India SMBs spent approximately $165 million on unified
communications (UC) in 2010, with close to three fourths of all businesses
deploying UC applications.

Instant messaging applications are ubiquitous and hosted
audio and web conferencing applications show significant usage among businesses
having 10+ employees, according to AMI-Partners.

The need for collaboration between employees and branch
offices is a major driver, as is the promise of reduced costs. With the
majority of India SMBs planning to hire additional employees, and 15 – 20
percent planning to open new branches, unified communications applications are
poised for significant growth in the next five years.

Although India SMBs, especially SBs, still believe in
the value of face-to-face meetings with partners & collaborators,” said
Neha Jalan, senior associate at AMI-Partners.

They are increasingly aware of the advantages of
adopting unified communication applications such as web, audio and video
conferencing to assist in closing the deal. By using these types of
applications, businesses are able to cut travel time, manage expenses and
increase productivity,” Jalan added.

Many India SMBs use a combination of pay-per-use and
fixed monthly fee solutions. Often sophisticated solutions such as web/video
conferencing are deployed by senior management primarily, on a pay-per-use
basis, to interact with larger partners or foreign collaborators while audio
conferencing solutions are used internally within branches at fixed monthly
rates. Presently in India, no single vendor provides all of the UC elements for
a complete UC solution.

There is considerable potential for incremental revenues
and increased purchase probability with the introduction of such bundles at a
fixed monthly cost.

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]