Rise in Demand for Visual Collaboration Managed Services

A timely blend of technological, economic and environmental blend of developments has finally brought visual collaboration to the forefront again. It can prove to be huge opportunity for vendors if they are aware of the requirements and customer applications of their customers, according to a research by Frost& Sullivan.

The study says that visual collaboration managed services earned revenues of $82.7 million in 2008 and estimates this to reach $938.3 million in 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 162.4 per cent.

The growth of visual collaboration is due to many factors. An eco-friendly approach as well as the demand to get in tough with the dispersed workforce for better and effective business solution is making the companies to adopt solutions that save time, fuel as well as energy. Even pandemics like swine flue have also contributed to the surge in visual collaboration tools which has immensely helped in business continuity.

Frost&Sullivan also says that the major challenge that the visual collaboration is encountering is lack of awareness about the benefits and ease of usage. The research believes that among the major handicaps that visual collaboration is experiencing is the wide spread misconception that it is difficult to deploy and actually required extensive training. However, with the emergence of managed services, visual collaboration has been simplified to a click of button.

A glaring lack of interoperability between network and devices was also proving to be a wide spread impediment. Further, shortage of space was adding to the belief that potential clients did not have the opportunity to experience high-end visual collaboration at first hand.

Frost&Sullivan Research Analyst Iwona Petruczynik says, “Despite the increase in interest in visual collaboration managed services, business leaders in less developed countries still prefer to meet in person to conduct their business,” states Petruczynik. “Moreover, current networking and compatibility issues limit the interconnectivity of different visual collaboration systems with traditional videoconferencing systems and other managed services solutions from different vendors, demanding the development of consistency-of-quality.”

Visual collaboration managed service providers will likely to experience some pricing pressure in the coming years in the more mature markets, but mostly in the emerging markets, where prices have further to fall.

Petruczynik says, “Rising interest in high-definition and impressive visual collaboration is leading to increased competition among value-added resellers and equipment vendors, fueling pricing pressure which, in turn, will contribute to falling prices,” He quickly adds that for this to happen service providers need to improve their product portfolios and to create a one-stop-shop for managed services.

Additionally, increasing automation will lead to lowered demand for managed services. In order to fight this fall, vendors will have to expand their offers and include new or upgraded features.

In India, visual collaborators are growing at a very high speed. The global market for conferencing endpoints and infrastructure was worth more than $1.6 billion in 2008, and India contributes approximately two percent to that total, ie. approximately $35.8 million.

Green is becoming the new focus of the enterprises and telecom vendors visual collaborators are being focused in a big way in India. There are many vendors and operators that are trying to invest and get maximum out of their investments in the country.

However as the research has rightly predicted that still a misconception prevails in the companies that such high end collaborators are too technical or tough to use is still superseding the mindsets. Hopefully, in the coming years this myth will be left aside and market will become more receptive towards such solutions.

archansi@cybermedia.co.in