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Introduction:

Faizan Mustafa is the current Vice President of AI and Global IT at Aviatrix, a cloud networking software company that provides a platform that simplifies and secures connections across various cloud providers and data centers. In his role as VP, Faizan is responsible for working with all business functions, ensuring they achieve and exceed objectives while using the best technology. 

Business communication plays an important role in Faizan’s day-to-day delegations. 

“In my role, effective business communication is absolutely essential,” said Mustafa in our interview. “Our CEO sets up the vision and it is my responsibility to communicate the vision downstream to my team and to all the members who are working on critical projects.”

Additionally, the cross-functional interaction between teams at Aviatrix forces Faizan to be more  cautious in communicating information. It becomes a necessity to keep everyone on the same page in regards to corporate vision and project outcomes. 

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Challenges:

At Aviatrix, Faizan referenced several challenges in communicating messages similar to those of other tech companies. Some of the challenges included: 

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• Lack of standardized branding: While the team was extremely good at compiling content, many times it would go to waste because it was not aligned with brand identity. The presentations would come across as incoherent and poorly strung together. 
• Excess time consumption: Teams were allocating too much time towards making sure the presentations looked appealing and were aesthetically pleasing. ‍
• “The challenge was the time that it took to format and make sure our presentations were consistent in design and brand identity,” said Mustafa. “It was all manual work and we were spending a lot of time creating presentations both internally and externally.”

• Staggering agency cost: Faizan recalls shelling out a great amount of money to agencies for creating presentations. While there was a somewhat quick turnaround, the presentations were not always in-tune with the message Aviatrix was aiming to deliver. 

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Solution:

Faizan was inspired by the new CEO at Aviatrix, Doug Merritt. Mustafa remembered that when Merritt was appointed as the CEO, he came in with a vision to “improve the effectiveness of our business operations using various innovative technologies, especially AI.” 

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Following this value-innovation approach, Faizan sought out Prezent to pursue a partnership. “Prezent immediately struck to us as a tool that could immediately improve our business communication, not just by improving the time that we invest in creating this presentation, but also in terms of following brand identity and guidelines,” he said.  

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Some of Prezent's standout features that assisted Aviatrix included:

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• Fingerprints: With Prezent's fingerprint feature, Faizan and his team were able to view the presentation preferences of all other employees on the platform, and tailor their presentations to match these preferences.
  • “I really love the fingerprint feature of presenting. Every user who is onboarded to the platform is able to view the fingerprints, and that, to me, is the secret sauce of effective communication.”
• Storyline feature: Prezent's storyline feature prompted users at Aviatrix with design and storyline suggestions that they could seamlessly integrate into their presentation format. This allowed them to craft more compelling narratives that follow a consistent structure. 
  •  “Some users like to use the AI features to generate storylines and design patterns so they can quickly create presentations for their audience.”
• Brand alignment: After providing Prezent with all of Aviatrix’s brand components, Faizan was able to ensure instantaneously that each slide was in accordance with proper guidelines. 
  • “By using Prezent, we have ensured that every presentation is actually following the brand guidelines, and company DNA; the value, vision, and mission.”
• Transform capabilities: For users who have long-relied on Frankenstein decks, Prezent allowed them to upload these slides and align them with Aviatrix’s brand guidelines. This way they didn’t have to dispose of them all together, but rather improve them to fit the mold. 
  • “I have also seen that users are using it to transform some of the existing presentation templates, and convert them to be brand compliant.” 

“Our CEO always says that we want to make sure that everybody working at Aviatrix can smile with pride knowing that we are the organization which has the best people with the best technology and delivering the best results. Prezent has given us all of those aspects.”

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Results:

From the beginning of the partnership, Prezent was able to amplify Aviatrix’s business communication both internally and externally. At large, it allowed the team to communicate cross-functionally without any lapse in understanding among team members. Moreover, Prezent served as a valuable asset to building brand identity in all corporate messaging, with a more refined and unified look in all presentations. Prezent was also able to assist in ways such as:

• Incredible time save:
  “I would say easily we saved 50 to 60% time in terms of making presentations.”
  
  
• Dramatic cost-reduction:
  “I can easily estimate that we have saved about 50%, in terms of the agency spend.”
  
  
• Better business communication:
  “By improving the quality of presentation, by improving the storyline, by ensuring that the message is tailored to the audience, we have improved the overall effectiveness of communication.” 

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“With technology, it's important to stay ahead of innovation, but at the same time, investing in technology which adds value to your business is extremely important. Prezent has added a lot of value to our business, and I wouldn't have any issues recommending it to other business leaders. It's amazing.”

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