.

The Philippine subsidiary Alliance Technologies Corp., meanwhile, has nearly 50 percent of Avaya product sales in the country and has an estimated 40 percent market share of large call center installed bases. Nearly all its customers are multinationals and US outsource call centers.

This year, ATC is trending toward sales of P150 million and gross earnings of P10 million, as against sales of P180 million and profit of P9 million last year.

BHI, whose investments are mainly in hotel and property development, used to be part of the original consortium that won the bid to develop the Fort Bonifacio property.

Last year, however, it disposed of its 1.12 percent interest in Bonifacio Land Corp. (BLC) for P282.21 million to settle its loans as well as those of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Askar Ltd.