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64 |EPC&I|SEPTEMBER 2011

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Tele-mimetics, Tele-trends and Focus for Inspiration!Most telecom markets remain overall pulsating with focus on higher speeds, better interactivity, and customer experience. What is needed is for telecom players ‘to find their best identity in the value chain’ and position their brand accordingly.

Over the last quarter, I had

been very fortunate to interview and

discuss one-on-one with some of the

‘who’s who’ of Canadian Telecom

Industry. What is most interesting

behind the success of many of these

leaders and their organizations’

outstanding performance was the

extremely simple but fundamentally

profound marketing wisdom. I could

easily compare their thought-patterns

with the likes of Al Ries and Jack

Trout, the marketing Gurus and

founders of ‘Positioning’ theory.

Most of these interviews were

remarkably insightful not only in

terms of where the Canadian or Global

Telecom Industry is headed to but also

in that how just about any geography

could relate to the other from the

cause and effect perspective of micro

and mega trends and, eventually, in

one way or the other, can possibly

utilize the end takeaways towards their

collaborative industrial betterment.

From a marketing standpoint, this at

first seems tough to assimilate though,

let alone to be compared any further.

More so because, we speak of one of

the most dynamic and, particularly

now, evermore stirred-up industrial

segments and also when the diversity

is hugely evident, among widely

different geographies.

However, if we refer from the

standpoint of ‘inspiration’, similar to a

Case study and not simply ‘adaptation’,

because that would be unfair indeed,

theories suddenly start making

practical sense. In a way, it is more like

c r o s s - i n d u s t r i a l l e a r n i n g ,

redevelopment and collaboration or,

rather, Biognosis and ‘Bio-mimetics’.

Some may want to research those

terms in entirety to get greater insight.

The biggest chal lenges that

Canada had faced since inception

were essentially the huge geography,

weather conditions and the diversely

growing consumer demography, for

instance. As a result, the network

i n f r a s t r u c t u r e m a i n t e n a n c e

investments went beyond and out of

proportion and, hence, the anatomy

of basic marketing strategies today

seems starkly different. And, then,

there remain similarities too in terms

of trends, especially in the Social

Media era.

According to Gautam Nath, one of

the bes t Canadian market ing

knowledge-banks today, who I had the

opportunity to meet recently, “Multi-

Cultural marketing dynamics is the

most sought-after horizon here in

Canada at the moment” . I feel

essentially the rise in multi-cultural

marketing shares a similar pattern to

that of the ongoing ‘Rural Penetration’

pursuit in India. And, yet again,

considering that Canada wants the

largest pipelines at the lowest cost,

which definitely would demand more

funds, access to global capital market

through more relaxed and free

competition and more incumbents is

desirable not much unlike how it had

ASHEESH PANDIA

For the most part, Indian telecom has been doing really well rela-tively barring the Spectrum Refarming struggle cited above. But the option of taking a look at the external and distant trends could also guarantee significant betterment for the ‘high-ly innovative’ kinds.

always been in India regardless of the competition because population and the market size is awesome.

On a global level too, most telecom markets remain overall pulsating with focus on higher speeds, better interactivity, and customer experience. Realistically, it is easy to understand that the Churn Management is definitely a very important issue still for the most part because acquiring a new customer is much more pricey and unpredictable than retaining the existing customer base. The latter, however, could also be equally demanding and complex, but more often than not, cost-effective to both the consumer and the service provider.

The new generation of consumers is definitely not as loyal as it used to be in the Wireline-only era. Moreover, ‘brand loyalty’ itself cannot be compared at any given moment between a telecom service provider and a financial institution. In the case

of the former, it could be far more casual for the consumer to be flirtatious and shop around.

Another common challenge across economies is to maintain and strive to increase the dirt-cheap margins. And, that is where the opportunities for telecom consulting and marketing organizations and analysts l ie . Subscriber base might have been sustained or grown, but the revenues seem to dip gradually.

With respect to the extremely low-margins, it is not difficult to gauge the situation when you find analysts use Price-Earnings (P/E) and Price-to-Sales (Price/Sales) Ratios as measures of valuation; for, some companies have little or no profits to speak of unfortunately, especially at this time. And, now, all of a sudden, inadequate Spectrum poses another big challenge in India which DoT, the telecom regulatory body, proposes to address with ‘Refarming’ the 900 megahertz

Mobile broadband traffic volumes will see a 2600 percent increase in the next five years, say Nokia Siemens Networks’ own figures. The Nokia Siemens numbers are astounding — a 1000-fold mobile data traffic increase by the year 2020.

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66 |EPC&I|SEPTEMBER 2011

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(MHz) spectrum when operators’ licenses come up for renewal between 2014 and 2025, by including it in the Spectrum Bill in its recommendation.

Telecom providers are, of course, n o t e q u a l l y f o n d o f s u c h a recommendation by DoT because there are reasons to believe that it would not be appropriate at this point when you have to be moving all the subscribers to a brand new network, as a consequence, while they are on a fully functional one already. Let alone the obvious interruption in current service and big investments that will be needed to carry out this change in any case, at any given point in time.

Still, we cannot deny the relative g r o w t h p r o s p e c t s t h a t s o u n d paradoxical after summing up all the above challenges. But, they are true for sure. I am going to mention the exploding Mobile Broadband Traffic below and the figures are mind-blowing. Whatever be the reason for this increase in traffic, in the end, telecom service providers have both the responsibility and the opportunity to serve the consumer well and make money.

There is also no denying of the fact that there is a huge potential for the current generation of consultants in cross-economy trend-spotting as well as for telecom service providers to bootstrap themselves. Most of all, ‘to find their best identity in the value chain’ and ‘to be able to innovate lightening fast’ have been the top priorities of the best players so far and, again, trend-watching gives the best food for thought in terms of both innovation and the correct ‘Brand

Positioning’.For the most part, Indian telecom

has been doing really well relatively barring the Spectrum Refarming struggle cited above. But the option of taking a look at the external and distant trends could also guarantee significant betterment for the ‘highly innovative’ kinds. The face of telecom is changing by the hour and it is not the same simple voice domain anymore. Rather, it is a more holistic and all-embracing one – with the rising Mobile Broadband Traffic, dominant Consumer Electronics and a skyrocketing Ultra-Viral Social Media.

Mobile Applications market, for instance, is the most astonishing at this moment . Back in March of 2009, about 2,300 applications were available on the Android Market, according to T-Mobile CTO, Cole Brodman. And, in May 2011 alone, during the Google I/O, Google announced that Android Market listed 200,000 applications and had already c l o c k e d 4 . 5 b i l l i o n i n s t a l l e d

applications. By July, the figure had crossed the 250,000 milestone.

Distimo and Germany-based research2guidance forecast that the number of apps on Android Market would surpass Apple by the third quarter of 2011, with some 425,000 apps. Similarly, in terms of Consumer Electronics and Mobile Broadband Traffic , iSuppli reckons global SmartPhone shipments will double by 2015 and account for more than half of all mobile phones sold.

A t t h e s a m e t i m e , m o b i l e broadband traffic volumes will see a 2600 percent increase in the next five years, say Nokia Siemens Networks’ own figures. The Nokia Siemens numbers are astounding — a 1000-fold mobile data traffic increase by the year 2020.

To the consumer, mobility is not a privilege anymore; it is simply an ‘extension of access to information’ and telecom providers only need the ‘super value creation’ attitude besides the competent technology to win the game. Lack of mobility is rather a polite way of saying ‘denial-of-service’ i n t o d a y ’ s c o m p e t i t i o n . T a k e m-Commerce, for example, which has been considered as the game changer, e s p e c i a l l y i n t h e d e v e l o p i n g economies. Even in the developed ones, it is not yet ubiquitous, probably because of the security-related, technological and psychological challenges. But, once the ice is broken and it is made easily accessible, there’s no dearth of the wonders that efficiently run m-Commerce could do. So, for the winners, it must not just be the ‘Next Thing’. Rather, it ought to be

What we see around today is everyone doing everything, everyone selling everything. But, the biggest brands in the world are the ones that do ‘only their thing’ that reflect them directly and uniquely.

