Niru Mehta, MD, Avaya GlobalConnect and MD, VP, Avaya India

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Niru Mehta, MD, Avaya GlobalConnect and MD, VP, Avaya India

August 15, 2005

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As vice-chairman and managing director of Avaya GlobalConnect and managing director and vice-president of Avaya India, Niru Mehta is well acquainted with the networking needs of enterprise users. In a recent interview with tele.net, he talks about how customer needs have evolved over time and how Avaya is striving to meet them...

How has the Indian large enterprise telecom market developed over the years?

In the last couple of years we have seen the Indian enterprise telephony market evolving from a pure PCM/TDM market to IP telephony. The role of PBX in an enterprise has also undergone a fundamental change. From being a mere switching device, the IP telephony server today performs a lot of applications. Among the early adopters of IP telephony, we have seen call centres, BPOs and MNCs going in for IP telephony. More and more customers, who are currently on traditional systems, are talking of migration to IP telephony and want to avail of the benefits that IP telephony brings. The IP telephony market for CY 2004 as per Frost & Sullivan was around $60 million and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 35 per cent for the next couple of years. As per Frost & Sullivan projections, the number of IP ports shipped will exceed that of TDM ports by 2007. However, this is not to say that the traditional telephony market will just disappear. The lower end of the market which is highly price sensitive would still go in for traditional telephony.

As customers deploy various applications like IP telephony and unified messaging, they are demanding "intelligent communications" that would seamlessly integrate communication capabilities and business processes. This warrants the need for an extensible platform that will deliver triple-play (voice, video and data) applications. Customers today are investing in "best of breed" solutions that are based on open standards and are interoperable with other vendors. As the percentage of mobile workers is increasing, customers today need enterprise-wide and enterprise-class mobility. This would help employees stay in touch with their customers, irrespective of time zones and geographies. With businesses becoming more complex and virtualised, organisations are demanding "collaborative solutions" like meet-me conferencing, audiovideo conferencing that will help them take decisions in real time.

Which new technologies hold the greatest promise for Indian enterprise telecom customers, and why?

Over the last few years, many organisations have been merging their segregated voice, data, wireline and wireless networks, thereby creating a converged network based on IP technology. SIP (session initiation protocol) is gaining popularity within the communication industry as a "telephony protocol". SIP runs across a converged IP network and has been specifically designed to be used on any IP-capable device, be it a mobile phone, email, instant messaging, IP phone or a set-top box. In addition, SIP has another important feature, presence. A SIP device or programme will register itself on the network allowing your presence or availability to be published to other users on the network. This presence information allows users to control how they want to be communicated with. For example, voice, e-mail or instant messaging. In addition, by controlling "who can see your presence information" you are able to control "who can contact you".

Applications like enterprise-wide mobility, visual voice mails, broadcasting services through IP phones, centralised personnel directories, integrated access to voice, e-mail and messaging systems are helping employees to be more productive and more customer responsive.

Talking specifically of mobile technologies, enterprise-wide and enterpriseclass mobility is increasingly becoming an integral element of business operations.Today mobility goes far beyond cellular phones, and simply issuing cellular phones to employees is not mobile strategy. Our vision of enterprise mobility proposes that organisations need to have enterprise-class mobility that will give consistent, equivalent communications empowerment and control to all workers – whether they are at their desk or at their home-office, moving around the enterprise campus, or out on the road.

Avaya and Nokia are working together to extend business communications applications to mobile devices, enabling employees to be more accessible and productive while on the move. Avaya mobile for series 60 smartphones can transform employees' mobile device into an extension of their desk phone, providing core functionality of Avaya communication manager IP telephony software such as multi-party conference calling, call transfer and abbreviated dialling. This ability to integrate mobile devices into business operations provides opportunities to improve employee productivity while controlling communications costs.

What are the biggest bottlenecks (in terms of infrastructure, policy, etc.) that prevent Indian enterprise customers from effectively utilising telecom technologies?

We are quite satisfied with the progress made so far, ever since the government opened up the telecom sector. However, there are a few challenges, which we believe, once addressed, will further fuel the growth of this segment. These include:

Interconnectivity of PSTN-private networks, which will facilitate optimum utilisation of resources and derive the maximum from what technology can deliver.

Reliability of last mile connectivity, which will ensure higher uptime of systems and less loss of revenue.

Interoperability issues which will give more choices to customers and not get stuck to a particular/proprietary vendor.

We are hopeful that necessary actions would be taken in the near future to address some of these challenges.

How do the prices of products and services in India compare with other countries?

Market dynamics are different in different countries. Pricing of products and services would also depend on macroeconomic factors and the competitive scenario. Pricing of products and services also depends on the particular customer segment and applications. Indian customers are very discerning and knowledgeable. They are ready to try state-ofthe-art technology and are willing to pay for the value it will bring.

As far as pricing of services goes, unlike the US and Europe where services are priced much higher, in India we have seen services being discounted. However, of late, customers are appreciating the services for their mission-critical applications and are ready to pay the price for the same.

Based on your interactions with customers, what would you say are the biggest priorities today for enterprise customers? What is your own perspective on what the priorities should be?

The three biggest priorities for enterprise customers today are:

to grow revenues;

to reduce costs and improve RoI; and

to be more responsive to customer needs.

I support these priorities with significant focus on customer responsiveness, which will enable sustainable revenue growth and profitability improvements.

How prevalent is the use of service level agreements (SLAs) in the Indian telecom market? Are these SLAs monitored properly and honoured?

More and more customers want to focus on their core business. As a result, they are outsourcing their entire technology infrastructure to vendors with whom they sign SLAs on application delivery and not on product alone. The Indian telecom market is currently exploring such SLabased agreements.

What is Avaya's market outlook? What do you see as the key growth areas?

Frost & Sullivan and various other industry analysts have indicated a market growth of 15-20 per cent for enterprise communications. The key growth areas for Avaya are:

IP telephony and intelligent communication applications;

BPO and contact centres serving both domestic and international markets; and

the SMB business.

We also see growth opportunities in video conferencing solutions, voice communication solutions, customer services, mobility solutions, security solutions, etc.

What are Avaya's shortand long-term goals and priorities?

Our short-terms goals are:

to continue to enhance customer responsiveness through a strong presence in the Indian market, competent resources, global business practices and a comprehensive product portfolio;

to become a market-centric organisation by offering end-to-end industry segmentspecific solutions from multiple vendors that complement Avaya solutions;

to focus more on application-oriented solutions; and

to grow our service capabilities and offerings to meet our customers' growing telecom needs.

Our long-terms goals are as follows:

We want to be the "most preferred" vendor for our customers in India as well as Australia;

We are aiming to become the "most customer responsive organisation" in India, which is in line with our vision;

Our real assets are our employees. We are striving hard to create an engaging work environment for our employees where they have the best opportunities to learn and contribute for the highest level of impact. We would like to be recognised as one of the most preferred work environments among Indian industries.

The Indian enterprise communications industry is revolutionising the way Indian businesses communicate and participate in global economies. I want to thank our customers for their confidence in us, which has enabled us to achieve a leadership position in all our focus areas year after year for many years now.