Top10 Vendors: 5 - Alcatel Lucent: Telling Impact

Despite the merger between Alcatel and Lucent, one of the largest in the telecom infrastructure segment, business at Alcatel-Lucent was unruffled in FY '06-07.

According to V&D estimates, Alcatel-Lucent's revenue stands at Rs 3,500 crore for FY '06-07. The significant revenue rise can be attributed to several factors such as main orders, smooth integration of the two entities, retaining main clients, retaining crème of the employees and introduction of a new brand that signified the two organizations flowing into each other.

During fiscal 2006-07, when final integration completed and a brand new look unveiled, the telecom infrastructure giant bagged some of the major coveted orders in the Indian telecom industry. The main deals grabbed recently by Alcatel-Lucent include BSNL's GSM expansion of 3 mn lines, MTNL's 2G and 3G expansion of 2 mn lines, Reliance Communications' CDMA maintenance, Tata Teleservices' hosted IP contact center solution, Bharti's transmission expansions, ICICI Bank's largest single site outsourced contact center, Reserve Bank of India's 1,000 users enterprise solution, etc. In the transmission segment, most of the deployments by Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices were by Alcatel-Lucent.

South Asia is the fifth largest regional unit in Alcatel-Lucent and this is significant as Asia contributed 15% of Alcatel-Lucent's global revenue in 2006. Globally, services contributed 16%, enterprises 9%, convergence 12%, wireless 32%, and wireline 31%.

Alcatel-Lucent's global market rankings: #1 in wireline, #3 in wireless, and #2 in services, are recognized in India too. Thanks to all major orders, Alcatel is the undisputed leader in many segments in India. Some of the major orders with mobile operators are in the pipeline that could foster its future as well.

Areas of operation: Wireless, wireline, transmission, voice solutions, and broadband
Address: 14th Floor, Tower C, DLF Cyber Greens, DLF City - Phase III,
Gurgaon 122 002 Haryana, India
Phone: +91 124 4159999
Fax: +91 124 4114307

Highlights

BSNL's GSM expansion of 3 mn lines
MTNL's 2G and 3G expansion of 2 mn lines
Supplied multi-million CDMA lines to Reliance Communications
ICICI Bank's largest outsourced contact center
RBI's 1,000 users enterprise solution

Apart from main orders, the smooth integration of operations of Alcatel and Lucent was one of its main achievements. The integration, which did not see a blood bath, was successful as there was hardly any overlap between the operations and services provided by both companies in India. Following the merger, Alcatel-Lucent will continue to grow along with the market and as per the needs of its customers.

For the enterprise segment it was a turnaround year, where the company acquired many new customers to achieve over 100% growth. The field trials of WiMax 802.16e Rev-e done with the major operators, both public and private, are examples of its leadership position.

'We will focus on broadband wireless with WiMax 802.16e'

How has Alcatel-Lucent India performed during the last fiscal?
Last year has been a significant year for us: two major corporates have merged together to form the world's largest telecom infrastructure and solutions company. It had its positive impact in India too. We have not only retained our leadership position in the CDMA and GSM market with Reliance, BSNL, and MTNL but also consolidated our position in transmission as well as enterprise products. For transmission products we have established ourselves as a market leader similar to the worldwide #3 position we have, by winning major contracts with Bharti, Tata, Railtel etc.

Ravi Sharma

President, South Asia regional unit

For the enterprise segment it was a turnaround year, where we acquired many new customers to achieve over 100% growth. The focus on broadband by the Indian industry and the Government of India has opened an opportunity for ADSL deployment. We have also made headway in the Metro Ethernet and IP areas. On the other hand, with the development of WiMax infrastructure and CPE products by C-DoT Alcatel Research Centre, we are now fully geared to meet the requirements of service providers. The field trials of WiMax 802.16e Rev-e done with the major operators, both public and private, are examples of our leadership position. Overall, our business in South Asia has witnessed considerable growth compared to the previous year.

What were the main challenges in the Alcatel-Lucent integration?
The main challenges were to focus on employees, organization, and most importantly, customers, all at the same time. I feel satisfied that we have been able to deal with these challenges and come out with success. Today we have more than 5,000 employees in India located in all major cities.

What will be your focus on the services side?
The services group within the new Alcatel-Lucent is one of the five business units. The trend of managed services and managed capacity has emerged in India and we are now fully geared to participate in this market.

What are your expansion plans?
Our expansion plans are in line with the growth plans of our customers, namely the service providers, enterprises, and verticals. Keeping in mind the targets that are set by the Government of India for increasing the tele-density to 500 mn by 2010 and broadband to 50 mn in the same period, we are fully equipped to meet these challenges of increasing the penetration targets in the country by supporting the service providers to meet the targets.

You have done well in the wireless space. What are the unique things you plan to do during 2007-08?
We will further consolidate our leadership position here and focus on broadband wireless with WiMax 802.16e. We will achieve a similar leadership position as we have achieved in the wireline and convergence carrier businesses, as also in enterprise businesses.

What were the main achievements in 2006-07?
We have maintained our leadership position in the wireless space by bagging orders from BSNL, MTNL, and Reliance. We have achieved growth in wireline, and achieved leadership position in transmission and other areas with wins in Bharti, Tata, etc. We have also grown significantly in the enterprise and verticals businesses with wins in many leading banks like RBI, ICICI, SMEs, large enterprises, and verticals like the Railways, Indian defense services, etc.

As Alcatel-Lucent has leadership position globally as well as in South Asia in most of the businesses that they are in, namely wireline (includes broadband, IP and optics) wireless (GSM, CDMA, WiMax and microwave transmission) convergence (IMS, IP-TV, IP/NGN, applications, etc), enterprise and vertical business and finally the service business, the company has very clear focus in all these growth areas with dedicated teams both globally as well as locally.

With focus on R&D efforts in India, the company is ideally poised to meet the demands of the market and provide innovative solutions to users. The future for Alcatel-Lucent is bright.

Page(s) 1