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Alcatel-Lucent knows that it has a lot of ground to cover, especially
since it has lost out to Cisco and Avaya in the communication space. This is why
the company is banking on the SMB segment to help it entrench itself in India,
by recruiting around 100 resellers in 16 cities by the end of this year
Being a late entrant in the enterprise space and having lost to Cisco and
Avaya in the space, the French major is banking big on the SMB segment to
increase its marketshare 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 number four 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.”
Elaborating on what they plan to do in India Srivastava added, “We do not
have the option of ignoring India any longer and that is why we are looking at
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 what
I can tell you is that with this new 'disruptive strategy' we aim to become one
of the top two leading player in the India market.”
Talking about the classical stuff that they plan to roll out 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
to100 resellers across 16 cities in India by the end of this year. We are
looking at adding 20 new resellers every quarter to achieve the figure.”
Discussing plans for the enterprise segment Srivastava added, “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 and
then look at where we go. 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 Delhi Metro and defense services have been very
successful. We have not broad based ourself but where we are present we have
been successful.”
That apart the company has also entered into an agreement with Tata
Teleservices Ltd (TTL) to launch data conferencing in nine cities. This will
allow customers to conduct multi-city conferencing. Elaborating about the same
Srivastava said, “The products that we offer take advantage of Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP), which makes deployment faster and also enables a slew
of services. As the telecom market keeps expanding in India, the ARPU' will
continue to fall and then carriers in India will have no other option but to
diversify.”
Talking about launching their famed Laptop Guardian service in India
Srivastava added that they are already in talks with Reliance and TTL for the
same and that the trial service for the same should be rolling out in India very
soon.
Banking on the KPO boom that India is witnessing at the moment Srivastava
said, “With the mush-rooming of KPOs in India, this is where the margins are
going to be made. The level of scalability that Genesys provides is
unparalleled, it provides high value on low volume, which is what is needed to
run a KPO. We are handling call centers for ICICI and Virgin Mobile in
association with TTL,” he concluded.
Shivangi Yadav
shivangiy@cybermedia.co.in
The author was hosted in Paris by Alcatel Lucent Page(s) 1
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