At a time when cutting costs seem to be key challenges across industry, convergence of technologies in the form of unified communications has become all the more essential.

All businesses need voice services, but voice services based on VoIP technologies are gaining importance. The opportunity for service providers offering managed voice services is great and growing for reasons such as cost savings to customers,higher employee productivity,better return on investments (RoI) and improved margins.

On the growth drivers of the Indian voice solutions market

Many factors are driving the growth in this segment such as: the growing consumer adoption of low-cost broadband; the emergence of cost-effective VoIP technology, positive user experiences and heavy promotion by leading carriers and service providers. Adoption of IP technology is getting increasing prominence in the BPO and call center industry. Increase of mobile workforce, presence in different locations etc. are the main reasons for growth of IP telephony.

On the market and technology trends in the voice solutions market

IP based solutions are likely to enable enterprises to deploy other services such as audio, web, and video conferencing. Enterprises now realize the value of VoIP since it allows them to invest in a single communication pipe that can deliver voice and data communications to the enterprise desktop. Best suited for multi-location industries, VoIP is being deployed in IT services and BPO companies, manufacturing, telecom service providers, banking, and financial services companies. IP PBXs save on infrastructure and administrative operational costs as well as toll charges for intra-enterprise voice traffic.

On the impact of the slowdown on the market

While the dismal economic climate has a crippling effect on certain industries, there is a silver lining in terms of bail out packages and increased spending by the government /PSUs. Particularly in India, lot of development is happening due to the upcoming commonwealth games in 2010.

At a time when cutting costs and improving business processes seem to be key challenges across industry, convergence of technologies in the form of unified communications has become all the more essential.

On key demand verticals

Maximum growth is expected from hospitality, government (specifically defense), contact centers, and the SMEs, IT/BPO, telecom, service industry verticals as well as greenfield projects. The volatile economic environment has spurred corporates to maximize operational efficiency by cutting costs; hence, IP Telephony is a boon at this time.

On the future of voice solutions market in India

With the availability of high-speed broadband, inexpensive end terminals, and international long distance carrier options, the growth of VoIP in India seems clear. Further, increased adoption of unified communications applications, availability of required bandwidth and increased awareness levels will drive growth of the Indian VoIP market. The industry is moving towards unification. Enterprise and carrier networks are overlapping in functionality. The way forward in such a scenario is to offer comprehensive solutions catering to different market segments like SOHO, SME and large enterprises. Extensive customer reach, backed up by high quality service support will be a differentiating factor. Offering solutions for verticals like hospitality, trading etc, will generate a new market segment. IP converged network is a basic requirement of an enterprise now. Real-time IP applications on converged networks will revolutionize the enterprise communication market.

Healthy bottom line, reduced administrative expenses, extended business reach, boost in productivity, and immense returns on infrastructure investments are some of the key reasons that would encourage enterprises to adopt VoIP in the future.