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3/40 6 INFORMATIONWEEK AUGUST 2014 www.informationweek.in

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PERSPECTIVEWhy enterprise socialcollaboration means businessNew research highlights the concretebusiness benets that can result fromsocial collaboration

LEADERSHIPThe journey from a CIO to anentrepreneurEx-CIO, Fullerton India, Anoop Handatakes us through his transition from aCIO to an entrepreneur. He talks aboutthe factors that encouraged him totake up the entrepreneurial mantle anddiscusses challenges encountered inthe journey

OPINIONUnied and collaborated:The new age communicationapproach for enterprises

FEATUREClosing the UC gap: 4 tipsMaking the leap from uniedcommunications to unied interactionis possible, but it involves more than just installing new software. Heres howto make a successful transition

INTERVIEWThe collaboration paradigmneeds change to extend beyondinternal processesANMOL NAUTIYAL Director- IBM Social Business &IBM Smarter Workforce

Indian enterprises tapping into the collaboration curveIn a market driven by heavy competition and shrinking margins, enterprises are lookingto boost efficiency and productivity in every way they can. Collaboration and uniedcommunication technologies are at the forefront of this crusade. We spoke to vendors

and service providers in the collaboration and unied communications space to gain theirperspective on how this market in India is evolving, the value proposition that the Indianenterprises are seeing in this technology and the innovations this is bringing about

ANALYST ANGLEHighly disruptive UniedCommunications technologiesshaping the industrys trajectory The article looks at the trajectory ofve UC industry segments that are

undergoing the radical dual threat oftechnology and channel disruption

GLOBAL CIOIBM-Apple deal feedsCIO app ambitionsBut do CIOs want Apple-only,ready-made apps? Custom, in-houseapps have advantages

DOWN TO BUSINESSMicrosoft shows techmonopolies dont lastAs nature abhors a vacuum, innovatorsabhor a monopoly, especially in thefast-paced IT industry

CIO VOICEThe Digirati are coming

Collaboration needs to beuse-case driven, not technologydrivenGARY BARNETT SVP & GM, Collaboration, Avaya

The journey from Unied toUniversal Communications

Instant messengers changingdynamics of Indian enterprises

Collaboration: The essence ofUnied Communications

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF TECHNOLOGY

COVER STORY

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Collaboration and Unied Communications: High on the CIO agendaWe reached out to CIOs in the industry to try and get a sense of how they are using technologyto support and build a culture of collaboration, what are the kinds of strengths or pitfalls of usingUC&C and how are they tackling it. Foremost, we asked them what are the people, processes andtechnology combinations that have worked for them

Cover Design : Deepjyoti Bhowmik



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EDITORIAL INDEXPerson & Organization

Ajit Melarkode, RackSpace .......................................34

Alok Lall, Microsoft India ................. .........................25

Anmol Nautiyal, IBM ...................................................22

Anoop Handa,

Anlight Consulting Services .....................................32

Benoy CS, Frost & Sullivan .........................................39

Bern Elliot, Gartner ......................................................40

Chandrashekar Gangadhar,

HP Technology Services India .................................18

Francis Rajan,

Bangalore International Airport .............................12

Gary Barnett, Avaya .....................................................23

Godwin Fernandes,

ASK Investment Holdings .........................................44

Goober, Huawei Enterprise ......................................16

Jinen Dedhia, Drona Mobile ...................................29

Kalpana Maniar,

Edelweiss Financial Services ....................................12

Manoj Khilnani, BlackBerry India ...........................24

Mayur Danait, Lupin ....................................................11

Minhaj Zia, Polycom ....................................................17

Preethi Varma, Zoho ....................................................16

Rajendra Deshpande,

Serco Global Services .................................................10

Ravi Sundararajan, Webaroo ....................................26

Saghar Abbas, Mindtree ............................................27

Srinivas Tadigadapa, Intel..........................................15

Troy Malone, Evernote ...............................................28

Udaya Shankar, Xchanging ......................................33


5/40 AUGUST 2014 INFORMATIONWEEK 9

We reached out to CIOs in theindustry to try and get a sense of howthey are using technology to support andbuild a culture of collaboration, what arethe kinds of strengths or pitfallsof using UC&C and how

are they tackling it.Foremost, we askedthem what are thepeople, processesand technologycombinations thathave worked for themBY VARUN HARAN

tweet@varunph

Cover Story

any reams of print and web space have beencommitted to advocating the imperativenature of embracing technology-enabledcollaboration and its relevance to businesses

today. While collaboration as a workplace culture has beenintrinsic to the nature of business, with technology-enabledcollaboration, IT once again nds itself in the position ofinnovator, game changer and evangelistas with the cloud.

Indeed CIOs across the industry bear out the fact thatunication of enterprise communications platforms andcollaboration initiatives around presence, IP telephony,instant messaging etc; driven by recent revolutions likecloud, social and mobility, are on their agendas. Businessesare evolving and growing at a tremendous pace with manyIndian companies having established extensive interestsglobally in the last half a decade.

Unied communication and Collaboration (UC&C) is fastbecoming a business imperative, a fact that is being borneout by the extensive use of external collaboration platforms

and applications in many organizations today. Technologyhas empowered the knowledge worker and keeping faithwith traditional methods of working together is gettingphased out in true Darwinian fashion.

To know about their collaboration journey andunderstand the challenges and motivations, we approachedCIOs from four industry verticals. We spoke to them to garnerinsights from their experiences over the past few yearsusing technology solutions to support and build a culture ofcollaboration and communication in their enterprises.

We look at technology-enabled collaboration andunied communication from their perspective in thenext few sections, analyzing how they are leveraging thestrengths of these technologies and tackling the pitfalls.We take a closer look at the people, process and technologycombinations that have worked best for them in theirindividual businesses and seek nuggets of wisdom forCIOs trying to incubate a similar culture of collaboration,powered by technology, in their organizations.

Collaboration and Unied Communications:

High on the CIO agendaM



F or a BPO player like Serco GlobalServices that works in over 100centers across 5 geographies, liaisingand coordination among teams hasalways been a challenge. This was oneof the primary considerations thatmade us implement a collaboration andunied communication solution, saysRajendra Deshpande, CIO, Serco GlobalServices.

The business need to workseamlessly across time zones and

geographies was what fast forwardedSercos collaboration story. When myrst project went live, I realized that itis very difficult to get hold of people.We then slowly started realizing that towork seamlessly in different time zones,

there was a need to do something interms of collaborating and thats howmy journey started, Deshpande says.

He believes that in terms ofculture, it is more a question ofproviding an infrastructure andensuring that the effectiveness andefficiency is demonstrable. The rstchurn was to integrate online/chatengine on business laptops to enablecommunication across geographies. Acore group was created and we madesure that these guys had an access toonline presence with chat. And believeme, these guys got hooked on to this,he says.

Deshpande believes that UC&Cneeds to be approached as a businessproblem and not an IT problem toachieve success. He says the success ofcollaboration depends on three Ts. T1is identifying the tasks that need to beconsidered more from the collaborationperspective to help make the businessmore effective. T2 is identifying theteams that perform these tasks and, T3 is identifying and putting into placethe right tools to accomplish this, he

explains. So we started with tasks andended with tools. We looked at theunderlying requirement rather than thetool as the primary goal to create thecollaboration engine, he reiterates.

He says project rooms are nowavailable on the platform where thereis a complete view of everything andeverybody right from the Finance GM tothe operations GM, with unprecedentedvisibility in the project trail. Deshpandesays the key learning here is that when

you look at the task and team, the toolbecomes quite obvious.

Deshpande does concede howeverthat the impact of collaboration maybe difficult to pinpoint in smallerorganizations. For Serco, UC&C has

brought the convenience of real-timecommunication and context that goesbeyond traditional mediums such ase-mails. Deshpande is taking this to thenext level with a recently launched appthat helps clients access managementinformation systems on mobileplatforms in a secure way.

Deshpande believes that usingtechnology is complimentary to yourcurrent communication channel. Theonly thing that people do wrong is thatthe moment you glorify technology,people take extreme steps to adoptit and then they drop it. If you areable to use it in a balanced modeand demonstrate viability to the enduser, then you succeed. Otherwise, Ibelieve if you are heavily dependenton technological collaboration, thelikelihood of it not working for you isextremely high.

