Polycom has been a well known brand in the video conferencing solutions in India. Yugal Sharma, country manager, Polycom India and SAARC, discusses the latest trends in video conferencing and Polycom’s growth strategy in India.

Where are the latest trends in video conferencing?

Notable developments in recent months in India with regard to the video conferencing tools include prominent mergers and continued progress in migration from integrated services digital network (ISDN) to Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The growth of the overall Asia Pacific video conferencing endpoints market is expected to be led by the corporate sector, where converged voice, data and video solutions are likely to have their strongest appeal, primarily as productivity tools for knowledge workers.

Factors like cost of ownership, maintenance of infrastructure and the general perception that people had about conferencing as a luxury is slowly dying. Also with the wide scale adoption of ICT technologies, we are headed for a bright future. Globally, with the onset of 3G video conferencing as well as increasing popularity of software-based solutions and interest in enhanced collaborative tools, the markets are providing vast opportunities for growth as video conferencing is increasingly offered as part of the product mix by varying solution providers.

How is the video conferencing market changing in India?

The inherent benefits of video-conferencing (such as facilitating in-depth interaction levels for business meetings and reducing travel expenses) have often been offset by a number of operational issues. India has also faced bandwidth and special networking requirements that has limited its integration with the enterprise’s overall communication network and made it an overlay application that required special attention and administration. But recent advancements in video and collaboration tools are ushering in a new era of video telephony facilitating easy access and usage of video conferencing. The migration to converged IP networks and the spread of IP telephony has also provided a receptive platform infrastructure that can enable video to become an integrated element within the telephony environment.

The CIO today is aware about the benefits of technology like video conferencing. The needs of a CIO are increasing and well defined. Polycom is working on developing feature-rich, easy-to-use and vertical-specific conferencing solutions.

Could you brief us on your enterprise strategy for India?

Polycom plans to maintain the lead in voice, video and data conferencing technologies. In addition to this, we are planning to establish an edge in the market with high end conferencing solutions when it comes to enterprises like real presence experience. Real presence or telepresence is the relatively new phenomenon of video communications that envelops the participants in a luxurious, comfortable environment where the technology is transparent and the high definition video clarity is so sharp that the far end participants appear to be just across the table.

We at Polycom truly believe that India is a ripe market for a space that is worth around $3 billion worldwide as per various research agencies. Potential applications would span across areas like boardroom meetings, corporate conferences, high-end surgeries, operation theatres, education and distance learning centres. We also foresee huge growth prospects in the IP telephony equipment space.

How far has Polycom been able to achieve its targeted growth rates and in which verticals is it doing good business in India?

According to Frost & Sullivan, convergence of collaborative technologies is growing at a fast pace. Frost & Sullivan projects the overall collaborative technology market will grow 12.6% annually from about $4.8 billion in 2004 to $9 billion in 2009. Polycom on the other hand has performed exceptionally well exceeding market growth. According to a research conducted by Frost & Sullivan, Polycom enjoys a market share of 60.9% in India in the video conferencing industry. Polycom has won a number of large clients in the recent past. The other important wins for Polycom have been from the Government of India like Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Income Tax and Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd. and SBI.

Polycom is targeting the Government vertical in a large way. We are one of one of the largest providers of technology to the Indian government and work is going on a lot of tenders. Polycom is working with the government on projects where they are connecting all districts and block. Also, with the rollout of state wide area networks across various states, it will help us reach out to state governments for deployment of video conferencing solutions. We also see immense potential in this area and are looking at all 28 states to soar high with SWAN’s wings.