Channel Chief
“Channels Will Be Our Focus In 2010”
 Neeraj Gill, MD, Polycom India and Saarc, talks to Varun Aggarwal about the company’s new channel structure and the videoconferencing market in 2010
How has the year 2009 been for the videoconferencing (VC) industry and for Polycom?
Except in Q4 2008, the VC market has witnessed growth, and so have we.
In fact, the slowdown has worked positively for the VC market because the focus of enterprises during the slowdown has been to invest in technologies that help them bring down costs.
Over the last six months we have seen major demand from the government, service providers and other large enterprises which have adopted unified communications (UC) or VC because they help to cut costs.
The VC market continues to grow at over 20 percent CAGR.
The VC market has seen consolidation with Cisco acquiring Tandberg. How will it impact Polycom?
The Tandberg acquisition by Cisco has brought VC to the forefront. People are now realizing that if Cisco is making an acquisition in this space there is certainly something worth considering.
Over the last couple of years we have expanded and consolidated several strategic relationships with large UC and networking players including HP, Avaya, Siemens, Microsoft and IBM. The choice for customers is now between Polycom’s standards-based open communications platform—which works with most OEM platforms—and the more proprietary platform from Cisco-Tandberg.
What is Polycom doing to develop a strong channel play? What’s your go-to-market strategy?
In the past we have had a very Delhi-centric team with more vertical focus than regional focus. Our strategy now is to strengthen our presence in the regions, and we have divided India into three geographies—west, south, and north and east.
Each geography will be headed by a regional manager who will be responsible for identifying a go-to-market strategy based on his region’s demographics. To engage better with channels, we have created a separate channel team whose mandate will be to enroll, train and enable partners. We are scouting for the head of this channel team.
We will also be launching the Polycom Choice Program (PCP) within the next quarter. In essence, we will be focusing aggressively on channels in 2010.
What’s the value proposition you’re offering your partners?
VC is one of the highest growth segments, and is a very attractive space for partners. We are the largest standards-based VC player, with compatibility with solutions from Avaya, Microsoft, IBM, HP and Siemens; hence, our partners will have wider opportunities.
There has been much talk about telepresence, yet the technology hasn’t found many takers.
Due to its higher cost, compared to standard VC solutions, telepresence didn’t see the adoption anticipated in 2009. The primary reason was that customers didn’t want to invest in high-end technologies because they had limited budgets. However, over the last two quarters, we are seeing demand coming for telepresence solutions, mainly from certain government accounts and large enterprises. Also, the cost of telepresence solutions has come down, making them more affordable.
How is the desktop conferencing market faring?
Video usage on the desktop is growing, but I don’t see this growth at the expense of HD video or telepresence. It will be complementary to the other VC solutions an enterprise would deploy.
The overall market for VC is growing across the board, be it boardroom solutions, executive desktop solutions or telepresence solutions. Apart from enterprises, the government and education sectors are also seeing increased adoption of VC. However, a pure desktop solution is not meant for enterprises, and is only relevant for SOHOs. For any enterprise, you’ll see the entire range of solutions.
Speculation is rife that HP may acquire Polycom.
HP is a key partner for Polycom. It has recently signed a global reseller agreement with us, and will resell our products to its customers. This relationship will start shortly in India. As for the acquisition bit, I can’t comment on the speculation.
What are the alternative delivery models for VC that you expect to see in 2010?
Apart from buying the equipment, there are various alternatives in the market. For example, if you walk into a Reliance Web World, you can use their VC solution for as long as you want and pay them a certain amount per hour. You can also rent entire rooms, which you can use for corporate trainings, etc.
Moving forward, people are looking at managed service partners for all aspects of IT including VC. Managed VC solutions, wherein the equipment is installed and managed by the partner, are beginning to become a reality in different parts of the world. Rental options such as room rentals or equipment rentals are new models that will emerge this year. |