Speaking about people, processesand cultural change, Deshpande saysany change you bring in the system isextremely difficult. If you are especiallyalert enough in the boardroom orwith the business guys, you tend to

understand what problems they arefacing. You identify what they are reallylooking for and if you have answers forit, then they wont look at this as an ITproject collaboration, which is the keymessage I want to give, he says.

Of course, you do need a sponsor;you need to have someone tochampion it, he says. Initially whenpeople tried to adopt it, they struggled.You need to set up the back-end(setting up of IDs etc.) really well to helppeople adopt the platform seamlessly.If this is done, then adoption is not aproblem. You need to identify whichteam is really going to benet usingit and you need to identify which isthe critical mass in your organizationthat will really adopt it, and designatechampions within these teams. Soonce you get the champions to adoptit, the rest of the people just follow,Deshpande says.

Collaboration is an art and not ascience, says Deshpande. You cannotcut and paste and you need to perfectlyunderstand how your organization op-erates and think of how technology canhelp. You may have to start small butthink about where exactly it can bringvalue to the business. Do not take thisinitiative as a technology initiative, headvises. Find a business point and alignthe technological solution with that.

RAJENDRA DESHPANDECIOSerco Global Services

The moment you glorify technology, peopletake extreme steps to adopt it and then they drop

it. If you are able to use it in a balanced mode, thenyou succeed. Otherwise, I believe if you are heavilydependent on technological collaboration, thelikelihood of it not working for you is extremely high

Cover Story



C ollaboration solutions have denite-ly changed the way Lupin does busi-ness, says CIO Mayur Danait. Lupin is anIndian pharma major that has witnessedconsistent global expansion since 2005.Lupins business model, along with thatof its pharma peers, is that a large partof the R&D and operations happen outof India. With the changing businessmodel, Lupin now has strategic opera-tions across the world in the U.S., Japan,Australia and Europe. This changing

business model was the primary driverthat triggered the need for collabora-tion, says Danait.

Echoing peers, Danait conrmsthat for organizations that are spreadout geographically, there are time zone

overlaps, which make communicationsa challenge. This in turn means that theneed for real-time and unied commu-nication platform is a business impera-tive for effective operation. Mobilityhas made this an even more interestingmix. There is a need for the workforceto communicate across the globe andon the move. Going forward, Danaitbelieves that there is no alternative tousing technology-enabled collaborationif one needs to stay competitive.

Speaking from his experience,Danait recalls that when Lupin startedacquiring companies overseas, all ofthem came with their own legacye-mail infrastructure. By 2009, Lupinhad acquired nine subsidiaries withnine disparate legacy e-mail systemse-mail being the primary mode ofcommunication in those days. Conver-gence of these systems was the rststep towards a unied collaborationplatform for Lupin. Convergence isessential to get tangible benets out ofcollaboration, says Danait. Lupin set upa unied active directory and rolled outMicrosoft 365. Sharing the rationale for

going for a cloud-based system, Danaitsays that the factors in favour were easeof implementation, cost effectiveness,scalability and a world-class solutionwith built-in DR.

Lupin is also in the process ofimplementing Microsoft Lync for UCand collaboration, informs Danait. Theupside is that it integrates well with theexisting Oice 365 implementation andis mobile-enabled. This has simpliedcommunications across geographies to

a great extent. In the rst month of theroll-out itself, there have been requestsfrom HODs to extend this service acrossthe department, particularly for func-tions that are geographically spreadout. Danait says that an internal social

platform is the next item on Lupins col-laboration agenda.Danait opines that UC&Cs great-

est strength is to integrate a very large,geographically diverse workforce acrossplatforms, particularly when you havea cloud-based approach. The possiblepitfall of using technology-enabled col-laboration could be on the softer side,where people tend to message eachother rather than pick up the phone. This is an essential part of the organiza-tion culture, particularly for organiza-tions that are people oriented, saysDanait. The right balance needs to bedetermined to overcome this.

Danait believes that the challengesare more from the mindset. He recallshow doing an e-mail migration to thecloud in 2010 was a leap of faith andhow it has worked well for Lupin. Danaitsays that senior leadership support isessential and that he was clear from theget-go that this was not just an e-mailmigration but that Lupin was prepar-ing itself for a move to a collaborationenabled platform. The technology chal-lenges were minimal, he says.

Danait says that when goingfor a collaboration platform in anorganization that is cross geography,the best collaboration platforms wouldreally lie in the cloud. Collaborationby its very nature means that people

need to be able to communicate andaccess resources that are uniformly andseamlessly available anywhere, fromwithin or without the organizationsboundaries and cloud ts the billperfectly, he says.

Second is the people aspect, hesays. The migration strategy needs to bein keeping with the culture of the orga-nization. In some organizations, a BigBang approach might work, in othersyou need to seed it in small pockets andsee how it picks up. This is how Lupinwent about it, he says.

Lupin intends to overcomecollaboration-related security concernsby using tools like MDM etc. Collabora-tion would be a balancing act for mostorganizations and is a classical trade-offbetween benets and risks, he says.

Culturally speaking, says Danait,when liasing with colleagues acrossdifferent geographies and culture, toneand body language are essential cuesto understand what is being communi-cated. Hence, collaboration through anaudio-visual platform is an indispensibleasset for any organization to invest in.

MAYUR DANAIT

CIOLupin

The possible pitfall of using technology-enabledcollaboration could be on the softer side, where

people tend to message each other rather thanpick up the phone. This is an essential part of theorganization culture, particularly for organizationsthat are people oriented



T he collaboration journey for Edel-weiss Financial Servicesa diversi-ed nancial services company is notthat different. The importance of col-laboration was realized by the organiza-tion several years back, when the ideawas mooted to start a social intranetfor the company, says Kalpana Maniar,President and CIO, Edelweiss.

Edelweiss is spread across multiplelocations in India and is also in theprocess of expanding internationally.Especially for the retail business, thelocations are very far ung, makingcollaboration an important piece inEdelweisss overall strategy.

The rm went ahead andimplemented a platform that is todayused for all day-to-day communication.Its most important feature is the abilityto create forums and the ability tobe used for bottom-up or top-downcommunication, as needed. Edelweissis at present using a proprietary chatsolution called twiddle for its internalinstant messaging needs.

Some of the challenges that Maniarfaced are very typical to BFSI, giventhat regulatory provisions do not allowfor COTS collaboration suites to beused. For instance, there is a regulatoryrequirement to restrict certain kinds ofconversations in BFSI, like the fact thatyou cannot solicit business, especially inthe advisory business. Maniar feels thatnot all collaboration suites have evolvedto the extent that address security con-cerns comprehensively.

She feels that cultural challengesare only an issue in the initial phases.Once people realize the ease with whichwork happens viz-a-viz the traditional

methods, then adoption is swift.Maniar asserts that if organiza-tions havent already, they should startlooking at collaboration solutionsimmediately. If CAPEX and existinginvestments are holding you back, youneed to look at timing this transitionwith your next refresh cycle, which issomething that you do for the rest of ITanyway, she advises.

Maniar is planning a unied inter-face for mail, chat and video as the nextphase of Edelweiss collaboration story.

According to Francis Rajan, VP &

Head ICT, Bangalore InternationalAirport Limited (BIAL), the imperativeto collaborate is more exaggerated inan environment when multi-partiesare involved. In BIALs context, it wasincumbent as an airport operator tocollaborate with eco-partners be itairlines, concessionaires (ground han-dlers, caterers, retail, etc.), to ensure thepassenger experience is seamless.

This required an orchestration withvarious stakeholders and hence therewas an underpinning need for theICT architecture to support multiplesystems and interfaces and ensure dataow across the fabric was in real-time.

In BIALs case from the go live datein May 2008, Rajan put in place an AOCC(Airport Operations Control Centre) an-chored by BIAL Operations with the fullparticipation of eco-partners. With theterminal expansion, the most modernAOCC infrastructure has been createdwith a video wall that hosts live feedsand touchscreens to handle multiplemodes of communications.

BIAL also instituted a communityportal for stakeholders. To facilitate

this orchestration, Rajans ICT team re-

architected its middle layer and also em-braced Industry OPEN Standards AIDX(Aviation Information Data Exchange)to seamlessly interface with third-partysystems.

