China is not on our radar

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With an ambition to become the leader of networking IT solutions in Asia Pacific, BT Conferencing is eyeing India and Japan, the fastest growing markets. In a bid to maintain a stronghold in the videoconferencing market-which is forecast to be worth $2.6 bn by 2010-BT last year acquired the US based Wire One, that would add to the core of its video services unit. We bring you excerpts of an interview with BT Conferencing CEO, Aaron McCormack. The CEO speaks to VOICE&DATA on the company's investment focus and regulatory regime in India. He is excited to see signs of the market gaining strength, and hopes the company will see a 100% growth in Asia.

How has the last year been for BT?
The last year indeed was very happening for us. We bought Wire One and integrated operations. Not all acquisitions work well, but in this case our hard work paid off, and we can already see good results pouring in.

Where do you place India on the conferencing map, with respect to other markets?
The conferencing market has seen a significant change globally during the past few months. The markets in Europe and America are flat right now, due to recession. When people do not have jobs, it directly implies that our user base will get smaller. However, Asia, especially India has been more stable. The market has shown good health in Asia, especially India. In fact, we are excited that in Asia we will grow by 100%.

What kind of business models do you see emerging in this segment, due to the recessionary wave?
We saw a trend of leasing equipment for a period of three to four months to equalize the cash burden, but most of the companies adopt a more sensible approach of long term investment in buying their own solution. Some enterprises preferred to hire the solution deployed at public places like hotels, etc.

Is pricing of the solutions still a big issue?
Pricing is always a matter of concern, whether tough times or not. In case of audio conferencing, the price is not a major constraint; but for video, some standards have been set, and it is not very easy to step down from there.

What are the key trends that you see in the conferencing space in the year ahead?
We are observing early signs of recovery of the market. I expect to see a stronger growth in the Indian market. Traditionally, the companies globally had been registering growth of about 20%, which fell to 5%. We are looking forward to a new year that holds good for Asia, especially India and Japan. We plan to create a robust infrastructure in these two markets, we will soon spell out investment plans here. Besides, with Cisco Systems' $3 bn deal to acquire videoconferencing giant Tandberg, enterprise video will get a new dimension.

What about expansion in China? Is it a high-growth potential market?
China is not on our radar, as it is not very easy to battle there with the native companies. We are not going to make any investment there.

What innovations are you seeing on the technology front?
The conferencing market is quite under-exploited, even in the mature markets like Europe and the US, where it was introduced long time back. Technology takes off only when the user can feel the ease of using it.

Conferencing was perceived to be a luxury by the SMEs. Do you see a change of attitude here?
Well, this is entirely a function of how well distributed workforce an enterprise has. Earlier, there were investment concerns of the domestic SMEs. The conferencing adoption has improved, with price points becoming better. Also, small companies may not essentially have an IT support group to help its employees get comfortable with the latest technologies.

Any quick tips for your enterprise users?
Yes, I suggest they should focus on maximizing the conferencing usage. The success of IT deployment is driven by the extent of usage. The enterprises deploying the conferencing solutions must focus on taking a detailed inventory, so as to make the best use of their investment in the solution.

Do you think conferencing is a complex business environment, with a number of players involved?
Not really, though it appears so. We build the software, and investment in hardware comes from other smaller players. In fact, it is quite a simple ecosystem, as long as one company is not buying the other.

What are your expectations from the regulatory regime in India?
BT has a license from the Indian government to operate international and domestic long calling, however, inability to connect domestic toll free calls to international numbers is one restraint that we feel. We would like to enjoy some flexibility regarding that.

Do you see enterprises in India embracing conferencing solutions, with an intent of going green?
The primary responsibility of an enterprise is to manage its people and cost. The key driver of an IT deployment is that it allows a company to manage both. Green solution deployments like conferencing help enterprises in saving expenditure in two ways-directly by cutting on the travel costs and also in CO2 currency. I see a lot of technology heads stressing on green solutions.

Heena Jhingan & Baburajan K
heenaj@cybermedia.co.in