Event

Frost & Sullivan hosts conference on Unified Communications

At Frost & Sullivan’s conference on the current market developments in Unified Communications, not everyone was convinced about the technology’s RoI. Among the skeptics was Arun Gupta, Group Chief Technology Officer at Shoppers Stop.

The event, titled “Unified Communications - India 2009”, was hosted by the Information & Communications Technology practice of Frost & Sullivan, a global growth partnership company. Part of a three city event series, the Mumbai event was held on the evening of January 28th.

Girish Trivedi, Dy. Director –ICT, Frost & Sullivan presented his views on the current and potential market scenario with respect to Unified Communications in India. The presentation brought to light the prevailing and anticipated trends in adoption and cited industry examples. The key market drivers and restraints, challenges and benefits involved were also enlisted thereby enabling a clear view of the Unified Communications arena.

Unified Communications in the Indian market is at an early growth stage but, according to Frost & Sullivan, has tremendous potential to transform the enterprise communications landscape. The addressable market for Unified Communications in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.3%. The primary thrust for Unified Communications comes from the burgeoning adoption and migration to the IP telephony platform. Although several enterprises are implementing only specific applications to meet their current need, it is anticipated that these enterprises would mature in their outlook and seek to further augment their Unified Communications experience in the future. Unified Messaging, Conferencing and Collaboration, Presence, and Mobility are anticipated to be key growth engines in the future.

Keynote address by Girish Trivedi, Deputy Director, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia & Middle East

Manish Kitawal, Business Manager, Aspect Software, speaking on Bringing customers and companies together like never before

Amit Mehta, Director - Unified Communication, Microsoft speaking on Unified Communication: Unifying the user experience for enabling business transformation

Panel Discussion: Mohammad Saif moderating the session (on the podium). Panelists (From L to R) Amit Mehta, Director - Unified Communications, Microsoft; Girish Rao, head - IT solutions, Marico; Pankaj Sindhu, Director - IT, Fulford India; Arun Gupta, Chief Technology Officer, Shoppers Stop and Pradeep Dwivedi, Corporate Vice President - Marketing & Product Management, Tata Teleservices Limited

According to Frost & Sullivan, the multitude of benefits Unified Communications offers and the need to propagate differentiators in a market place of intense competition are just some of the factors pushing enterprises to adopt Unified Communications.

There was a lot of discussion around the emerging trends in the market that could stimulate further growth for Unified Communications. The integration of Unified Communications and critical enterprise business processes such as CRM, ERP, etc, is seen as a development which would enable enterprise customers to view Unified Communications as a significant value proposition.

Amit Mehta, Director - Unified Communication, Microsoft India talked about the roadblocks in embracing Unified Communications, one of which is the interoperability of different modes of communication in a seamless experience for the user. His presentation focused on a Microsoft -centric approach to using Unified Communications to have a unified user experience leveraging the same to cut costs and enhance revenue.