Every stakeholder gets to gain in thecollaboration framework. For an airport,on-time performance is a key factorto avoid creating cascaded delays. The airport gains in terms of release ofresources and a very good user experi-ence.

Rajan feels that a CIO should takethe lead to convince internal stakehold-ers rst, to get on to the collaborationtools. It is essential that the CIO andteam should review the IT architecturesupport to deploy the framework acrossall eco-partners, he asserts. Rajan advo-cates a measured step with pilot and aselect target group that would feel thebusiness impact and get to realize thevalue proposition. If need be, the CIOmust don the role of evangelist for theenterprise and drive it with businesssponsors, he advises.

As the maturity of the frameworkevolves, Rajan would like to identify can-

didate application/services that couldbe migrated to the cloud to realizeeconomies of scale. Since partners needto access from different time zones andgeographies, cloud option may wellturn out to be the best bet, he says.

KALPANA MANIARPresident and CIOEdelweiss Financial Services

FRANCIS RAJANVP & Head ICTBangalore International Airport

Cover Story



In a market driven by heavy competition andshrinking margins, enterprises are lookingto boost efficiency and productivityin every way they can. Collaborationand unied communication

technologies are at theforefront of this crusade. Wespoke to vendors and serviceproviders in the collaborationand unied communicationsspace to gain theirperspective on how thismarket in India is evolving, thevalue proposition that the Indianenterprises are seeing in thistechnology and the innovations this isbringing aboutBY VARUN HARAN

tweet@varunph

Cover Story

onvergence has been a buzzword in ITcircles for close to a decade now. We haveseen convergence in every aspect of thebusiness. While enterprises have been using

collaboration and communications technology piecemealsince the last decade, a consolidation was inevitable at somepoint to capitalize and cross-leverage on the benets thataccrue from these technologies under a unied framework.Add to this, the innovations in the device ecosystem andinfrastructure that is enabling new usage models.

Indian enterprises are viewing collaboration andunication of communications infrastructure as a strategicbusiness opportunity. World-class collaboration andcommunication increasingly depends on technology. The right technology, deployed with an appropriatecollaboration strategy in place, can play a critical enablingrole in many important forms of enterprise collaboration.

Since the complexity of the modern enterprisesproducts and services almost always exceed any one

persons scope of expertise, both operational efficiencyand the ability to innovate increasingly depend on gettingthe right people to work together effectively. Due to shortinnovation cycles, changing customer needs, and intenseglobal competition, companies are bringing togetheremployees across functional and regional silos, andcustomer/partners across the value chain.

With mobility, social, BYOD and BYOA gaining traction,the knowledge worker an enterprises greatest asset is on the move. Analysts at IDC believe that the worldsmobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, accountingfor 37.2 percent of the total workforce by 2015. The Asia-Pacic region (India included) is expected to see some of thehighest growth rates.

The market for collaboration and communication thusseems robust and this collection of perspectives from acrossthe industry seeks to capture insights from major playersregarding their expectations and observations.

C

Indian enterprises tappinginto the collaboration curve



WE ARE seeing a lot of effective col-laboration aided by technology thatis dramatically improving the abilityto drive collaboration that is focusedon a process-oriented strategy. This isbeginning to deliver impact for Indianorganizations. The perception is thatcollaborative technology developmentprovides greater control for the rm tomonitor opportunistic behavior moreeffectively.

For the Indian industry, the most

important motivators for collaborativetechnology development are thosethat lead to increased technologicalcapabilities through acceleration ofproduct and process innovation. Indianrms are driven by the need to meetcompetitive priorities and respondingto international competition.

Although a few business leadersmay still think of collaboration as atouchy-feely issue, a growing numberrealize its about getting the work doneand a new way of bringing innovation

to the market. When deployedeffectively, technology-enabledcollaboration can lead to an increasein market access, offer a new way ofconnecting with customers, and helpaccelerate new product ideas.

Collaboration technology is a keyenabler of many modern businessprocesses, which also includesimproving workforce productivity.In India, we need to start thinking of

this as a strategy and not a one-offinitiative. I think we still havent yetbeen able to realize the full potential oftechnology collaboration.

Effective collaboration is a key toreducing cycle times at both big-picture and detailed levels. Quality isdriven by capturing and sharing bestpractices and by breaking throughsilo walls to bring the best availablethinking together.

On the ground, the employees

are the rst bottleneck to a successfulimplementation as they are unableto dene/determine how thecollaboration tools will help them.It does take a lot of effort becauseemployees need to learn newinterfaces. Also, using these toolsinvolve switching contexts away fromthe tool being used to do the main jobinto one or more tools to collaborate.

Another key challenge to highlightis that these technologies requirefacilitating conditions, such as a

reliable network, human support,or even physical environment.All companies want collaborativetechnologies, but if the rightfacilitating conditions are not in place,then that becomes a bigger worry thanthe problem they are trying to address.

This year, I expect to see morecollaboration embedded into existingbusiness processes and structuredsystems, incorporating a collaborative

element to existing business tools tobe harnessed in the right context at theright time.

I think that BFSI, retail, healthcareand FMCG industries are going to

be the high impact sectors thatwill greatly benet from deployingtechnology for improved collaborationwith their stakeholders, includingcustomers. The motivation toundertake collaborative technologydevelopment is inuenced by thebenets accruing from access to newtechnology and markets to maintaintheir competitive position.

THE FUTURE of work andmanagement is changing thecollaboration space, and globally,workplace environments aredemanding collaboration as partof their culture. According to IDCthe Unied Communications andCollaboration (UC&C) market in Indiasaw a marginal growth of 3.8 percent inthe second-half of 2013.

There are different factors thatdrive investments in the UC&C space.

The primary driver is to bring all headstogether within the organization; itsabout connected communicationsbetween employees, customers andpartners. Unied communicationsystems deliver potential values,particularly around departmental andcross-department collaboration. Itsway beyond sharing best practiceswithin organizations. Its a platformthat enables employees to quicklyand easily identify co-workers with

particular expertise and exchangeknowledge.

Distance is also no longer a barrier.Enterprise social networking softwarehelps employees divided by geographyor departments share information orbest practices; identify subject matterexperts, decreasing the time spentspent on getting information; andincrease work efficiency and overallproductivity. The primary driverfor robust growth in this market is

Effective collaboration is a key to reducing cycle times, both macro and micro

INTEL

Extent of collaboration directly affects business agility and speedZOHO

SRINIVAS TADIGADAPA Director, Enterprise Sales,

Intel, South Asia



Cover Story

the current domestic demand. Weforesee many small and mediumbusinesses willing to invest and adoptsuch technologies for collaborationespecially with BYOD policies on boardin most companies.

In my personal opinion, the extentof collaboration directly affects thebusiness agility and speed at whichthe company could move ahead. Theother drivers for collaboration wouldbe reduction of travel costs, breakinggeographical, hierarchical and culturalbarriers, rendering best customerexperience and transferring knowledge.

India is a price-sensitive market,

and the decisions on such investmentsare made purely based on ROI. That iswhy we have extended trial periodsfor companies extremely interestedin the products, to make sure theysee true value using this application.

More and more companies want tospend time collaborating with theircustomers, partners and suppliers.While the market is at a very nascentstage for enterprise social networks onthe cloud, we see tremendous growthpotential in India.

Boundaries are blurring, not just between leaders in IT and theirbusiness counterparts, but betweendigital assets and physical resourcesand between enterprises and theircustomers, suppliers, and otherstakeholders. IT and business strategyare no longer separate entities, theygo hand-in-hand. Such is the mind-

set and business trend. Wide array ofcollaboration technology can not onlybe advantageous, but can also createa cutting-edge innovation in businesssystems and strategies. It is onlyright to say, that digital renaissance

is denitely a major differentiator forbusinesses embracing it as part oftheir culture.

THE WORLD of UC&C is one thatinvolves seamless integration of

communication across the globe. Thediscussions around Unied Communi-cations, has led to organizations andindividuals leveraging it as a strategicbusiness advantage. These benetsinclude, but are not restricted to,reduction in travel expenditure, reduc-tion in logistical expenses incurred intransmitting information, unbeliev-ably quick response time and thenullication of geographical distancesas a hindrance altogether.

