Convergence

Convergence in the fast lane

Be it VoIP or Web Conferencing, Video Conferencing or Video over IP—Convergence technology is quite popular with this segment. By Mohd Shariff PA

Convergence technologies such as VoIP, Web Conferencing, Video Conferencing and Video over IP are in different stages of adoption amongst medium businesses. Deployments undertaken among them in last year reveal that investments have gone into technology such as VoIP, Video conferencing and Video over IP and are an emerging domain.

During the past year, issues such as, Quality of Service, voice latency and reliability were raised with regard to convergence. However, there has been significant improvement since then. For a medium business, VoIP has become an economical mechanism for long distance communication. Medium businesses with multiple offices within the country can make use of these technologies and recover recurring cost in long distance calls.

Of the 50 respondents who have deployed these technologies, 46 percent have deployed Video Conferencing, 44 percent have gone in for VoIP, 40 percent for Web Conferencing and 6 percent for Video over IP.

IT/ITES is the most gung-ho about convergence with some adoption of all these technologies and 60 percent of the respondents having invested in Video Conferencing, VoIP and Web Conferencing.

Gopal P K, IT head, Voornar Trading, Mumbai says, “To have the maximum agreement with a minimum of meetings, we need to have long distance and clear communications. Therefore we have no choice but to adopt VoIP and Video Conferencing. It not only cuts travel costs but also saves a huge amount of time which is most important for a medium business.”

Convenience is the word

Moreover, remote workers, telecommuters, and travelling executives appreciate VoIP’s remote usage capabilities. Whether they are at home or in an airport, off-site workers can use virtual extensions to connect to the office phone system from any remote location with broadband Internet access. Remote and travelling workers can also use an IP-enabled phone, or soft phone (special software installed on a laptop or PC to allow it to function as a telephone) to place and receive calls as if they were working at their office desk.

According to the respondents there are multiple reasons for adopting these technologies; moreover it is the advantages that are driving these technologies among medium business. First of all, convergence reduces travel. Vasudev Hamsa Sagar, System Admin, Cosmic Internet Technologies Solutions (P) Ltd, Bangalore says, “Web conferencing’s benefits are easy to see—nobody needs to travel anywhere. From the comfort of their own office delegates can participate in meetings and seminars without having to travel a single mile. For smaller organisations, Web conferencing can open up whole new markets. Web conferencing reduces the need to travel for participating in face-to-face meetings.” Time savings would another advantage. There is no doubt that organising a meeting takes time. Even the smallest meetings, if they involve delegates from different geographic locations, require a degree of effort. Whether it is down to the delegates themselves or if it is left to the secretary or personal assistant, someone is spending precious company time making the necessary arrangements. Take away the need for travel, days or weeks out of the office and the requirement for overnight accommodation and suddenly organising the meeting or seminar is not such a major task.

Saving money is something that every company strives to do. Nobody wants to spend more than they have to. Think for a moment how much you spend on travel. Imagine reducing that pile of expense claim forms at the end of the month; the chances are you could be saving a significant amount of money. No organisation, large or small, can afford to waste money and with Web conferencing those costs are coming down. The advantages of Web conferencing to any business are clear; you can save time, you have a more productive workforce and, most important of all, you can save money.

VoIP is an emerging area

Medium businesses that are geographically spread will invest in VoIP to enable their employees to interact with each other. The VoIP number in most cases is simpler than a conventional phone number. For instance a person maybe reachable on his extension for all his colleagues across the world. This is not only cost-effective but the technology makes it easy for employees to interact. Companies are demanding that remote access solutions support VoIP.

Companies that have gone in for this technology have gained unconventional flexibility from their VoIP solutions—the ability to move IP phones without service calls, easily configure hunt groups, and pass-through Ethernet ports on IP phones to minimise network port requirements. With the industry’s leading platform for IP telephony, this technology offers medium enterprises the foundation for enterprise telephony. Medium businesses, typically organisations with more than 40 and less than 400 users, are looking for reliable, scalable, feature-rich, proven PBX functionality with the ease of management that will keep service calls to a minimum.

There is a definite cost savings in VoIP. Most Internet phone services offer communications packages designed for medium businesses with a variety of tiered services that can fit nearly any business model. There are two basic types of VoIP service. The first is designed to replace your existing landline phone with VoIP. Traditional phone companies offer such services as do VoIP pioneers. Many medium businesses across industry verticals are evaluating deploying VoIP and other convergence technologies.

It’s a corporate strategy

For most medium businesses, IT deployment is as part of their corporate strategy to streamline entire business process. If we browse through the survey, we can see that medium business is adopting an organised mode of function. All the verticals such as Manufacturing, FMCG, BFSI, Chemical & Pharma, Services and IT/ITES are investing on IT infrastructure.

Subodh Sharma, IT Manager, Pasupati Spinning & Weaving Mills Ltd. Mumbai says, “Convergence technologies provide radical growth and medium businesses are able to convince customers about quality. By using these technologies one can achieve the target in the market within a short span of time.”

For better collaboration

A small section of medium businesses are using Web conferencing for collaboration with the customers or OEMs. For example Pakona is using Web-conferencing solution for collaborating with its customers. Manisha, IT-head, Maharshi Ayurvedi says, “Web-conferencing helps us stay in touch with customers and we collaborate on many areas. They can point us where they want to make a change sitting miles within the convenience of their office.” Other medium businesses are using Web conferencing to conduct live meetings-marketing/review or presentations over the Internet. In the early years of the Internet, the terms Web conferencing and computer conferencing were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages) therefore not live, but the term has evolved to refer specifically to ‘live’ or ‘synchronous’ meetings.

Most medium businesses sees VoIP as a cost saving mechanism for long distance communication. However, most of them believe that cheaper calls are only a small part of the story. The upfront investment in equipment and ongoing technical resources required to successfully install and manage an IP-based phone system can be substantial, depending on the deployment. Fully understanding the impact of VoIP beyond monthly long-distance savings requires a comprehensive assessment of the benefits, costs and choices associated with VoIP. Besides the upfront investment, many medium businesses are deployed VoIP phone systems since they have wide internal technical resources and expertise.

The key-driving factor for fuelling VoIP growth in India will be availability of inexpensive devices and applications that exploit the integrated voice.