NOVEMBER 2011

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a current service provisioning mandate

top on their priority list to keep ahead

of the rat-race.

Coming back to the trends and

p a t t e r n s t h a t I n d i a n t e l e c o m

providers can bank upon, first of all,

focusing on that one particular

‘differentiating’ Brand Identity, that

makes any brand unique – it is just

too important. What we see around

today is everyone doing everything,

everyone selling everything. But, the

biggest brands in the world are the

ones that do ‘only their thing’ that

reflect them directly and uniquely.

When you talk about a particular

product or service, it is only that

brand that comes to the consumer’s

mind and vice-versa.

Many of the top executives and

telecom professionals advocate

restricting the number of players to

4-6. The reason behind that is both

intelligent and plausible. However,

from the perspective of brand

management and positioning, more

intellectual bandwidth should be

targeted on their main focus, and

‘focus’ is the key to positioning. The

Narrower and Unique it is, the better

for any brand.

Forget about the competition for a

moment. Let us first understand what

we want to achieve, get clarity,

prioritize our things and then jump in

the warfare fully armed. This is one of

the key findings you instantly get a feel

of when you look at a market such as

Canada’s. Each brand has an identity

and a unique personality and that’s

where the learning is. And, in

abundance!

The author is a distinguished Brand Management and Corporate Communications consultant with over a decade of cross-industrial exposure and has been extensively published and exclusively featured in some of the best international publications. He currently provides branding and communication consultation to several MNCs, especially on elevating and differenti-ating their brands and creating more focused and better perceptions. He writes indepen-dently for various publications across Asia-Pacific, US/Canada and is a proactive mem-ber at many Professional Canadian Communities and Non-Profit Organizations.

1 Source: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3853327&trk=anet_ug_hm

2 Special Thanks to the Source Cited here: Mr. Ofer Glanz, the Founder of Barak

Strategic Consulting for his exceptionally interesting insights at ‘Innovate’ that I am

citing here with gratitude. –Asheesh Pandia

3 Citing Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market

4 Citing Source: http://paulpapadimitriou.com/commentary/2011/09/20/mobile-

broadband-traffic-increase-2600-5-years/

SME BIZ /45

D-Link: Owners pride and Neighbors Envy

TREND SETTER /54

TCS: TCS Ahead of the Curve

SME BIZ /52

NEC: NEC India to intensify business in SME Segment

Bharat Goenka Conferred with Lifetime Achievement Award /08PLUS

VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 09 | NOVEMBER 2011 | RS. 20/-

india’s first IT magazine for sme business

The UTM market is making steady progress in the Indian market as its appeal increases among enterprises of all sizes and across verticals. /30

UTM EMBARKED ON A

STEADY GROWTH

01

Securing enterprise systems is a top

priority, especially in a connected

world. A fundamental truth for

organizations worldwide is that

protecting their mission-critical

applications, sensitive electronic data, and under-

lying computing infrastructure is a challenging

and never-ending task—a grim scenario wherein

IT and security personnel will always have their

hands full.

With increasing connectivity, a company’s

vulnerability and risk of security compromises

increase manifold. More signiicantly, a shit in

hackers’ motivation and the growth in corporate

espionage have increased the security threat to

enterprises. herefore, it is not only large enter-

prises but even the SMBs that is scurrying for

cover with robust security products.

Earlier security deployments meant point

solutions for a variety of requirements such as

irewalls, intrusion detection systems, VPNs,

anti-spam gateways, etc. However monitoring,

managing and scaling them as the enterprise

grows becomes a huge challenge for the technol-

ogy department. Over the years, vendors have

started clubbing their oferings in order to dif-

ferentiate their products and also to make it easy

for deployment and maintenance. Gradually such

deployments became more common, and the

term Uniied hreat Management (UTM) became

mainstream when analyst irm IDC used it in a

2005 publication on threat management.

he term has since been used to refer to uniied,

multi-use security threat management devices. It

helps enterprises reduce the number of vendors,

manage the ugrade cycle of diferent products and

simpliies trouble shooting. According to IDC, a

UTM typically comprises a irewall, antivirus and

intrusion prevention and detection.

With increasing proliferation of connectivity, the

threats and complexities in security management

have grown tremendously. he scope and expanse

of UTM oferings have also kept pace by providing

very high-end and sophisticated capabilities. his

eliminates the need for systems administrators to

maintain multiple security programs over time.

herefore sophisticated versions of UTMs can

ofer much more with capabilities that can manage

URL iltering, spam blocking, spyware protection,

content management, data leakage protection.

Oten these devices ofer centralized monitoring

and management of security deployments across

locations and incident logging. hese multi-

function security products provide many beneits

for customers, which combined with new features,

have spurred market growth. here is also a trend

for service providers to ofer UTM-as-a-service

from their datacenters, but it is still early.

“Security consolidation via UTMs represents

not just a better security and convenience but

also opportunities—an opportunity to reduce

network traic, an opportunity to ease integration

of VoIP and Web 2.0 applications, and an oppor-

tunity to boost IT productivity,” says Shubhomoy

Biswas, Country Director – India & SAARC,

SonicWALL.

The Market in Indiahe UTM market for appliances in 2009 stood at

$42.25 million and is poised to keep growing at a

steady CAGR of 35-40% over the next 3-4 years.

he market is slated to cross $100 million by 2012.

According to a report by research irm IDC in

October 2008, UTM products, which passed the

$1 billion mark in market size in 2007, will make

up 33.6 percent of the total network security

market by 2012.

IDC has identiied the UTM market segment

as the fastest growing segment of the broader

network security market globally, and expects

UTM to represent approximately 30 percent of

The UTM market is making steady progress in the Indian market as its

appeal increases among enterprises of all sizes and across verticals.

BY SANJAY [email protected]

STEADYGROWTH

UTM EMBARKED ON A

SME CHANNELSNOVEMBER 2011

30

COVER STORY UTM MARKET

THE UTM MARKET IS SLATED TO CROSS

$100 MILLION BY 2012 AND IS EXPECTED TO

GROW 35% OVER NEXT TWO YEARS.

COVER STORYUTM MARKET

31SME CHANNELSNOVEMBER 2011

ment. It further expanded its capabilities for the

SRX series with the new AppTrack sotware.

Building on Juniper’s recently announced AppSe-

cure suite of applications, AppTrack sotware

provides tight services integration that enables

application-level visibility and improved data

lows and adds application identiication infor-

mation to the IPS session log. Juniper AppTrack is

part of the AppSecure suite of applications, which

provides business logic denial-of-services preven-

tion for the the SRX series.

Astaro is a relatively new entrant in the Indian

network security market. he company is still

relatively small and is poised for much higher

growth than other vendors. In the last two years,

the company has already built a foundation for

explosive growth in its UTM business. However,

India revenue still represents a small percentage

of its worldwide business, but it is now growing

rapidly.

“Most of our partners have chosen our prod-

uct line for its capabilities and ease-of-use. Since

we are relatively a late entrant in India market,

our partners typically used some other network

security product before, and now use Astaro to

realize a broad variety of networking and security

projects. he margins our partners make, posi-

tions our products as second to none,” says Sunil

Sapra of Astaro. Astaro solutions are sold more

on the basis of value than price, enabling partners

to package their services well with the solutions.

A service-led approach builds customer relation-

ship and improves the margins. Aastaro has a

solid line up of products with Sophos next gen

UTMs. Cisco looks at the market and customer

requirements from a holistic perspective and

ofers an End-to-End Self Defending Approach

and Integrated Security. As per Bipin Phase I

UTM is deined by consolidation: he initial

intent of UTM is the consolidation of multiple

security-related technologies into one system.

