Customer Demands
Online collaboration is one of the biggest demands. Over 2,500 enterprises in India use it in varying degrees and the demand is one level from the need to create virtualization of many processes. This enables enterprises to be more cost effective and productive, thus fuelling the demand.

Enterprises are also looking forward to leading edge technology, flexible conferences, flexible deployment, common management suites, highly scalable solutions, secure VoIP conferencing, embedded multipoint options and videoconferencing solutions.

Networks are becoming increasingly scalable and enterprises are realizing the benefits of having all the applications on the network. The real impact of videoconferencing technology can only be realized when the user's experience is close to natural face-to-face meeting, and telepresence in this respect has already started revolutionizing room-based videoconferencing services.

Staying Competitive
To maintain a competitive edge, businesses are constantly seeking ways to improve enterprise communications and boost employee productivity. Conducting a meeting via conference call and videoconferencing is standard practice today, but these modes of communication lack the full experience of an in-person meeting. At the same time, business travel costs continue to increase, and employees lose countless hours of productivity getting to and from meetings across towns or across the country. As voice, video, and data applications converge, enterprises must change their traditional business models for interpersonal communications and empower teams with innovative tools to instantly connect to co-workers, partners and customers on a global scale.

The inherent benefits of videoconferencing have often been offset by a number of operational issues. India has also faced bandwidth and special networking requirements that has lead people to perceive that videoconferencing integration with the enterprise's overall communication network is limited and makes it an overlay application that required special attention and administration.

But recent advancements in the collaborative communications tools are ushering in a new era of video telephony facilitating easy usage and ad hoc access of video conferencing. The migration to converged IP networks and the spread of IP telephony has also provided a receptive platform infrastructure that can enable video to become an integrated element within the communications environment of every organization.

Expected Growth
Communication technologies help eradicate geographical boundaries. Video is gaining importance due to cross-cultural engagements between employees and organizations. A Frost & Sullivan survey expects the videoconferencing market to grow at a CAGR of 24.9% till 2011.

There is a growth explosion expected (30% for the next two years) in the medium-term, beyond which growth rates will stabilize at 22%. Growth is witnessed not only in the large enterprise segment; but even small and medium businesses are adopting videoconferencing solutions, recognizing the vast benefits they offer.

One of the main drivers of Webconferencing is increased adoption and availability of broadband. The Internet has drastically changed the way enterprises communicate and professionals conduct their business relationships today. One of the hottest marketing trends for enterprises across all industries and verticals is to conduct virtual meetings without actually having to be physically present. Webconferencing and Web-based seminars are quickly replacing traditional business travel and telephone conference-call strategies.

In the Indian context, Internet has already pervaded the everyday life of a city dweller, smaller towns are not far behind. The increased adoption of broadband in smaller towns, coupled with the government taking steps to reach Internet connectivity to these towns, will definitely pave the way for increased adoption of Web-based collaborative applications like Web-conferencing.

India Inc, riding the wave of outsourcing, thereby realizing the need to communicate with different geographies on a regular basis at real time, is looking at Web conferencing and online meetings to improve efficiencies and productivity. In India, though hi-tech sectors like IT/ITeS, BFSI, healthcare, among others have realized the benefits of Web-conferencing and have taken to the service in a big way, other sectors like pharma, automotive, manufacturing are also seeing the need for collaborating and communicating real-time.

Web-conferencing is being used as an innovative tool for programs like training sessions, review meetings, investor relations, and seminars. Enterprises today are using Web conferences for project meetings, review meetings, management and important board meetings, regional sales meetings, sales pitches across countries, and internal meetings across locations. This trend, coupled with the ready availability of broadband, is slated to make Web-conferencing the tool to transform the office environment across verticals.

Iminent Growth
Despite its inherent technological and cost advantages, videoconferencing over converged network faces certain challenges that impede its growth. In India, the biggest challenges were regulatory restrictions imposed by the Indian government and interoperability issues that result from lack of standardization. Moreover, there is a lack of education and low awareness on the business benefits of conferencing solutions.

Factors like cost of ownership, maintenance of infrastructure, and the general perception about videoconferencing as an item of luxury could possibly affect the growth of this market. At present, most enterprises connect via ISDN. However, Internet-based connections are increasing in popularity and many public rooms have come up in India, which allow these conferencing over IP network. Bandwidth issues at the backend need to be addressed to ensure that full benefits of videoconferencing can be availed.

Fortunately, broadband is fast becoming all-pervasive in India and, looking ahead, IP-based networks will play a critical role in advancing the broadband penetration in the country. Bandwidth availability and the price of bandwidth will also be driving adoption of videoconferencing. India is a growing economy, and there is immense competition among companies. Pressure to be more productive at lower costs, short time to market and being able to reach people are pertinent for the companies to gain competitive edge, and these requirements are driving adoption of videoconferencing in the country.

One of the perceived challenges for videoconferencing would be the adoption of other collaborative communication tools by-corporates. In India, the bandwidth availability and the ability to provide last mile connectivity is a challenge in smaller towns given the slower rate of adoption and development. The other issue facing this adoption is the mindset of the user.

A Better Solution?
Companies are working overtime to gain more market share and outdo their competitors. This can only be done through real-time collaboration and quick turn around time. With video/Web-conferencing, a secured online meeting service that not only allows discussion of ideas through sharing of applications, documents and presentations, but also lets the participants of the meeting edit these documents and presentations. For an enterprise whose primary business strategy is to reduce cost and get the maximum efficiency and productivity, video/Web-conferencing is the optimum solution, as it increases productivity and effectiveness.

The real impact of videoconferencing technology can only be realized when the user's experience is close to natural face-to-face meeting, and telepresence in this respect has already started revolutionizing room-based videoconferencing services.

Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in