In spite of the
ongoing recession, the outsourcing industry records similar spending in
technology infrastructure like last year. According to the V&D-IDC Enterprise
Communications Priorities Survey 2009, ITeS segment is again the highest spender
on ICT as percentage of the turnover of organizations. ITeS vertical spends
1.03% of its turnover on ICT infrastructure. With 0.85% of the turnover being
spent on IT infrastructure the sector is the highest spender in this category as
well. The average telecom spend is also highest at 0.18%. This has gone up
slightly with 0.17% being the average telecom spend in the previous year's
survey.
Enterprise Priority Survey is an annual survey conducted
by VOICE&DATA to guage the requirements and satisfaction level of the enterprise
segment. This year, the survey got inputs from 200 firms, out of which 28% or
fifty-five firms were ITeS companies. Of these ITeS firms, 70% of had a turnover
between Rs 200-999 crore, 25% were less than Rs 200 crore, and 5% had a turnover
of more than Rs 1,000 crore. Manufacturing, pharma, retail, BFSI, IT and retail
were the other verticals considered for the survey. Nearly 56% of the ITeS firms
had less than 1,000 employees, and 19% had between 1,000 and 1,999 employees. In
the same vein, 10% had between 2,000 and 4,999 employees, and 15% of the
respondents had more than 5,000 employees.
Interestingly, almost 50% of the ITeS companies
interviewed for the survey, have invested in conferencing solutions. As far as
access technology is concerned, ISDN is the main technology used by this
vertical. This is followed by PSTN and international leased line. Among the ITeS
companies, 38% use domestic leased line as access technology. Metro Ethernet has
the least takers in this segment with only 5% of the ITeS firms opting for it.
VoIP, on the other hand has recorded a decrease from 52% last year to 35% this
year.
The ITeS vertical continues with the strategy of having
the head office take the decision where technology deployment and purchase are
concerned. This is in contrast with the general trend, which is moving towards
decentralization of the decision making process where spending on IT
infrastructure is concerned. About 70% of the firms in this vertical have
centralized decision making at the head office and the rest take decisions at
their regional offices. Around 63% of the respondents in this segment said that
CTO/CIO or IT head is the primary decision maker in the ICT purchase, and 33% of
the respondents claim that MD or CEO is the primary decision maker, and 4% say
that the decision is taken by the committee or vice president. Nearly 83% of the
ITeS respondents say that the IT division staff is the biggest influencer as far
as ICT purchase is concerned.
While business process outsourcing firms are the biggest
spenders in communications infrastructure, this is not the case where formation
of different groups for managing the communications infrastructure is concerned.
Only 15% of the respondents say that they have a separate group where management
of enterprise voice communications is concerned. Nearly 74% of the firms have
the same group which manages the IT and Internet services, and the rest 11% have
both the groups but some overlap exists.
As of now, 30% of the respondents outsource domestic
leased line management and 24% outsource mobility applications management. 17%
of the respondents outsource VPN management and 15% outsource VoIP. Nearly 11%
outsource international connectivity services management. Clearly, the industry
doesn't believe in outsourcing its communications infrastructure. Where the
future intentions are concerned, only 2% of the respondents are looking at
outsourcing their VSAT infrastructure.
Future Plans
Where the future spend is considered, the business process outsourcing
segment will be spending the most in domestic leased line - local. This is
followed by domestic leased line-national long distance, cable model, VPN-MPLS
and PSTN dial-up. Interestingly, in the year gone by, the vertical was also
planning to spend on VoIP as one its focus areas.
The biggest challenge for the segment is the management of
the network. The second biggest challenge faced by the outsourcing vertical is
the lack of convenience and ease of use where technology is concerned. This is
followed by scalability of the technology. The segment is clearly grappling with
shortage of trained manpower. The respondents also feel that some technologies
are too new to be relied upon. Last year, scalability was the biggest challenge
faced by the ITeS segment. The vendors catering to this segment would do well to
take these challenges into consideration while coming out with offerings for the
outsourcing firms.
The outsourcing industry is evolving towards the next
level and going forward, the segment is likely to see the adoption of newer
technologies. The vendors and service providers should keep in mind the
particular requirements of this vertical which would go a long way in meeting
the unique needs of the ITeS segment.
Gagandeep Kaur
gagandeepk@cybermedia.co.in