Initially, UTM solutions were integrated Firewalls

with Intrusion Detection/Intrusion Prevention

Systems (IDS/IPS). Now, most UTM solutions

also include Anti-X (SPAM and malware) and

VPN functionality. UTM continues to evolve with

expanding functionality.

Nevales Networks ofers small and medium

a secure environment to conduct their business

on a ‘pay-as-you-use’ model. Nevales’ platform is

delivered over the Internet with free 24x7 support

and is free from licensing, scalability and mainte-

nance hassles, thereby providing the best value for

money and allowing SMBs to focus on their core

businesses.

Nevales’s security-as-a-service’ ofering

bundles everything into a single subscription

fee, including comprehensive security features,

automatic updates, patches, and 24x7 technical

support, thus enabling organizations to elimi-

nate upfront costs, providing a predictable cost

structure, ensuring quality of service, and the

freedom to re-evaluate the solution decision at

any time.

Nevales Networks closely works with its part-

ners through regular distribution meets and

promotions in key channel media. “We support

our partners with regular training and product

updates to help them reach out to their customers

better,” says Ravishankar.

Dominique MEURISSE - Executive Vice Pres-

iden, NETASQ, says, “Everyone is looking for

an integrated security solution to reduce main-

tenance costs and have a more comprehensive

control over their network security. We foresee a

phenomenal growth in this sector. We at NetASQ

have UTM products from SOHO to enterprise

class networks¡”

The Future Landscapehe future UTM solutions are likely to include

one-stop solutions with features such as irewall,

VPN, anti-virus, anti-spam, IDS and IPS, content

iltering, bandwidth management, multiple load

balancing and gateway failover.

More and more enterprises will look for

easier management with plug and play kind of

capabilities. As more enterprises look to simplify

infrastructure management, they will look for all-

in-one security appliances to ease their manage-

ment burden.

UTM solutions will be an integrated ofering

and will be able to handle blended threats. UTM

solutions has emerged out of the need to stem the

increasing number of attacks on corporate infor-

mation systems via hacking/cracking, viruses,

worms—mostly an outcome of blended threats

and insider threats. herefore future demand for

UTM solutions will be for blended capabilities

to thwart such threats. Such oferings will enable

customers to have higher return on investment

and lower total cost of ownership.

Integrated security appliances are witnessing

high penetration in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Future

demand from these markets will be strong and

these markets will lead market growth. he lack

of skilled manpower in these cities makes deploy-

ment of UTMs a simpler choice due to the inte-

grated nature of these devices.

In conclusion, the UTM market is on the

growth track and the demand for UTM products

will increase from all sizes of enterprises. his is

because the security threats are increasingly get-

ting complex and the IT department is looking

for simpler management processes so that they

are able to focus on innovation. At the same time,

as enterprises cope with business growth they

will be increasingly looking for simpler and easy

to roll out solutions, which is an advantage with

UTM solutions as they are easy to deploy. here

is increasing awareness and understanding in

the market about the beneits of UTM markets

in metros and smaller cities. here is likely to be

balanced growth from all these market segments

with the SMBs demonstrating the strongest appe-

tite for UTM products.

However, Asheesh Pandia, Sr. Brand Man-

agement, Communications & PR Professional,

maintains, “he evolution of original irewall is

what came up as UTM in early 2000s followed by

XTM (eXtensible hreat Management) - as the

threats kept on becoming more dynamic, stealthy

and pervasive. Today it is not just the threat part

that is being addressed by XTM but also greater

networking and management capabilities. he

market in India for UTM and XTM seems very

promising despite the issue of sustainable difer-

entiation amongst the various competitors. he list

of players has been ever expanding and of course

analysts have positioned the key vendors appropri-

ately including Fortinet, WatchGuard, SonicWall,

Cyberoam, Quick Heal and GajShield others.”

“TAKING AN END-TO-END

SECURITY APPROACH

HELPS INFORMATION

SECURITY MANAGERS

BUILD REASONABLE

CONFIDENCE ON THEIR

SECURITY STRATEGY AND

DEPLOYMENTS.”

BIPIN KUMAR AMIN, PRINCIPLE CONSUL-

TANT, BORDERLESS NETWORKS, SECRITY,

CISCO,

SME CHANNELS

NOVEMBER 201140

COVER STORY UTM MARKET

Crux

UC

If one goes by the dictionary meaning of

Uniied Communications (UC), it is the

integration of real-time communication

services such as instant messaging (chat),

presence information, telephony (includ-

ing IP telephony), video conferencing, call control

and speech recognition with non-real-time com-

munication services such as uniied messaging

(integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). he

evolution of the UC has been gradually over a

period time. UC is not a single product, but a

set of products that provides a consistent uniied

user interface and user experience across multiple

devices and media types.

For the lay man, it is nothing but managing

communications and getting quick and timely

response. he business turnaround entirely

depends on the response of the communications.

A delayed communication or collaboration can

incur huge amount of revenue loss. herefore, UC

is as critical to SMEs as it is to the large enterprises.

As per Frost & Sullivan study, the total size of

the UC market in India will grow more than $1

billion by the end of 2010 and expected to grow

manifold in coming times also. Similarly, as per

Dell’Oro Group, despite pockets of weakness

reappearing, the uniied communications market

will expand signiicantly in 2010 as existing ven-

dors continue to invest and expand their sotware

oferings and Microsot begins to actively push

Lync.

When the overall UC market is growing at the

CAGR of 7.9 percent, the individual components

of uniied communications are already witnessing

healthy double digit growth number. For example

the audio video conferencing market is estimated

to grow at 60%, e-mailing and IP telephony is

growing at 20% and 30 percent CAGR.

In this scenario, globally SMEs play major

role in the growth of UC market. But in India

the market is yet to pick up because they face a

lot of challenges. he irst and foremost is they

have budget constraints and they think too much

about interoperability. Secondly, the UC vendors

have not been much focussed on the Indian SME

market.

Adil Doctor, Director SMB Sales (India), Avaya

India, says, “Since, SMEs have limited resources

they are gradually exploiting the beneits of Uni-

ied Communications to help increase eiciency,

productivity, and sales. However, SMEs or com-

panies with up to 999 employees in the Indian

subcontinent beneited the most from Uniied

communication.”

According to a survey by Access Markets

International (AMI) Partners, Inc. SME in India

market spent around US$48.8 million on uniied

communication (UC) in 2009.

Majority of this includes enterprise IP tele-

phony, applications like telepresence, mobility,

conferencing and collaboration are still used to

a limited extent by organizations and therefore

comprise only 10 per cent of the market.

Unified Communications (UC) has always been the tool of the large

enterprises but with the market slowdown and the growth of the SMEs,

it had also come to the space of the SMEs. But the fact is that the ven-

dors are not able to understand the market as yet and thus have not

been very aggressive also.

BY SANJAY [email protected]

ACT IN UNISON TO

TAP SME

OPPORTUNI

SME CHANNELSDECEMBER 2010

28

COVER STORY UC

AS PER FROST & SULLIVAN

STUDY, THE TOTAL SIZE OF

THE UC MARKET IN INDIA WILL

GROW MORE THAN $1 BILLION

BY THE END OF 2010.

NITY

COVER STORYUC

29SME CHANNELSDECEMBER 2010

Asheesh Pandia, Manager Communications,

Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN

India), says, “UC is precisely as relevant as ‘cost-

containment’, ROI or productivity to SMEs, as it

is to the large enterprises. Speciically all those

verticals where the resource size is bigger, travel

OPEX is higher or communications is process

critical, they need UC more than others. Also,

categories with proven needs and interest with IT/

ITES, BPO, Petroleum, Manufacturing, Banking

& Finance, Healthcare and Professional Services

need UC.”

