Rajiv Bhalla, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, NEC India strives to be an active player in the UID project. He says that the project will completely change the way identity and authentication is viewed today. By Neha Saraiya
NEC has been in India through a liaison office for long. But, it was not before 2006, that the company established its full fledged subsidiary on the Indian soils. But who would know that the company will soon bear the wither of bad weather in form of global turmoil affecting the overall businesses of the company. But now back to the track, the company not only closed the Fiscal year ended March 31, 2010 with over ¥3,583.1 billion sales revenue , but is quite bullish about its focus on hospitality and education sectors. And after its pact with Tata Indicom Broadband for providing integrated solutions, last year, Rajiv Bhalla, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, NEC India, shares his future agenda, in an exclusive interview.
Excerpts:
B&E: IP telephony systems to promote convergence of communications in hotels seems to be the emerging trend but with the global IP telephony market for hotels still slightly above $1 billion, do you feel such sophisticated systems have any place in the Indian hotel industry?
RB: As far as adoption of new technology is concerned, many hotels are at a nascent stage with most of them using TDM based combinations of analogue and digital switchboard (PBX) systems inspite of availability of advanced and cost-effective solutions like IP Telephony. At the same time, due to aggressive competition, demanding customers and thin profit margins, hoteliers are constantly looking for cost-effective solutions contributing positively to their bottom-line and IP Telephony exactly helps in achieving the same. At present there is less awareness among hospitality players about the benefits of advantageous technology like video-conferencing, IP Telephony, and the wonders it can do to their business. But with hotels introspecting, keeping their customers in mind on the future of services offered, NEC is optimistic that more and more hotels will realize the underlying benefits of IP Telephony which will help it in finding greater acceptability in the Indian hospitality market. According to industry analysts, ABI Research, sophisticated systems based on IP telephone networks in hotels will increasingly enable a range of new services aimed at improving customer service in hotels and resorts. Although worldwide revenue from such systems totaled only $869 million in 2008.
B&E: But, with the kind of technological sophistication in your products, what is your strategy to promote them to your target segment across various sectors?
RB: We are an end-to-end IT and network solutions provider offering a wide range of solutions that are applicable for the hospitality sector, including state-of-the-art IP telephony solutions that enhance business productivity. Despite a slow start initially, NEC has established itself as a steady player in the market. Our overall strategy has been to target the customer base with a technologically superior and customized value proposition. We are aggressively targeting verticals like education, hospitality, enterprise, biometric security and other growth segments through its products and solution suite comprising of projectors, commercial display units, EPBAX, IP Telephony, point of sale (POS) solutions & biometric ID solutions.
B&E: Which sector makes up your main focus?
RB: We have hospitality sector as our central focus. In line with our focus on the hospitality segment, we have three national distributors, Enkay Technologies (Hospitality solutions; Enterprise sales - EPABX, IP telephony, and key telephone systems), Syntel (key telephone systems, IP telephony) and Intellicon (IP telephony) to cater to the hospitality sector. Earlier this year, we launched our state-of-the-art UNIVERGE SV8500, a powerful enterprise communication solution capable of supporting up to 16,000 endpoints in a single system. With this, we are targeting 18% of the hospitality market.
NEC has been in India through a liaison office for long. But, it was not before 2006, that the company established its full fledged subsidiary on the Indian soils. But who would know that the company will soon bear the wither of bad weather in form of global turmoil affecting the overall businesses of the company. But now back to the track, the company not only closed the Fiscal year ended March 31, 2010 with over ¥3,583.1 billion sales revenue , but is quite bullish about its focus on hospitality and education sectors. And after its pact with Tata Indicom Broadband for providing integrated solutions, last year, Rajiv Bhalla, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, NEC India, shares his future agenda, in an exclusive interview.
Excerpts:
B&E: IP telephony systems to promote convergence of communications in hotels seems to be the emerging trend but with the global IP telephony market for hotels still slightly above $1 billion, do you feel such sophisticated systems have any place in the Indian hotel industry?
RB: As far as adoption of new technology is concerned, many hotels are at a nascent stage with most of them using TDM based combinations of analogue and digital switchboard (PBX) systems inspite of availability of advanced and cost-effective solutions like IP Telephony. At the same time, due to aggressive competition, demanding customers and thin profit margins, hoteliers are constantly looking for cost-effective solutions contributing positively to their bottom-line and IP Telephony exactly helps in achieving the same. At present there is less awareness among hospitality players about the benefits of advantageous technology like video-conferencing, IP Telephony, and the wonders it can do to their business. But with hotels introspecting, keeping their customers in mind on the future of services offered, NEC is optimistic that more and more hotels will realize the underlying benefits of IP Telephony which will help it in finding greater acceptability in the Indian hospitality market. According to industry analysts, ABI Research, sophisticated systems based on IP telephone networks in hotels will increasingly enable a range of new services aimed at improving customer service in hotels and resorts. Although worldwide revenue from such systems totaled only $869 million in 2008.
B&E: But, with the kind of technological sophistication in your products, what is your strategy to promote them to your target segment across various sectors?
RB: We are an end-to-end IT and network solutions provider offering a wide range of solutions that are applicable for the hospitality sector, including state-of-the-art IP telephony solutions that enhance business productivity. Despite a slow start initially, NEC has established itself as a steady player in the market. Our overall strategy has been to target the customer base with a technologically superior and customized value proposition. We are aggressively targeting verticals like education, hospitality, enterprise, biometric security and other growth segments through its products and solution suite comprising of projectors, commercial display units, EPBAX, IP Telephony, point of sale (POS) solutions & biometric ID solutions.
B&E: Which sector makes up your main focus?
RB: We have hospitality sector as our central focus. In line with our focus on the hospitality segment, we have three national distributors, Enkay Technologies (Hospitality solutions; Enterprise sales - EPABX, IP telephony, and key telephone systems), Syntel (key telephone systems, IP telephony) and Intellicon (IP telephony) to cater to the hospitality sector. Earlier this year, we launched our state-of-the-art UNIVERGE SV8500, a powerful enterprise communication solution capable of supporting up to 16,000 endpoints in a single system. With this, we are targeting 18% of the hospitality market.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