Larger organizations have beenreaping the benets of uniedcommunications for a long time.Now, even smaller organizationshave started realizing the benets ofvirtual collaboration. This, however, isonly the tip of the iceberg and thereis much to be explored in the UCdomain. With changing needs, andincreasing UC adoption, there is scopefor the industry to revolutionize itself,time and again.

The use of UC&C solutions is nolonger restricted to the enterprise.Such is the magnitude of opportunityto be explored with the aid of unied

communications that it has pervadedinto spheres of government, judiciary,

education, healthcare, and to agreat extent, the individual lifestyleof consumers. These solutions arebringing about radical differences inthe way entire systems of governancealong with the citizens, collaborate. Traffic surveillance in real time ismade possible for cities owing tothe growth in UC solutions. Entirecampus networks are established inorder to maintain connectivity withineducational institutions.

A trend that has seenemergence in India specically is thephenomenon of remote court trialsbeing held virtually, to ensure timelytrials. Many states in India like UttarPradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu etc. have now allowedfor accused persons being presentedvia video linkage. Provisions havealso been made to produce evidenceon video. This, more than anything,elaborates on the signicance ofUC&C to comprehensive judicialsystems, governments and the unitthat builds these macrocosms: thepeople themselves.

Increasingly, political debatesand speeches are being disseminated

with the help of UC&C solutions,thus becoming far reaching andmore effective than even a personalinteraction might be. Recently, Indiahas seen members of prominentpolitical parties and the Cabinetof Ministers (CoM) addressing thepublic, driving their campaigns andcarrying out interactions using videoconferencing.

In one of the worlds fastestgrowing economies, Indiancompanies are aggressively using

advanced UC&C technologies to equiptheir workers to compete on the worldstage. Even though India spends lesson UC&C tools as compared to otherdeveloped nations, it still makes themost of its collaboration investments.For instance, in 2008 Indianorganizations spent the equivalentof ` 42.97 million (USD 888,000) onUC&C technologies, which is nearly athird as much as Japan, and less thanhalf of what many other countriesspend. Yet, Indian companies areachieving more than a six-fold Returnon Collaboration (RoC) with an

Government, judiciary demonstrating the power of UCHUAWEI

PREETHI VARMA

Sr. Marketing AnalystZoho



average overall ROC score of 6.7. There are a number of reasons

why UC&C deployments, may notdeliver optimum benets. To solvetime and distance barriers, companieshave deployed more collaborationtools. Fragmented platforms ofdifferent collaboration tools killefficiency rather than enabling it. Itis not uncommon to nd documentsharing, chat, video conferencing,VoIP, Web conferencing, e-mail,

etc., scattered across an employeesdesktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet. This creates a hindrance, as these toolsare not comprehensively integrated.

Traditional collaborationtools focus on conferencing, notcollaboration. They enable workersto see or hear one another, butthe single-thread nature of thesetools does not facilitate effectivecollaboration like real-time datasharing. Large enterprises started

adopting UC a few years ago, butthe benets of the collaborativetechnology have been successfulin attracting mid-market segmentsand small enterprises in India. Thekey factors for this growth are theincreased adoption of mobile devices,cloud-based voice solutions andvideoconferencing. Vendors areencouraged by the growing interestamong SMEs for hi-tech UC facilities.

THE PERCEPTION of UC&C as asolution for cutting travel costs hasevolved manifolds as profession-als and business enterprises haveacknowledged the magnitude of ben-ets it offers. Unied Communicationsnot only helps in reducing travel costs,but also telecom bills and IT admin-istrative costs. UC&C streamlines allcommunication needs through onedevice or channel.

There are several market trends

that are driving the adoption ofUnied Communications.l Workforce mobility: The limitation

of real-time communicationwith a mobile workforce canbe easily dealt with integratingall communication needsusing Unied Communicationssolutions.

l Mobile connectivity: Smart-phones and media tabletsare set to overtake PCs as themost common business tool. This is encouraging any-timevideoconferencing throughmobile.

l Boom in industry verticals: Thegovernment and educationsectors are expected to continueto spend on the communicationsinfrastructure, especially indeveloping economies like India.Banking and nancial sectors havetraditionally been major adopters,and we expect this to continue.

l Videoconferencing as a service:Industries especially hospitality,healthcare and education

are increasingly adoptingvideoconferencing as a businessservice to cater to distant clients.In every industry and across

each sector, videoconferencing isincreasingly recognized as a mission-critical business solution. Videocollaboration is reducing time-to-market, increasing customer service,accelerating emergency responsesin government, and streamliningdecision-making.

For instance, healthcareorganizations face challenges in threeareas: delivering quality patient care,streamlining care delivery processes,and improving business processes. These challenges are compoundedby an environment with many time-dependent critical processes, multiplemodes of communication, and manymobile caregivers and other workerswith widely varying availabilitythroughout the day.

Healthcare organizationsacross the country are adoptingand leveraging UC solutions thatcan consolidate systems andsolve communications challengesencountered on a daily basis. UCapplications improve workow andcollaboration between clinicians andadministrative staff, yielding increasedproductivity and efficiency. Thecommunication can be stored andarchived to the cloud to become partof the patients record for future use.

Other reported benets includephysicians time savings, betterpatient care, and improved patient

communications.Our appetite for defying distance

is motivating innovators to createnew ways to bring us closer together,and these new technologies, such as

social business, mobility and cloud-delivered services are the drivingforces behind a whole new paradigmfor communication that is centeredon the power of video collaboration.Further, the rising adoption levels ofenterprise mobility and the presenceof abundant smart handheld devicesin India also happen to push themarket by a large extent. Owing to thepresence of the public sector, as wellas the SMB market space, theUC vendors in India are poised toreap substantial benets in thecoming years.

Public sector, SMBs to drive UC and collaboration market

POLYCOM

MINHAJ ZIA Managing Director

Polycom India & SAARC

Goober, Head Solutions, HuaweiEnterprise Business



Cover Story

ACCORDING TO Frost and Sullivan,the Unied Communications marketin India is expected to grow at 11.8percent CAGR from 2010 to 2017. This growth can be attributed to twofactors, mobility and BYOD. Ongoingproliferation of 3G and broadbandInternet services in India is primarilydriving the Unied Communicationsmarket. From an enterprise stand-point, productivity is the key cause ofuptake of collaboration tools.

Technology-enabled collaboration

started with the idea of makingworkplace more productive andintegrated. Just as e-mail acceleratedthe pace of business in the 90s,enterprise social is the driver forgreater agility and transformationin the 21st century workplace. Aswe look ahead at how collaborationand communications continue toevolve, we believe that the toolspeople use today e-mail, IM, voice,videoconferencing and social will come together and be deeply

integrated into apps that will speedcollaboration and truly transform theway people work.

During our interactions withthe customers, we have observedthat most of the work requiresnetwork contribution and employeesfeel that the collaboration toolsavailable to them are not effectiveenough. Organizations are seekinga unied communications platformthat integrates all communicationmethods, as well as documents

Enterprise social is a key pillar for realizing the benets of cloud computing

MICROSOFT

AS PER IDC, enterprises are get-ting globalized and this is creatinga signicant need for enterprise col-laboration. The Indian market saw a 6percent growth in contact centre and 3percent growth in enterprise collabo-ration solution in 2013 as comparedto 2012. The growth is signicant insocial media, web and voiceconferenc-ing solutions and mobility. The trendwhich is evident is that the industry ismoving from hardware centric uniedcommunication solutions to more

software-based unied communica-tion solutions approach.Unied communications systems

have been continuously evolvingright from standalone PBX systemsto IPPBX system. In the UC&C nowthe focus is moving from person toorganization; and the latest trendof UC is communications-enabledbusiness processes (CEBP). Some ofthe innovative use cases of UC&C arerelated to enabling CEBP. Providinguniform user experience across

multiple devices is a big challenge,as people expect the similar userexperience across all the disparatedevices.

Enterprise telephony andenterprise collaboration are two majorareas for the Indian UC&C market.As per IDC these two segments holdaround 88 percent of the share. Everyenterprise in todays world is affected

by globalization, and the moreglobalized the business is (or wantsto be), the more important enterprisecollaboration becomes.