“UC clearly ofers proitability, savings,

improved decision making, better collaboration

and mobility to them. Although pure IP adapta-

tion is seen more in Greenield projects so far,

overall, we can see quantiiable growth. Adapta-

tion is rising with the awareness and develop-

ments in security. At this rate, the 100% growth

dreams over next three years sound real,” he

added.

In its February 2009 report, “Market Overview:

Sizing Uniied Communications”, Forrester also

predicts that “companies will deploy enhanced

UC capabilities to about 60 per cent of employees

in functions that will beneit most from embed-

ding communications features like wireless and

video directly into their business applications.

Minhaj Zia, National Sales Manager, Uniied

Communications, Cisco India and SAARC,

says, “Indian SMBs are growing and adding more

business partners nationally and internationally.

With many of them also opening new branches,

networking will play an important role in keep-

ing employees connected. According to a Frost &

Sullivan study, currently, India leads the SAARC

region’s UC market in terms of total spending and

better overall awareness of UC. India has a good

potential for growth of UC applications as dem-

onstrated by the CAGR of 7.9 per cent during the

period from 2008 to 2015.”

He added, “he SMB-potential for UC is tre-

mendous as UC oferings span across budgets

and requirements. he bouquet of UC oferings,

currently available in the market, is so versatile

that any organization, large, medium or small, can

ind technology that best suits both, its needs and

budget. Interestingly, according to a NASSCOM

report, approximately 50-60 per cent of IT spends

in the country is expected to come from the lour-

ishing SMB segment.”

Clearly, there is a huge market waiting out

there to be tapped and companies are focused on

addressing it. However, in order to efectively tap

this segment, it is important that vendors develop

customized solutions, which ofer a cost-efective

and easy to deploy alternative. Indian SMBs are

looking at UC as a low-cost tool to communicate

efectively with customers and suppliers as well as

facilitate communication across multiple branch

locations. It’s important that SMBs are shown

how, by streamlining communication infrastruc-

ture, they will be able to ind smarter ways to

cut travel costs maximize operational eiciency

and improve business & customer strategies.

Conferencing and collaboration tools such as

video, audio, web conferencing and instant mes-

saging will account for a majority of the total UC

spending.

As per Minhaj with the expansion of Uniied

Communications from the enterprise space into

mid-level and smaller organizations, a growing

number of SMEs are gradually exploring how

Uniied Communications has the potential of

increasing eiciency, productivity, and sales. As

uniied communications applications become

more prevalent in the extended workspace, more

organizations are realizing the associated beneits.

Results documented by Sage Research dem-

onstrate a multitude of beneits - both in terms

of employee time savings and inancial savings.

Organizations using uniied communications

clients saved an average of 32 minutes daily per

employee because presence technology enabled

staf to reach one another on the irst try.

Use of sotphones resulted in an average sav-

ings of $1,727 per month in cell phone and long

distance charges. Mobile workers also saved 40

minutes each day, enjoyed greater business com-

munications convenience, and generated annual

productivity gains of 3.5 days per year through

business continuity impact.

Organizations using uniied messaging

reported that employees saved 43 minutes per day

from more eicient message management while

mobile workers saved 55 minutes per day.

Companies using integrated voice and Web

conferencing reported a 30 percent reduction

in conferencing expenses (by making integrated

conferencing capabilities available in-house and

on-network) and an average savings of approxi-

mately $1,700 per month in travel costs basis the

Sage report.

Uniied business communications applications

not only facilitate productivity improvements for

employees wherever their work takes them, they

can also enhance the way in which all employees

communicate.

More speciically for SMBs, the biggest USP of

opting for UC solutions is the cost savings that

they present in terms of travel, communications,

etc. Many SMBs also appreciate that enhanced

geographical collaboration that comes with the

adoption of UC.

For example, CoStar has made a signiicant

investment in a broadcast-quality video confer-

encing system from Polycom to connect 3,000

“AS SMES HAVE LIMITED

RESOURCES THEY ARE

GRADUALLY EXPLOITING

THE BENEFITS OF UNIFIED

COMMUNICATIONS TO HELP

INCREASE EFFICIENCY,

PRODUCTIVITY, AND

SALES.”

ADIL DOCTOR, DIRECTOR SMB SALES, AVAYA

INDIA

“UC IS PRECISELY AS

RELEVANT AS ‘COST-

CONTAINMENT’, ROI

OR PRODUCTIVITY TO

SMES, AS IT IS TO THE

LARGE ENTERPRISES.”

ASHEESH PANDIA, MANAGER COM-

MUNICATIONS, SIEMENS ENTERPRISE

COMMUNICATIONS (SEN INDIA)


30

COVER STORY UC

CoStar workers in the US and abroad. hey’ve

worked hard to build out their network -- dealing

with bandwidth allocation, traic shaping and

end-user training -- to keep users satisied with

and using the system.

According to CoStar’s Sergio Soto, “When we

irst started with video conferencing a few years

ago, we simply wanted a way to reduce travel costs

for our sales team. Now we have developers and

researchers on both coasts that use our video

conferencing rooms eight hours a day.” Video has

helped them cut $4-$5M in travel costs.

Neeraj Gill, Managing Director, India &

SAARC, Polycom, says, “SMEs have always faced

an uphill battle when competing with larger, more

established companies. he challenge is even

more daunting in the current economy of slower

business growth, reduced sales opportunities,

and sometimes lower revenues. SMEs are turn-

ing to these solutions because they can help them

Improve productivity, Higher return on invest-

ment (ROI), Enhance their corporate image,

Make better decisions faster, Reduce costs, etc.

Company-wide Communications,Vendor/Sup-

plier Relationships ,Employee Training/Distance

Learning etc are few more points for which SMEs

need the UC solutions.”

he other vendor of UC is NEC, which is

present in India since 2006 and among other

products, the company has a strong foothold on

UC space. Ravinder Raina, Country Head – Pri-

vate Network Solutions, NEC India, says, “In the

post recession scenario, Uniied Communications

is fast emerging as a business necessity. Large

organizations and SMBs have become optimistic

about uniied communications and use it for

integrating communication tools with real-time

business processes. Over the years, uniied com-

munications has helped in easing communication

hassles and now, even SMEs have started to realize

these advantages.”

He added, “Uniied Communications has come

a long way from a simple uniied messaging inbox

for email, voice and faxes, to enhanced mobility,

multi-modal mashups of various forms of com-

munications. hough, the market for UC tech-

nologies is still at its infancy. Currently, the UC

market in India stands at $549 mn, while $321mn

comes from enterprise telephony that includes

17% share of contact center applications, 11%

email and messaging, 10% tele-presence and con-

ferencing while 1% comes from mobility, which is

still a long way to go.”

Similarly, Business Octane is another player

who contributes large to UC space through its

large presence in the telepresence space.

Sanjay Bansal, Chairman of the Board & Man-

aging Director, Business Octane, says, “Immersive

Telepresence is gaining momentum and has a

huge potential in India. he SME market in India

is growing tremendously. he SME segment is

already a heavy user for virtual collaboration

technologies. he Immersive Telepresence Suites

available in the marketplace are majorly suitable

for large enterprises given the inancial band-

width and quantum of usage in such enterprises.

However, these factors difer for the SME seg-

ment where the demand will be driven by such

innovations that can replicate in the most efective

manner as possible the experience of immersive

telepresence at reduced costs to vindicate the

investments being made.”

He added, “Business Octane has gone ahead in

terms of innovation with its customized range of

Immersive Telepresence Suites & Solutions for the

SME segment that will help these enterprises ben-

eit from a faster ROI. We had recently introduced

CollaboratorPOWERMAXTM an afordable

immersive telepresence collaboration suite that

ofers media-rich, immersive dynamic telepres-

ence experience. he customized suite creates a

meeting experience over telepresence which is as

efective as meeting face-to-face with distant par-

ticipants with high deinition studio quality video

and high deinition stereo spatial audio, together

with near actual physical sizing and natural eye

contact.”

he company has advanced video collabora-

tion solution: AltraCOLLABORATOR that also

caters to the SME segment; it is a customizable

collaboration solution to be retroitted in existing

video meeting rooms.

