A few short months ago, Avaya Holdings entered bankruptcy protection as it attempted to restructure its business and its debt. At the time, it wasn't clear what the future held for the beleaguered vendor.

As it turns out, the restructuring was successful and now Avaya is looking to re-engage with its customers, with renewed focus and product direction for its enterprise communications and contact center offerings. Avaya technically exited from bankruptcy on May 1, reducing its debt load and emerging with a capital structure that gives the company approximately $650 million in liquidity.

"Unequivocally and undeniably, Avaya is back," Avaya CEO Alan Masarek declared in the opening keynote of this company's Engage event on June 19.

Avaya's bankruptcy is an issue that no doubt was a concern for some of the company's customers. Masarek was very clear with his messaging during the keynote that the company is now on stable footing financially.

In Masarek's view, with the financial restructuring, Avaya reached an extraordinary result that's incredibly unusual.

"We've gone from financial weakness to genuine financial strength," he said. "We've eliminated the vast majority of our debt, recapitalized the company with a great deal of cash and right sized our cost structure so that we are a cash generator right out of the gate."

"You can kind of put a big green checkmark on the financial restructuring and it's behind us, it's done," he emphasized.

In terms of products, Masarek said that his company's north star is now the Avaya Experience Platform (AEP), which is a cloud-based contact center solution. While he sees the future in the cloud, he also emphasized that Avaya also remains strongly committed to its on-premises call center and communications platform as well.

Overall Masarek's keynote focused heavily on customer experience and innovation.

Masarek used his time on stage to emphasize the importance of customer experience differentiation for brands today. He noted that while companies can offer similar products and prices, customer experience is what sets brands apart. He highlighted Avaya's assets that position the company to help customers improve their experience, including its large customer base, intellectual property, and global reach.

The CEO outlined Avaya's product strategy of "innovation without disruption." He explained that while the world is moving to the cloud, customers want to innovate by adding new capabilities like AI and chatbots to their existing solutions without completely ripping them out. Avaya aims to meet customers where they are on their journey from on-premise to cloud solutions.

Masarek brought on stage representatives from Southwest Airlines, Wynn Resort, and Liberty Mutual to illustrate how customer experience is central to their strategies. They emphasized the importance of seamless, innovative experiences that meet customers where they are. The CEO also discussed Avaya's growing partnership with Microsoft to help customers transform their customer experience.

While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Avaya, Masarek is confident that the disruptions his company faced over the past year, including the financial challenges, are all now in the past.

"We sort of gave people reasons to worry, sadly," Masarek lamented. "Yet you still supported us, which I'm super grateful about, but now as you go forward and all that noise is behind us, we want to recapture a sense of trust, you can bet your future with Avaya."