Being a late entrant in the enterprise space and having lost to Cisco and Avaya, the French major is banking big on the SMB segment to increase its market share in India. Candidly admitting that they were lagging in India at the moment, Anil Srivastava, executive VP, EMEA, Alcatel Lucent, said, We were very late in trying to tap the enterprise segment in India. But that was in the past. We are no longer keen to be #4 in India, which means we have not been advancing full capacity. We are now looking at doing different things in the Indian market, as it is a strategic market for us. As far as the enterprise segment is considered, we have around 100 people in India but mostly in the R&D space. We now need to do something big and disruptive in India.

India Plans
Elaborating on their plans in India, Srivastava added, We do not have the option of ignoring India any longer, and that is why we are aggressively targeting the SMB segment. We have a strategy which means that we are looking at being disruptive. While I cannot elaborate much on the same, I can tell you that with this new disruptive strategy we aim to become one of the top 2 leading players in the India market.

Talking about the things they plan to rollout in India, Shekhar Agrawal, director, Enterprise and Verticals (South Asia), Alcatel-Lucent, said, We are looking at taking up our reseller network to anything between 75-100 resellers across 16 cities in India by the end of this year. We are looking at adding twenty new resellers every quarter to achieve the figure. We are looking at resellers to sell our offerings to SMBs as they buy communication only from the channel. We will not only recruit resellers but will also train them so that they can sell self-configured and manageable solutions on their own.

Discussing plans for the enterprise segment, Srivastava added, In the enterprise space, we are looking at engaging the large enterprises directly. Our aim is to work with 15-20 customers and provide them with end-to-end solutions in the initial phase. What is unfortunate in India is that very few big carriers have system integration capabilities. If Indian carriers need to expand, they need to add SI in their portfolio. We have worked smartly in India in the past. Our projects with the Delhi Metro and defense services have been very successful. We have not broad-based ourselves but where ever present, we have been successful.

That apart, the company has also entered into an agreement with Tata Teleservices to launch data-conferencing in nine cities. This will allow customers to conduct multi-city conferencing facility, wherein they can send and receive video, presentations and also talk to each other from different locations at the same time.

Banking on the KPO boom that India is witnessing, Srivastava said, Since India is seeing an evolution in this sector with the mushrooming of KPO, this is where the margins are going to be made. The level of scalability that Genesys provides is unparalleled.

Shivangi Yadav
(The author was hosted in Paris)
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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