United States-based global information technology services company, Virtusa is a late entrant in the Indian market. Traditionally, the 16 year old company has been focusing on markets such as Europe, Asia Pacific, ASEAN countries and the Middle-East. The company has shifted its focus on the Indian market and is looking forward to work closely with service providers and original equipment manufacturers to tap potential business opportunities on offer.

In an interview with tele.net.in, Srinivasan Jayaraman, vice-president and global head - telecom practice, Virtusa talks about the company’s focus areas in India, challenges and the way forward.

Edited excerpts…

What is Virtusa’s business strategy in India?

Our approach towards the Indian market is going to be consistent with our global business strategy. Out of the company’s total global revenues, 50 per cent of the revenues come on the back of solutions which focus on delivering an enhanced customer experience to consumers. In India too the company would be partnering with service providers and original equipment manufacturers and help them improve quality of services delivered to end users i.e. subscribers and the enterprise consumers.

Globally, the company has been focusing on tapping the millennial customer i.e. individuals born after 1994. This segment of consumer is using telecom and IT technologies in varied ways unlike the previous generation. Currently, users are connected 24x7 and communication happens real time. Such consumer behavior is driving operators to come up with differentiated offerings. Particularly, in the Indian market operators for the last few years have been focussing on maximising consumer acquisition, now they are moving towards monetisation of existing customers. Players are focused on encouraging users to spend more money by motivating them to take up value added services. Our endeavor is to help service providers meet the challenge of monetising their network and assets.

The company is in talks with several service providers to launch joint go to market strategies. Virtusa is looking forward to support operators in gaining deeper insights into consumer behavior by using tools such as big analytics. Another priority would be to further integrate social media and location based services to help service providers enrich overall consumer experience.

What are the challenges facing the company?

Since, Virtusa is relatively a new player in the Indian telecom market, the company faces the challenging task of differentiating itself from other companies. We are talking to customers and emphasising on our ability to deliver faster and cost-effective solutions to them. Being a smaller company we are agile and better positioned to take quick decisions. The company does not believe in having a big team to run the customer’s business thereby increasing costs for the client.

The telecom industry in India is highly fragmented therefore it is difficult to drive a holistic approach amongst clients for delivering an enhanced customer experience for the end consumer.

How is the Indian telecom industry placed vis-à-vis global markets?

Unlike the west, the service providers in India are still trying to differentiate their product portfolio. India continues to be a price play market whereas operators in developed countries have realised that offering telecom services at lower price is not going to bring in growth. Also, in India the life cycle of telecom networks has collapsed dramatically as compared to any other global market. Following 2G network other technologies such as 3G and 4G have been launched in quick succession. As a result, subscribers who wish to shift to a faster network and higher bandwidth would have difficulty in perceiving difference in the quality of service that they experience on their mobile devices. Further, a shorter network lifecycle has resulted in higher investments from service providers without the players having the opportunity to fully monetise these investments.

Going forward, Indian operators need to encourage consumers to take up value added services to help them boost their revenues. In addition, they need to focus on enterprise segment which offers higher revenues.

Also, unlike western markets, India has bypassed the fibre rollout revolution. Typically, majority of the countries worldwide have witnessed extensive rollout of fibre network. India has not focused on taking fibre to the premises and the country has invested more in wireless networks as against wireline. However, wireline networks offer more bandwidth to subscribers and therefore present greater opportunities for monetisation of services.

What are the emerging technology trends that you forsee in the Indian telecom market?

Currently, there is a lack of innovative applications to encourage widespread adoption of 4G service amongst users. Therefore, it would be interesting to see the kind of efforts service providers would put in to leverage 4G service.