Sanjay Manchanda, Director-Microsot Busi-

ness Division, Microsot India, says, “In today’s

fast evolving competitive global market, SMBs

need cost-efective technologies that allow lex-

ibility and adds value to their organization. As an

initial step towards adopting a UC solution, SMBs

are increasingly turning to Sotware + Services

solutions to meet the needs of their businesses.

Keeping these changing trends and requirements

in mind, Microsot announced the launch of

Microsot Online Services last year in India that

will help fulil the communication and collabora-

tion needs of these small businesses. his suite

combines services such as email, ability to chat,

work together simultaneously on documents,

have a meeting online and maintain a common

calendar at a cost-efective price with lexible pay-

ment options”

he online services of the company ensures reli-

able email communication, work and collaborate

“SMES ARE TURNING

TO THESE SOLUTIONS

BECAUSE THEY CAN HELP

THEM IMPROVE PRODUC-

TIVITY, HIGHER RETURN

ON INVESTMENT (ROI),

ENHANCE THEIR CORPO-

RATE IMAGE, MAKE BETTER

DECISIONS FASTER, REDUCE

COSTS, ETC”

NEERAJ GILL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INDIA &

SAARC, POLYCOM

“INDIAN SMBS ARE

GROWING AND ADDING

MORE BUSINESS PART-

NERS NATIONALLY AND

INTERNATIONALLY.”

MINHAJ ZIA, NATIONAL SALES

MANAGER, UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS,

CISCO INDIA AND SAARC


32

COVER STORY UC

faster with a common library of all documents at

one location, engage and ask for opinions using

media-rich presentations and option to switch

video and audio with multiple parties and ind

the right colleague quickly and chat on messenger,

audio or video.

From the vendors perspective, Siemens is very

focused on the SME space. As Asheesh says, “We

highly focussed on it with a comprehensive port-

folio of exclusive UC oferings for this segment.

SEN has a track record of consistent product and

solution innovation for small and medium busi-

nesses. Moreover, our marketing and service/sup-

port are aligned rightly to get us an edge on SME

space.”

SEN provides platforms that best suit smaller

business - be it integrating uniied communi-

cations functionality into Microsot Outlook,

launching conferencing from desktop or using

existing infrastructure, such as analogue tele-

phones or entry phones. SEN communications

systems and platforms support small businesses

with up to 500 employees. SEN OpenScape Oice

is the industry’s irst UC application designed

speciically for small- and medium-sized busi-

nesses, HiPath 1100 is designed to give high-

performance telephony to small/medium sized

businesses with up to 140 users and HiPath 3000

is our lexible uniied communications plat-

form that scales from 20 to 500 users. he latest

OpenScape Oice MX is an all-in-one, uniied

communications appliance built upon reliable,

secure, serviceable, and manageable OpenSmart

architecture with network connectivity that sup-

ports upto 150 users. Among Siemens Enterprise

Communications other oferings are OpenScape

Oice Contact Center, Network Infrastructure

& Security portfolio and a whole range of voice/

data/video products and solutions.

Similarly, Cisco also takes SMBs very seriously.

Cisco’s SMB division customizes networking

solutions. hese products and solutions are under

the umbrella solution-packs of Cisco Small Busi-

ness Pro, Cisco Smart Business Communication

System, backed by a host of service & support, and

inancing ofers.

Channel presence and technical support. Cisco

qualiies businesses with less than 100 PCs as

Small businesses.

Adil says, “Looking at the current trends, IP

based systems like SIP; IP PBX and telephony sys-

tems are gaining ground. Avaya ofers a platform

speciically tailored for SME needs, such as Avaya

IP Oice.”

Avaya IP Oice is simple yet sophisticated

platform which can also scale to provide UC &

CC features. SMB customer can start small and

add application later as they grow. He adds, “Avaya

is the worldwide leader in the SME market, with

leadership in both revenue and line share. With

Avaya IP Oice 6.1, the company accelerates uni-

ied communications and contact center technol-

ogies in the SME market, helping SMEs compete

more efectively, but in a cost-conscious manner.”

As per Sanjay, Business Octane’s immersive

telepresence collaboration suites and customized

collaboration solution are equipped with a user

interface that allows for simple and elegant use of

all the functionalities. All the immersive telepres-

ence collaboration suites and speciic advanced

video collaboration solution incorporate a new

revolutionary user interface SimpliUSE+ that

incorporates TeleconnectWIZARD for connect-

ing multiple locations with extreme ease of usage

and without any external help. In addition, Busi-

ness Octane’s Immersive Telepresence empowers

users to collaborate seamlessly with other com-

munication applications. Meeting participants

whether on audio, desktops, and video confer-

encing sites can seamlessly collaborate with the

company’s immersive telepresence suites.

As per him, the return on investment with our

immersive telepresence suites is so compulsive

that companies can start reaping returns on their

investment within 3 to 6 months.

On the other hand, Polycom is farming up a

strategy speciically aimed at the SME segment.

As a part of this strategy Polycom has recently

appointed a global head for the SME segment. he

company provides a wide-range of desktop, wire-

less and multimedia communication solutions for

small and medium enterprises. For example, Poly-

com SoundPoint IP family of phones leverages the

capabilities of SIP-based VoIP networks to deliver

breakthrough voice quality and advanced features

that make calls more eicient and productive.

Polycom SoundStation Conference Phones are

the industry standard for clear productive confer-

ence calls.

Similarly, Polycom’s recently introduced QDX

6000 is the irst videoconferencing product of its

kind to address the cost-conscious SME segment

that at the same time seeks ease of use and high

quality.

However, the biggest challenge the SMEs

today face isn’t so much relevant to cost, but the

“BUSINESS OCTANE HAS

GONE AHEAD IN TERMS

OF INNOVATION WITH ITS

CUSTOMIZED RANGE OF

IMMERSIVE TELEPRESENCE

SUITES & SOLUTIONS FOR

THE SME SEGMENT THAT

WILL HELP THESE ENTER-

PRISES BENEFIT FROM A

FASTER ROI.

SANJAY BANSAL, CHAIRMAN OF THE

BOARD & MANAGING DIRECTOR, BUSINESS

OCTANE

“OVER THE YEARS,

UNIFIED COMMUNICA-

TIONS HAS HELPED IN

EASING COMMUNICA-

TION HASSLES AND

NOW, EVEN SMES HAVE

STARTED TO REALIZE

THESE ADVANTAGES.”

RAVINDER RAINA, COUNTRY HEAD

– PRIVATE NETWORK SOLUTIONS, NEC

INDIA


34

COVER STORY UC

complexity of IT. he interoperability is no more

relevant now as most the vendors have addressed

the issue with open standards based solutions.

he lack of awareness and value perception is

one of the key roadblocks to SME IT adoption.

And, these challenges can only be mitigated by

the aggressive engagement of partners to play a

consultative role to the customers. Some partners

have already understood the value proposition

some are not. For example GoIP Global Services

is one of the channel partners of multi brands

and understand the market very well. hey must

have gone through gruelling sessions and have

acquired the knowledge hard way.

Shiv Sharma, Director - Strategy & Alliance,

Go IP Global Services, says, “Uniied Com-

munications (UC) has emerged as an impor-

tant milestone in the evolution of enterprise

communications. UC seeks to break down the

communications silos in the enterprise and add

collaboration functions. Using a diferent tool

for each communications mode (phone, fax, and

email) hinders productivity, wastes time, and

causes frustration. Business users no longer want

to juggle multiple devices and phone numbers,

multiple message stores, and multiple directories

when instead they can access multimedia com-

munication and collaboration tools in a single

interface on the desktop. UC breaks down barri-

ers and integrates communication and collabora-

tion tools, making them more easily accessible

and saving signiicant time and resources.”

