Hemant Joshi Partner,
Deloitte Haskins & Sells
Indian enterprises are increasingly looking at new technologies for the digital enablement of their services and business operations. With the telecom market shifting away from being purely voice-led to becoming data-oriented, operators are formulating various strategies to leverage this enterprise advantage. The large-scale adoption of virtualisation, cloud services, big data analytics and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications has opened up new avenues of growth in this segment. Moreover, as the government’s Digital India and Smart Cities initiatives start gaining traction, the demand for these enterprise-based offerings is expected to increase further. Industry experts share their views on the growing market for enterprise business services (EBS), the current and emerging trends, key challenges and future outlook…
How important is the EBS segment for telecom operators? What are the key opportunities that this segment offers?
EBS is an important segment for telecom operators as it contributes significantly to their revenues. The enterprise industry is currently worth Rs 450 billion and is growing at the rate of 10 per cent per annum. The key opportunities offered by the EBS segment are unified communication, cloud computing, M2M services, enterprise mobility, converged services and telematics.
What are the current and emerging trends in the adoption of services such as cloud computing, virtualisation, big data analytics and the internet of things?
Enterprises are adopting emerging technologies like cloud computing and data analytics for profitability as well as for increasing the ease of doing business. Some of the key drivers for the uptake of these services are reduced IT infrastructure, a flexible work environment, improved accessibility and better cost
management. Further, these technologies facilitate monetisation of data, customer analysis and determination of key performance indicators.
Which enterprise verticals are witnessing a significant adoption of these services? What are the key challenges faced by operators while catering to enterprises?
The key challenges faced by operators while providing EBS are security, low bandwidth, skill shortage, vendor pricing models, frequent change and upgradation in technology and lack of strong network coverage across the country.
What changes do you see in the EBS scenario as the government’s Digital India and Smart Cities initiatives gain traction?
The Digital India and Smart Cities initiatives are strategic projects which would require huge investments and private participation. Under these initiatives, EBS will play a crucial role in security, mobility and digitisation.
There will be opportunities for telecom-managed services in cloud-based storage, M2M applications, user application, financial services, m-Governance, m-health, online education, among others, which will contribute to the operators’ revenues by opening up new revenue streams.
What is the future outlook for EBS? How can operators leverage these services to drive profitability going forward?
Increased mobility, a flexible work culture, adoption of M2M, and digitisation of services will shift the supply-push model of the enterprise business to a demand–pull one. To provide customised and flexible services to enterprises, operators need to upgrade network infrastructure and adopt new technologies. Profitability will be driven by technology, network speed, security and innovative services. Operators can leverage the huge database by implementing data analytics solutions