The major trends which are evidentin the collaboration space are video,social media and mobility. Video-enabled collaboration solutions helporganizations to integrate with otherglobal teams and scale their expertiseacross the organization.

Mobility allows them to connectanywhere, anytime and on any device.

Social media helps nd and shareinformation faster and often helps inaddressing customer problems.

In India majority of the employees(nearly 70 percent) own smartphoneor tablets but very few enterprises (lessthan 30 percent) yet have a supportfor employee-owned devices. In thecoming years, we think enterprisesshould include BYOD and mobileunied communication clients as partof their UC&C strategy.

Almost one third of the UC&C

applications are currently premise-based but managed by third party. Inthe coming two years the industry isexpecting to grow up to 42 percent,so large enterprises are looking for aservice partner to manage their UC&Csolutions.

Indian enterprises prioritize UC&Capplications broadly in the sameway as organizations from other

countries do. IP telephony and instantmessaging are the most popularUC&C applications among Indians. Webelieve that an important element ofany UC&C strategy is to support theUC&C application on the majority of

the devices used within enterprises. Toleverage the power of collaboration,which is a mix of video, social mediaand mobility, enterprises need to havea broader portfolio of technologiesthat work transparently together andat the same time should also supportan organizations business processesand objectives.

In a globalized business, collaboration and unied communication is key

MINDTREE

SAGHAR ABBAS Technical Manager, ER&D

Mindtree



ALOK LALL

Director, Microsoft Ofce DivisionMicrosoft India

ORGANIZATIONS BOTH large and

small now understand the power ofUC. Companies are nding that thekey to improve productivity, businessresponsiveness and innovation is to de-liver collaborative tools in a consistent,simple, and meaningful context thataccommodates work style preferences.Few challenges like security, band-width demands, reliability, regulationcompliance and consistency will bepartially solved as the technologymatures, SLAs develop, bandwidth costdrops, Internet speed increases andmore local data centers start to offerUnied Communication as a Service(UCaaS).

It has been observed that UC&Cin India is increasingly being adoptedby businesses that are manpowerintensive, but widely distributed. Theprimary drivers are consumerizationof IT and peoples need to workseamlessly from any corner of theworld, and the rise of desktop andmobile video building the demand forcollaboration.

The future is in shiftingcollaboration to a cultural value,

and investing in it with enthusiasm.

As organizations become moredistributed, the social web iscompelling companies to be morenimble and adaptable. Collaboration isand will continue to be a critical pillarthat businesses need to have in placein order to not just survive, but to besuccessful.

Organizations looking to fostera technology-enabled collaborationcurve can see benets accrue to theirsales, marketing, product innovationand partnerships. Companies realizethey need to assess, purchase,and deploy these technologies aspart of their organizations IT andcommunications infrastructure tobetter enable collaboration andimprove business processes. However,lack of resources, skill sets, or time tomanage ongoing maintenance andsupport can be a major challenge.

The IDC report nds that tradi-tional and mobile UC will drive manyprocess improvements in healthcare,notably, improving patient safety andpatient outcomes while reducing coststhrough productivity and efficiency

gains. Although healthcare providersare relatively early in the UC and mo-bile UC adoption cycle, a conuence offactors, including an evolving reim-bursement model that underscores theneed for connectivity, better com-munication among care teams, andcollaborative care, will lead to greaterinvestment in mobile UC technologies.

UC key to improving productivity, agility for enterprises

HP

CHANDRASHEKAR GANGADHAR Country Manager, Network & Mobility

HP Technology Services India

and other data into one interface.Companies are nding that the keyto improving productivity, businessresponsiveness and innovation isto deliver collaborative tools in aconsistent, simple, and meaningfulcontext that accommodates workstyle preferences.

Enterprise social is a key pillarfor organizations to fully realizethe benets of cloud computing,through its all-inclusive approachto productivity. However, whiletechnology-enabled collaboration isan attractive solution for enterprisesto stay connected over virtual

networks, it comes with challengeswhich CIOs often grapple with.Concerns such as data encryption,network access and data securityare certainly a challenge in adoptionof collaboration tools by Indianorganizations.

We have seen the market growingand organizations adopting tocollaboration tools and we expectmore organizations to adoptcollaborations tools for streamliningoperations. Microsoft has had a visionfor productivity and how technologiessuch as UC (Enterprise Social, e-mail,IM, etc.) will come together as partof a seamless user experience withMicrosoft Office 365 for businesses.We have invested deeply in R&D onfoundational elements of integrationacross products such as MicrosoftOffice and Lync, which are: identity,messaging and content.

Similarly, Skype is helpingconsumers stay connected. Skypeconnects well with Lync enablingusers to connect work and lifefrom a single device. Having thesefoundational elements in placewill provide deeper connected

experiences across applications thatare setting a new bar for integratedcommunication and collaboration.



Cover Story

ACCORDING TO 6Wresearch, theIndian UC market is expected to reachUSD 1,506.2 million by 2018, at aCAGR of 12.4 percent from 2013-2018. The UC market is being driven by anumber of trends including a growingmobile workforce, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), increasing Internetpenetration and the use of video. Intodays business environment, with thegrowing mobile workforce, UC ensuresthat the communication costs are kept

under check even as user satisfactiongrows and long-term support costs arebrought down.

Communication over the pastdecade has changed in leaps andbounds and has transformed todaysbusiness scenario. It is no longerlimited to calls, mails or a combinationof e-mail, messenger and voice. Withchanging workplace more mobility,more video and more social is forcingbusinesses to embrace new ways ofcommunicating and collaborating.

However, the exible BYOD trendcomes with its own set of challengesin terms of managing mobile Unied

Communications sessions. Security is acrucial concern, which can be a hurdleto adopting a technology-enabledcollaboration culture. Especially forenterprises dealing with sensitive data,it is an imperative to develop soundsecurity practices around mobileunied communications. Employeeson the move carry sensitive companyinformation in their smartphones anduse Unied Communication solutionsto connect with co-workers, customers

and partners. Sensitive data moveswith them, creating new compliance,management and security challenges.

IT managers need to put productsand policies in place so they can track,secure and monitor these interactions. The key to a successful mobile UCdeployment is nding a solutionthat is BYOD ready a solution thatmaximizes the benets of BYOD, whileeliminating the challenges.

CIOs/IT practitioners should tryand achieve a higher level of control

and security across all platforms anddevices, all managed through a singleadministration console. Managed

applications are secured and separatedfrom personal apps and data, providingan integrated e-mail, calendar andcontacts app, an enterprise-level securebrowser and secure attachment viewing

and editing options. While still earlyin their evolution, best practices areemerging that address these challenges.

Security concerns could be a major hurdle to mobile UC implementations

BLACKBERRY

MANOJ KHILNANI Country Marketing Head Enterprise

BlackBerry India

TO QUOTE from a recent IDC report, The enterprise collaboration market inIndia saw a 3 percent growth in 2H 2013as against 2H 2012. The opportunitiesare huge. In enterprise collaborationsolutions, signicant growth waswitnessed in the unied messaging,team collaboration, mobility, socialmedia tools and web & voiceconferencing solutions.

I believe after BYOD, Bring your ownapp (BYOA) is an area where companieswill be investing. Mobile applicationswill gain traction because while theseapps are designed, the ease of usefactor is rated on top of everything else. Thus employees nd it more convenientto use an app and complete the tasksrather than logging on to more heavyplatforms. This keeps them more

engaged and productive.Most of the companies are looking

to increase the revenue per employee,reduce dollars spent for the man hoursand to get the best of that investment.As more and more employees workfrom different geographies, the valueproposition offered by enterprisecollaboration and UC will be to makethem work as a team and unit.

The advent of collaboration andunied platforms is bringing social toa business and that opens the door forfuture innovations in any enterprise.Eventually greater economic value froma smart employee can be derived ifsmarter, contextualized information isavailable to the resource and many toolsin the market have started focusing onthis aspect of value.

Ease of use will aid mobile collaboration apps in gaining traction

DRONA MOBILE

JINEN DEDHIA Co-founder, Teamgum

Drona Mobile



In your perspective, how doescollaboration help enterprises

evolve to the next level?In the traditional sense, collaborationwas the backbone of productivity in anenterprise. What we have seen in thepast few years is that traditional col-laboration has been focusing on e-mail,instant messaging and other abilities toconnect in asynchronous modes.