He adds, “UC solutions, such as Microsot Lync

Server 2010 typically combine several traditional

communications functions (including presence,

instant messaging, real-time voice and video

communications and uniied messaging) into

an integrated, uniied solution. UC can improve

productivity, accelerate information transfer, and

reduce costs. UC solutions, such as Lync Server

2010 and Microsot Exchange Uniied Messaging,

can also replace traditional PBX and messaging

systems in remote oice locations.”

Cisco’s SMB market strategy involves help-

ing customers create a sustainable competitive

advantage, improve their operational eiciencies,

increase their employees’ productivity, and ulti-

mately boost their returns and proitability. he

strategy includes focusing on new customised

SMB products/solutions and inancing schemes

like the Easy Lease program, and the 0% inance

ofering for SMBs. To increase awareness of its

products and programs among these businesses,

Cisco will continue to invest heavily in partner

enablement and innovative marketing initiatives

such as the Network on Wheels and the Sales and

Marketing Services Organisation.

Cisco is developing domain speciic solutions

to help SMB customers in each sub-vertical,

which will help them plan, design and operate

business critical networks more eiciently.

he Company has also launched a small busi-

ness partner proitability program. Cisco also

makes available a lot of product literature and

support material to partners to support their sales

eforts. In fact Cisco has a separate division called

the Sales and Marketing Support Organisation

(SMSO) that takes care of the marketing collateral

needs of the channel partners.

Similarly, Avaya in India has been moving

towards a High-Touch, channel centric (HTCC)

sales model. hey now have two national level dis-

tributors in Redington and Bharti Teletech help-

ing the company reach out to the SMEs across the

country. hese distributors further sell to a large

set of System Integration (SI) partners, across

geographies in India & SAARC.

he company has a fantastic Channel Partner

Program called “Avaya Connect”, which helps SI

partners take advantage of enhanced technical

and marketing beneits. his in turn helps them

build capability on Avaya Technologies and serve

customers better.

he company is gung ho about 2011 and has a

slew of marketing initiatives in the pipeline, one

of which is already rolled out. hat is the 6 city

Experience roadshows to showcase the integrated

product roadmap and Avaya technologies to the

customers and partner community.

he company is investing heavily in the chan-

nel partners, by way of partner enablement,

Demo Gear, Ex-Stock product availability, Solu-

tion bundles, Toll free Support line for Pre-sales

& Post-sales, Partners Rewards & Rebates. Avaya

has ambitious plans on marketing online, print,

road shows for SMB partners who are certiied

and invested in Avaya.

SEN’s indirect channel structure is extensive

and so is its reach. he company has over a hun-

dred partners with pan-India presence, including

tier II cities. he company has also an excellent

partner program that focus on their empower-

ment in terms of knowledge - trainings & certi-

ication, engagement - partner communication,

presence & messaging - marketing and branding

support, references and rewards & recognition.

On global level, the company has programs like

‘Go Forward’ that are meant for channel empow-

erment and recognition.

Polycom is also working on a strategy to reach

bigger number of SME throughout the country for

which they are appointing more channel partners.

hey have 3 distributors and more than 50 chan-

nel partners spread across India. he company

will soon appoint some more channel partners to

reach out the wide spread SMEs in India. By irst

quarter of 2011, Polycom will launch “Polycom

Choice Programme” for its channel partners,

which will encompass certiication, growth and

deining the channel partners.

NEC’s channel network for PNS (Private Net-

work Solutions) is pretty strong including the

names like Enkay Technologies, Syntel and Intel-

licon. Very recently they have tied-up with Avaya

Global Connect Networks as its national distribu-

tor for the PNS solutions.

Finally…he entire assortment of opinion says that most

of the vendors are ready with SME solutions and

they have addressed the pricing and interopera-

bility issues with due care. he only thing they are

struggling waiting is the educating the customers

about the utility and R0I of the UC solutions. his

is surely a challenge and the large vendors should

take the foot forward by engaging the customers

in various platforms explaining them about the

beneits, which will include aggressively engag-

ing with the partners. Another trend - hosted

communication services or cloud services - is

also picking up in the market which is very much

relevant to the SME market and it is waited to be

seen how the things are panning out. But the sen-

timent is UC is high with the SMEs.

“UC SEEKS TO BREAK

DOWN THE COMMUNI-

CATIONS SILOS IN THE

ENTERPRISE AND ADD COL-

LABORATION FUNCTIONS.

SHIV SHARMA, DIRECTOR - STRATEGY &

ALLIANCE, GO IP GLOBAL SERVICES


36

COVER STORY UC

SME CHANNELSOCTOBER 2011

40

On a global level too, most telecom markets remain overall pulsating with focus on higher speeds, better interactivity and

customer experience.

TELE-MIMETICS, TELE-TRENDS AND FOCUS

FOR INSPIRATION!

OVER THE LAST quarter I had been very fortunate to interview and discuss one-on-one with some of the ‘who’s who’ of Canadian Telecom Industry. What’s most interesting behind the suc-cess of many of these leaders and their organiza-tions’ outstanding performance was the extremely simple but fundamentally a profound marketing wisdom. I could easily compare their thought-patterns with the likes of Al Ries and Jack Trout, the marketing Gurus and founders of positioning theory. Most of these interviews were remarkably insightful not only in terms of where the Cana-dian or Global Telecom Industry is headed to but also in that how just about any geography could relate to the other from the cause and effect per-spective of micro & mega trends and eventually, in one way or the other, can possibly utilize the end takeaways towards their collaborative industrial betterment. From marketing standpoint this at first seems tough to assimilate though, let alone to be compared any further. More so, because we speak of one of the most dynamic and particularly now, evermore stirred-up industrial segments and also when the diversity is hugely evident, among widely different geographies. However, if we refer from the standpoint of ‘inspiration’, similar to a Case-study, and not simply ‘adaptation’ because that would be unfair indeed; theories suddenly start making practical sense. In a way, it’s more like cross-industrial learning, redevelopment and collaboration or rather Biognosis and ‘Bio-mimetics’. Some may want to research those terms in entirety to get greater insight. The biggest chal-lenges that Canada had faced since inception were essentially the huge geography, weather conditions and the diversely growing consumer demography, for instance. As a result, the network infrastructure maintenance investments went beyond and out of proportion and hence, the anatomy of basic mar-

keting strategies today seems starkly different. And then there remain similarities too in terms of trends especially in the Social Media era. According to Mr. Gautam Nath, one of the best Canadian marketing knowledge-banks today, who I had the opportu-nity to meet recently, “Multi-Cultural marketing dynamics is the most sought-after horizon here in Canada at the moment” . I feel essentially the rise in Multi-Cultural Marketing shares a similar pattern to that of the ongoing ‘Rural Penetration pursuit’ in India. And yet again, considering that Canada wants the largest pipelines at the lowest cost which definitely would demand more funds, access to global capital market through more relaxed and free competition and more incumbents is desirable not much unlike how it had always been in India regardless of the competition because population and the market size is awesome.

