Our way of working is totally different from Ericsson's'

The acquisition of the enterprise communication business of Ericsson by

Aastra Technologies will have a long-term impact on the Indian market. With this

acquisition, Aastra, which has grown rapidly by protecting its customers'

investment while offering a roadmap for customers to evolve to IP

communications, will have a globally installed base of enterprise communication

customers with presence in Western Europe. The acquisition has also ensured an

extended footprint in key markets across Eastern Europe, the Middle East,

Africa, Asia Pacific, and North and South America. And, post this acquisition,

it was time for the top management to go-to-market with their view about the

short term and long-term business plans. Hugh Scholaert, regional group

president, Aastra Technologies, was in India to chalk out its India strategy.

Excerpts

What are the key challenges Aastra Technologies would face in the Indian

market following the acquisition of Ericsson's enterprise business division?



Our strategy was to become a global player, and this finally culminated with

the acquisition of Ericsson's enterprise business. Post acquisition, we have

indeed become one of the top players in the EMEA market.

Though, in India we will have several challenges starting with the fact that

we are not a global brand name. The major challenge is to increase our company

awareness and of our solutions that would help Indian businesses to have more

efficient communication infrastructure. Besides, we need to increase our market

reach in India, and the building up of our channels will require lot of

investment in local competence.

What will be the main shift in your strategies as compared to Ericsson's

business approach in India?



Our way of working is totally different from Ericsson's. Our model is much

decentralized. And this has led to major changes in our local organizational

strategy. Each of our country sales unit or market unit has full control of

their local go-to-market strategy. This includes channel development and the

choice of products to be launched in each channel. In the Indian market, we

expect that this should add a broader portfolio while our local team strengthens

our channels. As such, we also expect a renewed focus on building up local

competence in terms of presales and after sales support. We will further

continue to build on Ericsson's success by supporting all existing products and

applications, and by providing a smooth migration path to new technologies.

What according to you are the new trends in India?



The growth of the IP telephony market, coupled with enterprise demand on

converged communication is a much talked about area. The fall in bandwidth

prices has spurred this growth. In India of course, there has been a major

growth in the domestic contact center market, an area where we have

market-leading solutions, and this has brought in major growth in the enterprise

voice communication space as well. Finally, solutions like unified

communications and mobility, which have been our major focus areas globally, are

the buzzwords in the enterprise world with customers wanting to deploy

technologies which could better support them in future.

The global economy is slowing down and in the scenario how are you

planning to maintain growth?



Contrary to the general global slowdown, India has still not experienced any

major slowdown. Although, it has impacted the IT/BPO sector, we are still

witnessing growth in sectors like hospitality, real estate, and BFSI. In our

case, the products under our spectrum cater to all segments (SMB, LME, and the

high-end segment). In addition, applications in our portfolio like unified

communication, mobility, and multimodal contact centers, as well as some of our

terminals are either based on open standards or are simply platform agnostic,

allowing us to address much more than our traditional installed base.

What are your future plans for India?



We have chalked out a two-prong strategy, keeping in view the fast changing

market demands, especially in the enterprise space. In short term, we are

planning to increase our market reach, strengthen existing channels, and build

up local competence. And in the long-term, we plan to launch new product

portfolios in new markets, increase channels, and start initiatives for brand

awareness.

Is India the right market for your acquisitions? What are your plans?



Since the acquisition is global, viewing it from a single market perspective

would not be the right approach. However, from our global strategy perspective,

India is a focus country from the management's point of view. We are a global

leader on SIP platforms and are also acting as OEM to major enterprise players

offering solutions for the same. Going forward we will concentrate our effort to

launch our latest SIP products in the Indian market. We are also building up a

state-of-the-art experience center, which will house our technological

innovations for customers to interact with at our corporate office in the Noida

IT Park.

Sunny Sen



sunnys@cybermedia.co.in