IBM has been in this space for sometime and this is shaping up to be a key

area for us. Overtime we have becomeconvinced that the future of collabora-tion is social. Enterprises need to focuson social collaboration methods, whichwill create a social centric fabric. This willbe a key enabler for collaboration andworking with employees internally; andexternally with customers and partnersin the ecosystem.

The speed of decision making isbecoming critical for companies andis entirely dependent upon the kind ofcollaboration tools being used. Socialand mobility can really make a differ-ence to an enterprises speed of decisionmaking.

What is the size of this market inIndia? What are the primary

drivers making companies toincreasingly adopt collaborativemethods?We continue to see a healthy, doubledigit growth. One of the trends that weare witnessing is that organizations areconsuming more technology andadopting it. The ability to deploytechnology in short cycles means you

dont need specialized skills. Socialservices on cloud are ready for con-sumption. Further, collaboration and UCtechnology is helping organizationsreduce the cost of ownership and thecost of adoption is low.

In India, there is a need to increaseemployee engagement in the businessand it is through mobile connectivity,social collaboration that employees canbe engaged into the decision makingand policy making process.

In the last several years a lot ofcollaboration technology has

been put into place in enterprises.Would you say that technologyenabled collaboration is living up toits promise. What are some of theinnovative use cases in this space?For me traditional forms of collabora-tion wont do and organizations needto adopt new forms centering aroundsocial, cloud and analytics. However, achange in the collaboration paradigm isin the offing. Traditionally, collaborationis seen as just a tool to make employeescollaborate internally. The need of thehour for enterprises now is to nd meth-ods for interacting which really deliverto clients, involving them in this process.

Taking an Indian use case, Polaris, aleading nancial-technology companyin Chennai, was looking for methodsto make employees and customerscollaborate more effectively. Polaristook IBMs Connections platform andgrew that as the social centric form ofhow employees would work with eachother. Polaris employees today have

social conversations instead of privateconversations on e-mails.

Polaris innovated in how nancialservices are delivered to its clients. Withclients sitting around the globe needingto be kept abreast of progress, Polarisdesigned social rooms where clientsand teams can work together.

Polaris is also using the social wayof collaborating for on-boarding newemployees. To avoid delays betweenthe employees coming onboard and

becoming productive, Polaris deployeda social tool that employees can accessbefore they join the organization. Usingthis they can start to get to know theorganization and when they join theyget connected to experts. Specically,using this process, Polaris reduced itson-boarding time by 75 percent.

What would your advice be forCIOs and IT practitioners who

are looking to embrace a culture oftechnology enabled collaboration? Technology is easy to adopt. Whatbecomes difficult is the cultural change. This is why leadership is a priority. Topmanagement needs to lead from thefront. Secondly, knowledge workersare key factors and interaction with theclient is imperative. Talent manage-ment solutions, social and analyticscapabilities are being looked at forintegration with business processes,and this is something that CIOs maywant to keep in mind.

The collaboration paradigm needs change

to extend beyond internal processes

Interview

Anmol Nautiyal , Director- IBM Social Business &IBM Smarter Workforce shares his views on theevolution of technology-enabled collaborationin the Indian enterprise in this exclusiveinterview with InformationWeeks Varun Haran

u Varun Haran [email protected]



What are some of the majortrends that you are seeing in the

collaboration/UC space?We have been in this space for quite awhile and in the industry in general,which has relatively been static, wehave seen a massive amount of changeover the past two to three years. Theindustry thought it had seen a lot ofchanges when it started moving to IP Telephony, but that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg.

First, we are seeing a huge movetowards mobility. Mobile devices arepowerful enough today to provideplatforms for powerful UC & collabora-tion applications which they were notcapable of two/three years ago. We arebecoming a more mobile society andwe are seeing a very rapid move to mo-bile video and high-denition mobilevideo collaboration.

Any trends you have observedspecic to India?

I think the Indian market is movingquite fast, and is globally considered agrowth market. Its acceptance of mobil-ity and its use for collaboration is thefastest in the world right now. If we lookback at the time when this industry wasstatic, it was really about taking hardcoded applications whether theywere PBXs, IPBXs or IVRs or ACDs andthen looking at how does my businessadapt to these applications. What wehave seen during this explosive periodis that you have to be very open and itsall about adapting the solutions to yourbusiness needs. The UC/collaboration

space is much more exible now and isuse case driven as opposed to applica-tion driven.

When you say there is a bigchange that is happening in the

collaboration space is it right to saythat collaboration is poised tobecome a competitive advantage anda differentiator for businesses? Doyou feel the technology-enabledcollaboration is living up to its

promise?Yes denitely, I will concur with thatfor several different reasons. Firstly, itis there to increase productivity andefficiency. Now you can do things inreal-time that you were not able to doin the past; you can now pull people into collaborate in real time that in thepast would have to be scheduled. Itsabout efficiency, speed, and also aboutcontext.

Solutions today can automati-cally bring together teams in real time,providing the right context to theparticipants, making meetings evenmore productive. Solutions can auto-matically produce the right document,which come together almost like Legoblocks and they start snapping togetherin a unique way. And that is why I seecollaboration become more use casedriven than these big, mega-use ap-plications, which you have to adapt yourbusiness to. It is all about technologyadapting now and this is fast becominga very agile, use case driven process.

Historically, collaboration did notlive up to its promise, because it was

just too difficult to weave collaborationand communication capabilities intoapplications. The platforms just werentopen and robust enough. Now this haschanged signicantly. There are verystrong development tools now, veryopen protocols like Rest APIs, which aresupported by virtually every applica-tion. This is just one of the reasons wehave seen this explosive change andadoption rate in the industry.

What kind of challenges do CIOsneed to overcome to foster a

technology-enabled collaborationculture in their organizations andwhat would be your advice to them toovercome these challenges?In todays scenario, an implementationcan take only few days, post which itis continuously ne tuned as there isluxury to do iterations. CIOs need tofocus on open standards and on usecases rather than technology. Mobilityis a very important component butmobility shouldnt hinder collaboration. This should be more readily available topeople to increase productivity.

For IT there are a lot of point solu-tions providers and you put togethertotal solutions by stringing these pointsolutions from various vendors. But weare in a market place where consolida-tion is happening and it would be to theadvantage of IT leaders to look into en-tire solution stacks to comprehensivelycover their collaboration needs.

Collaboration needs to be use-case driven,

not technology driven: Gary Barnett, Avaya

Interview

u Varun Haran [email protected]

Gary Barnett , SVP & GM, Collaboration,Avaya, shares some insights into the uptakeof collaboration and UC technologies in theIndian market, in this exclusive interview withInformationWeeks Varun Haran



magine the number ofcalls a services companyor a sales team needs tomake on a daily basis.

Calls within the team, to existingcustomers and potential customers the numbers can vary remarkablydepending on the size and scale of thebusiness. However, communicationis essential to any business in todays

time. There are solutions that can unifyall employee voice communicationsto one phone number each, which inturn can increase the availability ofemployees and simplify the customerexperience. The cost savings with theimplementation of such solutions canbe signicant, almost up to 50 percentor more on communication bills besidesthe additional benets of increase inproductivity and efficiency.

Living in the era of convergence,we are connected to devices 24X7 and

in turn multiple devices communicatewith each other, creating a complexweb of interactions. Communicationhas transformed the workplaceimmensely over the last decade orso. Now, more and more workers arespending signicant time away fromtheir desks and staying productive atthe same time. As per IDC, the worldsmobile worker population will reach1.3 billion, representing 37.2 percentof the total workforce by 2015. TheAsia-Pacic region will witness themaximum growth in this period due toits emerging economic scenario.

Multiple communication toolsand complex technologies, whichwork independently of one another,can actually make communicationless efficient and more confusing. Theneed of the hour is to bridge the gapbetween real-time connectivity andresponse time, thereby reducing thescope for missed opportunities. Inorder to overcome these challenges,organizations are aligning theircommunication strategy in a single,coherent, centrally administered

Unied Communications andCollaboration (UC&C) solution. UC&Ccombines diverse business-criticalcommunications capabilities into asingle system, while smartphones andsimilar devices keep an increasinglymobile workforce connected to eachother and to business processes. Though, UC&C and mobility bothdeliver value and improve efficiency,

the true potential is only realized whenthey are integrated in a mobile UC&Csolution.