On a global level too, most telecom markets remain overall pulsating with focus on higher speeds, better interactivity and customer experi-ence. Realistically, it is easy to understand that the Churn Management is definitely a very important issue still for the most part because acquiring a new customer is much more pricey and unpre-dictable than retaining the existing customer base. The latter, however, could also be equally demanding and complex but more often than not cost-effective to both the consumer and the service provider. The new generation of consum-ers is definitely not as loyal as it used to be in the Wireline-only era. Moreover, ‘Brand Loyalty’ itself cannot be compared at any given moment among a telecom service provider and a financial insti-tution, in the case of the former; it could be far more casual for the consumer to be flirtatious and shop around. Another common challenge across economies is to maintain & strive to increase the dirt-cheap margins and that’s where the oppor-

tunities for telecom consulting and marketing organizations and analysts lie. Subscriber base might have been sustained or grown but the rev-enues seem to dip gradually. With respect to the extremely low-margins, it’s not difficult to gauge the situation when you find analysts use Price-Earnings (P/E) and Price-to-Sales (Price/Sales) Ratios as measures of valuation; for some com-panies have little or no profits to speak of unfor-tunately, especially at this time. And now, all of a sudden, inadequate Spectrum poses another big challenge in India which DoT, the telecom regu-latory body, proposes to address with Refarming the 900 megahertz (MHz) spectrum when opera-tors’ licenses come up for renewal between 2014 and 2025 by including it in the Spectrum Bill in its recommendation. Telecom providers are of course not equally fond of such a recommenda-tion by DoT because there are reasons to believe that it would not be appropriate at this point when you have to be moving all the subscribers to a brand new network as a consequence while they are on a fully functional one, already. Let alone the obvious interruption in current service and big investments that will be needed to carry out this change in any case, at any given point in time.

Still, we cannot deny the relative growth pros-pects that sound paradoxical after summing up all the above challenges but they are true for sure. I am going to mention the exploding Mobile Broadband Traffic below and the figures are mind-blowing. Whatever be the reason for this increase in traffic, in the end, telecom service providers have both the responsibility and the opportunity to serve the consumer well and make money. There is also no denying of the fact that there is a huge potential for the current generation of consultants in cross-economy trend-spotting as well as for telecom service providers to bootstrap

TRENDZ

ASHEESH PANDIA BRAND MANAGEMENT

AND CORPORATE COMMU-NICATIONS CONSULTANT

Trendz-Asheesh Pandia of Tele-mimetics.indd 40 10/23/2011 11:56:56 PM

SME CHANNELSOCTOBER 2011

41

TRENDS

themselves. Most of all, ‘to find their best identity in the value chain’ and ‘to be able to innovate light-ening fast’ have been the top priorities of the best players so far and again trend-watching gives the best food for thought in terms of both innovation and the correct ‘Brand Positioning’.

For the most part, Indian telecom has been doing really well relatively barring the Spectrum Refarming struggle cited above; but the option of taking a look at the external and distant trends could also guarantee significant betterment for the ‘highly innovative’ kinds. The face of telecom is changing by the hour and it is not the same simple voice domain anymore rather a more holistic and all-embracing one – with the rising Mobile Broadband Traffic, dominant Consumer Electron-ics and a skyrocketing Ultra-Viral Social Media. Mobile Applications market for instance is the most astonishing at this moment . Back in March of 2009, about 2,300 applications were available on the Android Market, according to T-Mobile CTO Cole Brodman. And in May, 2011 alone, during the Google I/O, Google announced that Android Market listed 200,000 applications and had already clocked 4.5 Billion installed applications. By July, the figure had crossed the 250,000 milestone. Distimo and Germany-based research2guidance forecast that the number of apps on Android

Market would surpass Apple by the third quarter of 2011, with some 425,000 apps. Similarly in terms of Consumer Electronics and Mobile Broadband Traffic, iSuppli reckons global SmartPhone ship-ments will double by 2015 and account for more than half of all mobile phones sold. At the same time, mobile broadband traffic volumes will see a 2600% increase in the next five years, say Nokia Sie-mens Networks’ own figures. The Nokia Siemens numbers are astounding — a 1000-fold mobile data traffic increase by the year 2020.

To consumer, mobility is not a privilege any-more; it’s simply an ‘extension of access to infor-mation’ and telecom providers only need the ‘super value creation’ attitude besides the compe-tent technology to win the game. Lack of mobility is rather a polite way of saying ‘denial-of-service’ in today’s competition. Take m-Commerce, for example, which has been considered as the game-changer especially in the developing economies. Even in the developed ones, it is not yet ubiqui-tous maybe because of the security-related, tech-nological and psychological challenges but once the ice is broken and it is made easily accessible, there’s no dearth of the wonders that efficiently run m-Commerce could do. So for the winners, it must not just be the ‘Next Thing’. It rather ought to be a current service provisioning mandate top

on their priority list to keep ahead of the rat-race. Coming back to the trends and patterns that

Indian telecom providers can bank upon. First of all, focusing on that One Particular ‘Differentiat-ing’ Brand Identity, that makes any brand unique – it is just too important. What we see around today is everyone doing everything, everyone sell-ing everything but the biggest brands in the world are the ones that do ‘only their thing’ that reflects them directly and uniquely; when you talk about a particular product or service, it’s only that brand that comes to the consumer’s mind and vice-versa. Many of the top executives and telecom profes-sionals advocate restricting the number of players to 4 to 6 and the reason behind that is both intel-ligent and plausible. However, from the perspec-tive of brand management and positioning, more intellectual bandwidth should be targeted on their main focus and ‘focus’ is the key to positioning. The Narrower and Unique it is, the better for any brand. Forget about the competition for a moment, let’s first understand what we want to achieve, get clarity, prioritize our things and then jump in the warfare fully armed. This is one of the key findings you instantly get a feel of when you look at a market such as Canada’s. Each brand has an identity and a ‘unique personality’ and that’s where the learning is. And in abundance!

Trendz-Asheesh Pandia of Tele-mimetics.indd 41 10/23/2011 11:56:59 PM

As technology progresses and

customers seeks to satisfy different

needs in one transaction, has led to

technology combinations or to put

it simply, Convergence. Today, it has

become a mainstream phenomenon and

the market is embracing the growing

convergence technology market.

BY KARMA [email protected]

CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES TO PREVAIL

Lately, we are hearing a lot about convergence. Technologies are converging to bring together a myriad of devices to ease usability and increase effectiveness for the end-user. The form-factors are becoming more compact and portable with providing better processing, efficient storage and easy access

capabilities.Today, integration, convergence, whatever you call it, is happening all

around us from computing to smart phones and tabs. Datacenters are employing such technologies as they are running out of space and power. With Convergence, they can use the same device for multiple applications by implementing Virtualization and Cloud techniques.

Recently IBM announced a new family of data center building blocks called PureSystems with the aim to offer integrated systems. Or take Ora-cle’s Exadata, which has been in the market for quite some time now, and is a complete package of storage, servers, networking and software, which the company says is secure, scalable and redundant. Then there is the HP’s converged cloud solutions. The list is endless.

A precursor to most application developments today, the network industry too renders many convergence products like IP Surveillance with

42

FEATURE CONVERGENCE

SME CHANNELSJULY 2012

Convergence.indd 42 19/07/12 9:57 AM

43

FEATURECONVERGENCE



in-built storage and centralized monitoring facili-ties, Network Attached Storage with Surveillance Station, Web Server, Multimedia Station, FTP Server, etc.

Storage consolidation, also called storage con-vergence is a method of centralizing data storage among multiple servers/devices.Scanner, copier and printer are becoming MFD while multiple point security products are becoming Unified Threat management (UTM) box.

“As collaboration becomes social, as user experience goes mobile, and as computing infra-structure and platforms migrate to the cloud, the convergence of these technologies will create the next big wave in the IT industry,” says Salil Godika, CSO and CMO, Happiest Minds Technologies.

So, does convergence encompass the merging of technologies, devices and networks? “No,” says Asheesh Pandia, Global Brand Manager, Tyco International, ON Canada, “Boiling ‘Convergence’ down to a simple, one-line definition is difficult because it is not only about merging technologies, devices and networks but it ultimately encom-passes user experience as well.”

