Amit Sinha Roy,Vice President-Marketing & Strategy, Global Enterprise Solutions, Tata Communications, talks to Heena Jhingan about the company’s new strategy that will help its clients to stay prepared for their future IT and telecom demands. Excerpts…
How big is the managed services market in India and how have the offerings evolved over past few years?
Enterprises today are focusing on integrated networks, collaboration and outsourcing solutions; and are demanding managed solutions in totality comprising of end-to-end accountability. Additionally, they are also focusing on unified communications and managed collaboration tools; low latency, low-differential, protected solutions and vendor reporting. This is also validated by the fact that managed services market in India is currently one of the most profitable business segments in the IT services market. According to the ‘Indian Managed IT Services Market’ report, the IT managed services in India is expected to reach $ 3.8 billion from $1.6 billion in 2009 and $152 billion globally in 2013.
This market is growing at a CAGR of 22.8% which is higher than the growth rate of overall IT services market and generates around 40-60% gross profit for service providers. The managed services landscape in India is also evolving with the evolution of services and cloud providers. Tata Communincations leverages what we call a new world communications strategy to ensure that customers have access to an integrated portfolio of global services and global experts on all present and future scenarios in the IT and telecom domain.
The gamut of services has been changing with every big change in the industry. With cloud computing, managed service providers are now looking at optimizing resources for their customers to offer them a leaner organizational infrastructure. In many cases, the cloud requires no remote infrastructure or on-premise equipment. The fear is that cloud could render managed service providers obsolete. But if we take a user’s perspective the opposite is most likely to happen, as evidence shows that managed service providers who have spent years mastering remote services are more adaptable to cloud services than solution providers who have sat on the periphery.
Keeping in mind, the need of the industry and customer base, our offerings are designed to keep up with the pace this industry is going in. Thus, cost effective solutions are provided to our customers globally. Organizations across the globe are putting in extra effort to minimize risks associated at all levels with emphasizing the need to safeguarding sensitive information. We at Tata Communications, leverage our managed storage services to enhance an organization’s ability to adapt to such IT management challenges. Our adaptive solutions help organizations reduce cost while focusing on their business. Our managed storage solutions help to improve the ability to address pivotal issues, such as corporate governance and continuity, under tight financial constraints.
Globally, company has been servicing big names like Formula1 and others. But what kind of clients or projects you are eying in India?
Since the 2012 season, we have been providing world-class connectivity to all 19 Formula1 race locations around the world over our global network. We also provide hosting and content delivery services to Formula1.com. In May 2012, we integrated our Content Delivery Network (CDN) with Formula1’s internet architecture and have taken over the live timing data delivery from the track to Formula1 fans watching the race on television or through the Formula1 website. This particular relationship is a live testimonial of the path-breaking work we do.
Tata Communications enables and drives new forms of innovative communications at all ES AMG Petronas and delivers high-speed, high quality and secure trackside connectivity; enabling the team to transfer vital real-time data from the Silver Arrow cars at any grand prix location to its headquarters in the U.K., three times faster than at present.
Our managed services portfolio also includes worthy testimonials from Mott Mac Donald (telecom) and KPIT Cummins. Our vision is to be the preferred provider for the new world of communications.
Managed services contribute 12 % of Tata Communications’ revenue and we are now aiming to successfully grow our managed services portfolio exponentially in India keeping our successful partnerships as a base for the our future clients.
Company already has presence in top Asian cities and now is looking at emerging markets like China, Indonesia and Thailand. What is the strategy to crack these markets?
To give you some statistics, the annual consumption in these markets is expected to reach $30 trillion which is a huge opportunity for any service provider. It has also been observed that the companies targeting the said markets have been growing much faster than those from the developed countries. To back it up with some data; the growth of these emerging markets is an enormous 30.7% as compared to 22.4 % in the developed markets. If we calculate the overall growth, the emerging markets have an advantage of 3.2 % over the already developed markets. Thus, these markets are extremely important for us.