With more and more organizationsembracing the BYOD trend, employeesare increasingly using uniedcommunications solutions on theirpersonally owned devices to ensuresmooth functioning of the business.However, the exible BYOD trendcomes with its own set of challengesin terms of managing mobile UniedCommunications sessions. IT managers

need to put products and policies inplace so they can track, secure andmonitor these interactions.

As per recent analyst forecasts, theGlobal UC market is expected to growat a CAGR of 15.85 percent over theperiod 2012-2016. UC has entered themainstream and is evolving as a seriouslocation-agnostic business imperative.

Collaboration is expected tobe the change driver in enterprisecommunication this year asorganizations seek to unlock theuntapped knowledge held within itsworkforce and e-mail inboxes. Someof the key trends in UC&C adoptioninclude:l Increase in security spend As

employees on the move, use UC&Csolutions to connect with co-workers, customers and partners,sensitive data moves with them24x7, making security a key concernarea. It is critical for enterprises todevelop sound security practicesaround mobile UC.

l Cloud and Mobile-Based UC&C-Cloud-based UC&C services are

relatively new in the market. Therehas been a signicant shift fromon-premise to cloud-based uniedcommunication solutions, especiallywith SMBs, considering the overallbenets, which outshine the initialhigh cost.

l Enterprise Instant Messaging Theconcept of secure Enterprise IM isalready witnessing high adoptionrates among Indian enterprises.Enterprise IMs fulll the long-pending requirement of a secureand reliable real-time messagingsolution for regulated industries.

l Rise of videoconferencing as a Tool - Video till now has beena central part of collaborationtechnology. The market will seemore of such services comingup as video emerges as theuniversal conferencing tool whilesimultaneously transforming into

a medium for enterprise contentsharing.UC&C is the future of telephony and,like it or not, it needs to be an integralpart of an organizations core enterprisemobility strategy. With a strategicapproach, we will witness collaborativetools customized to reect the specicneeds of individuals, teams and thebusiness.

Unied and collaborated: The new age

communication approach for enterprises

Opinion

I

u Manoj Khilnani is Country MarketingHead Enterprise, BlackBerry India



he technology enablingcommunication has beenfollowing an evolutionary journey of innovation and

development since the invention ofthe telephone. In recent years, the waypeople communicate has evolved at agreater pace than at any other time inhistory. The ubiquity of smartphones

and OTT (over the top) messenger apps,along with the burgeoning prominenceof social networks, have changedthe face of communication. At thesame time, advances in collaborativetechnologies has sent video-conferencing through the early motionsof commoditization, making it a realityfor businesses of all sizes.

Every decade of technologydevelopment brings with it a betterperspective and more effective wayof thinking. The time has arrived

when we can take conscious steps totranscend the limitations of uniedcommunications and move on to theera of Universal Communications. Thisnew technology will be the cornerstoneof innovation in communicationtechnology in the next decade. Whileunied communications has beenfocused on integration and streamliningof all the communication andcollaboration tools within a business;universal communications is aboutmaking communications possibleanywhere, between anyone and nearlyacross any device.

Driving this transformation is theproliferation of mobile technologyin the workplace and the success ofproductivity-based technologies suchas cloud computing. These advanceshave allowed businesses to overcomegeographical issues when it comesto communication and collaboration,paving the way for advancedcommunications offerings that candeliver a more user-friendly service forless overall cost.

Five mega-trends are thus

driving the emergence of UniversalCommunication.l Changing work-life balancesl Social networkingl Constantly-improving devices

(including the impact of wearabletechnology)

l Changing uses of synchronous(voice call, instant messaging) vs.

asynchronous (voice message,e-mail) modes of communicationl Mainstreaming of the cloudUniversal Communications createsthe convergence of VoIP telephony(which provides the ability to routetelephone calls through the Internet),e-mail, instant messaging, mobilecommunications, and audio and videoconferencing into a single platformthat shares a common directory andcommon developer tools. Soon, we shallwitness the ability of this technology to

have evolved capabilities that providethe framework for person-centriccommunications, across locations anddevices, and a new way of collaboratingand communicating will becomeinevitable.

The culmination and realizationof the tangible aspects of universalcommunications has the potential oftransformational impact on enterprises.As more of the devices, applications andinfrastructure that form the modernworkspace become interconnected,they will become the building blocks ofthe Universal Communications world.

For this new world of UniversalCommunication to deliver true impact,it needs to be founded on ve strongpillars:1. Consistent experience for work

and for life. Providing a consistentand closely knit experience forinstant messaging, voice, videoand meetings, making it easier forpeople to communicate, both atwork and in life.

2. Context and ApplicationIntelligence. Make communications

accessible in the online activitiespeople care about most, includingproductivity, entertainment, andemerging use cases and also includecommunications to help customersharness the potential of the socialenterprise.

3. Across all devices. Services willbe device and platform agnosticwith a vision of building a trulyinter-connected communicationnetwork.

4. Video everywhere. Superior videoconferencing capabilities includingnative interoperability with legacyvideo teleconferencing, helpingkeep existing investments.

5. Global reach through thecloud. Universal communicationsnot only means delivering richcommunications for businessesof all sizes, but also ensuring that

anyone can reach anyone else,irrespective of the platform.Universal Communications tools

will thus be essential for any enterpriseand their effectiveness will be measuredby how well they meet the needs ofindividual users as much as by how theyserve the business overall.

The journey from Unied toUniversal Communications

Opinion

T

u Alok Lall is Director, Microsoft O ceDivision, Microsoft India



here are a numberof different instantmessaging technologyplatforms available

today. Some are primarily targeted forconsumers and free to download suchas WhatsApp, WeChat, BBM, iMessage,Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk andSkype. Others are targeted for the

enterprise and have a cost associatedwith them, for example, MicrosoftLync, Cisco Jabber, etc.

The global market for enterpriseinstant messengers is forecasted togrow from USD 267 million in 2005 toUSD 1.2 billion in 2014. By 2015, 95percent of workers in leading globalorganizations will use IM solution astheir primary interface for real-timecommunications.

Instant messaging by natureencourages people to be brief and to

the point. Increase in productivity isgained by eliminating time wastedin switching between variouscommunication methods such assending and waiting for a responseto an e-mail, calling someone andleaving a voice mail when there is noresponse, walking down the officeto see if someone is available only tond that they are in a meeting, and soon. Apart from time savings, anotherbenet is the positive impact it has ongeographically separated offices.

A study found countless positiveaccounts of instant messagingbridging locations, encouraging newglobal business structures. Employeesfound it much easier to ping (initiatean instant message conversation)someone in another geographiclocation than pick up the telephoneand call that person. In addition tostrengthening relationships betweendispersed teams, replacing phonecalls with instant messaging alsoled to cost savings. According to thesame study, many felt that instantmessaging was less intrusive than a

phone call due to the ability to seeif a co-worker was busy or not priorto sending a message. The studyshowed that workers used instantmessaging to manage interruptionsby postponing work-relatedcommunications until they were morerelevant or less disruptive.

Another factor that is often seen

as a productivity enhancer whenit comes to instant messaging isthe ability to multi-task. Instantmessaging becomes an evenmore powerful collaborative toolwhen combined with features likedocument sharing, white-boardingand graphics.

IM has started to change thedynamics of Indian enterprises andhelped to increase the efficiency andproductivity. To understand how IM canhelp an organization and its employees,

lets consider an example of a personalloan division, which deployed anenterprise application to its distributionteam of 5,000 salespeople and resellers.Multiple groups by region, byproduct and by rank were setup bythe admin. The individual users alsosetup their own groups as required. Thesales manager published new productinformation, including marketingcollateral, along with a poll. The salesteam then casted their votes on eachnew product based on their estimateof whether the product would sell wellor not. As the votes came in, the salesmanagers got instant feedback on thesales team sentiment. It was found thatthe team sentiment was a strong leadindicator of the end-of-month salesperformance. For products that receivednegative votes, managers re-launchedalternative offers. Additionally, the appwas used for reward and recognition:announcing salesperson-of-the-day awards, customer testimonialsetc. Sales team used it for constantcommunication, sharing best practicesand suggestions with their colleagues.