“New dimensions of simplicity, integration and automation are what convergence means to the users, and eventually, true convergence would mean that customer’s device doesn’t define him anymore. To understand convergence as a process and way for development is important because it is a continuous and dynamic phenomenon. More-

over, with its role in socio-economic development, it needs to be observed not only from the technical standpoint but also from that of a ‘developmental’ one,” he explains.

Delving more into the meaning of convergence Subir Bhatnagar, VP & Global Head (Solutions), AGC Networks Ltd, says that there are three critical aspects of experiencing technology—the equipment or device, applications stored in serv-ers, network to access these applications. “While the servers are used for running these applica-tions, storage devices or systems are used to store information and data related to these applications. What convergence does he says is sync up all the three aspects and attempts to deliver a seamless experience which is also known as virtualization.”

The convergence market is large and growing as the customer today looks for business specific needs with minimal customization and provi-sion for future scalability in terms of technology and space. Being able to manage a business with centralized control and management is a basic requirement.

Commenting on the size of the market Bhat-nagar informs, “A report quoted the market size to be around $35 billion across the globe with a predicted growth of minimum 12%. But the way convergence is being adopted by enterprises and demanded by users I am sure the growth rate can exceed anything around 20%.”

Vendors agree that convergence does help in

making things simpler by making management uncomplicated with consolidation and centraliza-tion of data or services. Consolidation and cen-tralization widely contribute to lower TCO and save power thereby increasing ROI.

Subhashini Ramakrishnan, CTO, Dax Net-works, informs, “Apart from the fact that con-vergence may influence consumers to accept new technologies, it definitely delivers higher efficiency while reducing TCO. To be successful in the convergence market, one must understand the various bottlenecks of implementing such solu-tions now and the impact, and the turn it would make in the next couple of years.”

“Convergence helps customers to reduce their TCO on infrastructure management and support. Helps to implement solutions such as DR2Cloud and have multiple applications running on same device and easy to scale up and scale down based on demand,” says Sridharan Mani, CEO and Director, American Megatrends India.

“As devices are reduced there will be reduc-tion in power, less carbon emission and hence a greener planet. Turing off devices, instances, pro-cessor cores during off-peak demand time helps to save power and energy,” he adds.

Pandia sees Convergence as all about making things simpler, leaner and greener. With smaller storage footprint, lower cooling, lower power and simplified management, convergence reduces TCO to a great extent he affirms.

TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE

CONVERGENCE MARKET, ONE MUST

UNDERSTAND THE VARIOUS

BOTTLENECKS OF IMPLEMENTING SUCH

SOLUTIONS NOW AND THE IMPACT

AND TURN IT WOULD MAKE IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS.” SUBHASHINI RAMAKRISHNAN,

CTO, DAX NETWORKS

“IN FACT COST OF TECHNOLOGY

ADOPTION HAS BEEN JUST GOING DOWN

ONLY. THE LIFE SPAN OF DEVICE TOO HAS

SHORTENED AND USERS KNOW THAT.”

SUBIR BHATNAGAR, VP & GLOBAL HEAD – SOLUTIONS, AGC

NETWORKS LTD

“WITH VIRTUALIZATION

AND CLOUD TECHNIQUES, THE DEFECTIVE DEVICE

CAN BE MOVED OFFLINE BY HAVING THE APPLICATION INSTANCES MOVED TO A DIFFERENT

DEVICE TO MINIMIZE DOWNTIME.”

SRIDHARAN MANI, CEO AND DIRECTOR, AMERICAN

MEGATRENDS INDIA.


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FEATURE CONVERGENCE


Hence over the years, the reliability of IT hard-ware has improved tremendously. Therefore, Pillai explains, most of the issues faced today are on the soft side like setting and configuration. Hardware failure is rare and hence manageable through replacement process due to low incidence.

“In case of critical applications or devices, provision for high availability must be kept in mind. Most products used in such environments have built-in redundancy and 99.99% uptime features,” reminds Ramakrishnan. “Care must be taken at the architecture design level to handle adequate redundancy. It is advisable to practice and have a disaster recovery plan in place. In fact many convergence products have multiple func-tions to serve as both primary/secondary devices individually.”

As per Mani, “Ideally, the device would employ techniques to avoid single point of failure with redundancies built-in. If not the case, the down-time will definitely increase. With virtualiza-tion and cloud techniques, the defective device can be moved offline by having the application instances moved to a different device to minimize downtime.”

With the consolidation of different devices cus-tomers more often go for products of more than one vendor but there is always the lingering fear of vendor lock-in among the end customers.

The market is replete with vendors accused of vendor lock-in both on the software and the

hardware side, though they may deny following such practices. But things might be changing. “Vendors have started to address the lock-in con-cerns of the end user already and they are coming up with investment protection plans,” says Pandia “Although the focus has to be more on the ‘service’ part of it, both buy-back and time or technology-proofing packages will soon be seen more often as vendors re-align their product and service strategies.”

Allaying the vendor lock-in issue Sunil Pillai, Co-founder and MD, iValue InfoSolutions, remarks, “IT has come a long way over the years. It’s rare to see offerings only form a single vendor for most requirements. Also the market is com-petitive enough not to allow any vendor take any unreasonable stand. Competitive upgrade programs are available from most brands to help customer switch from one vendor to another with least impact.”

He further adds that buying criteria should focus on relevance of the offering to address business and IT challenge. Brand and vendor should come after relevance in decision making criteria.

Today, most agree, that neither technology makers nor connectivity providers are married to a particular vendor. They all are following a multi association approach to maximize their market capitalization. “A lot in both enterprises and con-sumers is shifting from Capex to Opex model, just

to eliminate the fear of high cost of technology shift or upgrade. In fact cost of technology adop-tion has been just going down only. The life span of device too has shortened and users know that,” informs Bhatnagar.

Coming to challenges, the opinions differ all across the board. While for Ramakrishnan with the ease in use and accessibility for the user comes the concern for security and availability. As long as this is kept in mind one is ready to go. Also, proper management of applications across the WAN can help mitigate convergence challenges she says. For Mani the business continuity is critical. For him the biggest challenge would be to ensure that downtime is zero and RPO is minimum.

And for Pandia overwhelming demand for new policy frameworks, bandwidth, investment and standards for seamless integration are some of the key challenges. Besides, both organizations and regulators are faced with the vertical and horizon-tal integration challenges. “In terms of regulatory ecosystem, a competitive market would allow convergence to expand the most,” he opines.

Finally…So convergence is not a loose term any more. It is real and happening. The IT industry is already seeing the benefits of convergence but the fact of the matter is that the manageability is not yet tested though said to be worry freed. So time will tell how it stands in long run.

“THE MARKET IS COMPETITIVE

ENOUGH NOT TO ALLOW ANY

VENDOR TAKE ANY UNREASONABLE

STAND. COMPETITIVE UPGRADE PROGRAMS

ARE AVAILABLE FROM MOST BRANDS TO HELP CUSTOMER SWITCH FROM ONE

VENDOR TO ANOTHER WITH LEAST IMPACT.”SUNIL PILLAI, CO-FOUNDER AND

MD, IVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS.

“‘CONVERGENCE’ IS NOT ONLY

ABOUT MERGING TECHNOLOGIES, DEVICES AND

NETWORKS BUT IT ULTIMATELY

ENCOMPASSES USER EXPERIENCE AS

WELL.”ASHEESH PANDIA, GLOBAL BRAND MANAGER, TYCO

INTERNATIONAL, ON CANADA

“AS COLLABORATION BECOMES SOCIAL, USER EXPERIENCE

GOES MOBILE, COMPUTING

INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLATFORMS

MIGRATE TO CLOUD, THE CONVERGENCE

OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES WILL CREATE THE NEXT BIG WAVE IN THE IT

INDUSTRY.”SALIL GODIKA, CSO AND CMO,

HAPPIEST MINDS TECHNOLOGIES.


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FEATURE CONVERGENCE


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