India SMBs spent approximately USD165 million on unified
communications (UC) in 2010, with close to three fourths of all
businesses deploying UC applications. Instant messaging
applications are ubiquitous and hosted audio & web conferencing
applications show significant usage among businesses having more
than 10 employees, says AMI-Partners.
The need for collaboration between employees and branch offices is
a major driver, as is the promise of reduced costs. With the
majority of India SMBs planning to hire additional employees, and
15 - 20 percent planning to open new branches, unified
communications applications are poised for significant growth in
the next five years.
"Although India SMBs, especially SBs, still believe in the value of
face-to-face meetings with partners & collaborators," says Neha
Jalan, Senior Associate at AMI, "they are increasingly aware of the
advantages of adopting unified communication applications such as
web, audio and video conferencing to assist in closing the deal. By
using these types of applications, businesses are able to cut
travel time, manage expenses and increase productivity."
Many India SMBs use a combination of pay-per-use and fixed monthly
fee solutions. "Often," notes Jalan, "sophisticated solutions such
as web/video conferencing are deployed by senior management
primarily, on a pay-per-use basis, to interact with larger partners
or foreign collaborators while audio conferencing solutions are
used internally within branches at fixed monthly rates." Presently
in India, no single vendor provides all of the UC elements for a
complete UC solution.
AMI-Partners' latest study, the "India SMB Cloud Playbook," notes
high levels of interest in a complete integrated UC solution
bundled with remotely managed services, or with
productivity/collaboration suites. "There is considerable potential
for incremental revenues and increased purchase probability with
the introduction of such bundles at a fixed monthly cost," notes
Jalan.
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