Sales people who had queries aboutproduct details were able to get instantresponses from the support team.

Due to use of IM, sales teamperformance improved dramaticallythrough quick replacement ofunpopular products, increasedcompetition among sales teammembers, instant resolution of salesteam queries, sharing of best practicesamong large teams, and live reportingto sales managers leading to fasterdecision making.

Another key advantage of IM isthat it is very exible: you can holdsimultaneous chat conversations withdifferent people or participate in agroup conference session. You canalso send attachments instantly.

The solutions that corporationshave found effective is enterpriseinstant messaging where you can

only chat with co-workers; this is aneffective way of eliminating timespent on personal chatting. Someof the future segments that canbenet from IM are FMCG, BFSI, SMEs,etc. Some benets of IM for thesesegments will be reduction in errorand ensuring data integrity.

Instant messengers changingdynamics of Indian enterprises

Opinion

T

u Ravi Sundararajan is COO, Webaroo



very organizationwants to improve itscompetitiveness, reducethe cost of doing business,

increase the revenue generation,protability and productivity, andimprove customer services anddecision-making abilities. But atthe same time, one of the biggestchallenges that organizations have

to overcome is working acrossthe geography, handling multiplecustomers, suppliers and partners, whomight be following different workingpractices.

Therefore, organizations areconstantly looking to improve theircollaborative practices. Multiplecollaboration solutions (or set ofapplications) are available in the market,right from knowledge management(wiki, social media, le sharing, etc.) tocollaborative communications (mail, IM,

video and audio conference). The focus on UC has beenincreasing over the past few years,and now most enterprises have therequired infrastructure to support it. UCvendors are delivering premises-basedand hosted solutions. Service providersare offering Unied Communicationas a service (UCaaS). UC market istransitioning from the hardware modelto software model.

Emerging areas to watch out for in UCand collaboration market:1. Cloud-based Unied

Communication: One of the ITmegatrends now is to move to thecloud. Gartner says that it will growto USD 206.6 billion by 2016. Allthe big vendors like Cisco, Avaya,IBM and Microsoft are selling theircloud and hosted products. Serviceproviders are providing UniedCommunications as service. Theadvantages moving the UC to cloudinclude:

a. Reduced IT infrastructure costs.b. Ability to increase business agility

c. Access regardless of location or typeof device

d. Multi-tenancy2. Web Real Time Communication

(WebRTC): WebRTC allows you touse your web browser either asa telephone or a video endpointwithout downloading any softwareor plugins. The most importantuse of the WebRTC could be

in customer-facing websites(customer services), where the usercan use click-to-call or click-to-chat or click-to-video feature toestablish an immediate real timecommunication with customer-careexecutives.

3. Communication-Enabled BusinessProcess (CEBP): This refers to theintegration of the organizationalbusiness processes with enterprisecommunication and infrastructure.CEBP is an important and growing

part of UC. Multiple verticals likeretail, banking, and healthcare areembedding communication totheir business processes. This helpsthem in automating the process,eliminating the scope for humanerror or latency, enabling faster andaccurate decision making.

4. Social Networking and UniedCommunication: At the enterpriselevel similar to UC, socialnetworking is also used to enhanceproductivity and collaborationwithin and between enterprises.Embedding UC attributes into socialnetwork speeds up communication.

5. Mobility : Day by day, the mobilework force is growing. As perGartner reports, 40 percent of theemployees in the U.S. workforcewill be mobile by 2016. Theseworkforces are using multiplemobile devices for communicationpurpose. Integrating all the devicesto one and providing a single phonenumber is a challenge.

6. Real-Time Analytics: Contactcenters are generating huge

amount of data to analyze, which isrequired to understand customertrends and to improve customersatisfaction.

The three major characteristics of anycollaboration solution are: availability,simplicity and interoperability. Tomaximize the business impact, thesolution should be available irrespectiveof your location, the type of devicethat you are using and your mode ofcommunication. User Experience plays asignicant role in the success; it shouldbe easy to use in order to achievewidespread end-user adoption. It isimportant for the solution that it shouldbe Unied Communication platform-agnostic.

Using collaboration, an organizationcan signicantly reduce the overheadsand improve the productivity. Any UCand collaboration solution must haverelevant industry-standard protocols,

codecs, and interface support. In anenterprise business environment, UCenhances collaborative activities bymaking workers more efficient andproviding the ability to make fasterdecisions through better access to keyplayers, and makes business operationmore efficient and successful.

Collaboration: The essence of

Unied Communications

Opinion

E

u Saghar Abbas is Technical Manager,ER&D, Mindtree



ollaboration has been oneof the hottest buzzwordsfor businesses in the pastfew years. But the value

of using technology to communicateand share data across a project is muchmore than a passing fad. Enterprisesare now looking for ways to helpemployees communicate with each

other more effectively. The reasonsare simple: better communication andcollaboration leads to faster and higher-quality work, which in turn drivesincreased productivity.

Enterprise collaboration in simpleterms enables the people in anorganization to work together moreeffectively to achieve organizationalgoals. Todays scattered work forceshave increased complexity anddecreased attention spans. Now, morethan ever, collaboration between

employees and business partners is amust. Even with teams working in thesame location, collaboration allowsindividual thinking and introspectivechatting, which increases productivityand speed to execution.

The increasing popularity ofenterprise applications is breathingnew life into efforts to improveinternal collaboration. Enterprisesnaturally want to harness theusability and productivity offeredby these applications toward bettercommunication and collaborationwithin the enterprise, allowing their far-ung teams to work in sync regardlessof distance and time zones. In todaysnew work environment, with everybodyconstantly on-the-move, collaborativebusiness apps ourish because thereis a need to access data whenever andwherever you are.

According to Gartner, by 2016 halfof large organizations will have internalcollaborative networks, and 30 percentof these will be considered as essentialas e-mail and telephones are today.Further, most of these collaborative

technologies will be available acrossdevices, from web browsers todesktop software to native smartphone and tablet apps. As millennialssleep, breathe and eat applications,this scenario is all but inevitable.Collaborative technology is like secondskin to this section of the workforce.

Another factor contributing to

this trend can be attributed to mobileapplications that have transformed theInternet from a web-centric to an app-centric model. All this makes it essentialfor organizations to have in place a formof collaboration. Most businesses areexploring and investing in apps for toolsthat would enable their employeesto brainstorm remotely, locate oneother, schedule meetings, and workseamlessly across devices.

Some organizations might arguethat collaborative apps can put their

company data at risk. This is all themore reason to implement IT policieswith high-quality vendors thatunderstand security, data ownershipand audit trails. Collaborative appsare not all created equal and typicalIT discretion must be exercised toenable maxium security alongsideproductive lifts to the workforce.Depending on workplace cultureand environment in the organization,adoption of enterprise collaborationapplications can sometimes be slow.But with worlds major companiesadopting this platform, it is a right timefor Indian companies to make a shiftand embrace the use of productivityapplications focused on companies. Inaddition to the productivity benetsof being able to work from anywhereat any time, recent research fromMcAfee found that even a typical SMBcan signicantly reduce IT costs byadopting cloud-based collaborationtechonologies.

Some Indian organizationshave leveraged this trend and shifttowards collaborative ecosystems.

One organization that continues toinnovate in the social business spaceis IBM. It has released several newsocial networking and collaborationmobile applications specicallydesigned to address enterprise-classrequirements. At Evernote, we tooare building apps to help teamscollaborate and be effective in the newdigital environment. Evernote Businessfunctions as a digital knowledgerepository that is accessible by anyonein the company with an EvernoteBusiness account, making it easy tocollaborate and share informationacross departments.

The shift toward productivityapplications is slated to growsubstantially in the Indian marketplace. The market for such applicationsis very large. Enterprises that takeadvantage of these new tools will

have an opportunity to see signicantproductivity gains. It is crucial forenterprises to empower teams to reachtheir goals by enabling employeesto work smarter and more efficiently.Increasingly, Indian businesses arerealizing that this is a very signicantand important competitive advantagein the global marketplace.

How apps can help build acollaboration culture

Opinion

C

u Troy Malone is General Manager,Asia Pacifc, Evernote

8/11/2019 IWeek Augus

Documents

IWeek August 2014