Unified Communications

Unified communications (UC) solutions integrate a variety of communications formats and promise real-time delivery. Although many small and medium businesses (SMBs) are concerned about additional spending and extra resources required to support UC services, they view UC as a means to improve communication among their customers, suppliers, and colleagues.

 

Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, a market research agency, conducted a study on the spending of SMBs (companies with up to 999 employees) in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan (ApeJ) on unified communications.

 

The AMI study found that companies in the region that comprises Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are set to spend $393 million on UC solutions in 2008, up 6 percent over 2007.

 

The study also revealed that both medium businesses (companies with 100-999 employees) and small business (companies with up to 99 employees) would spend almost the same on UC solutions. The shares of medium businesses and small businesses are 51 percent and 49 percent respectively.

 

Among the UC solutions, conferencing and collaboration tools such as audio, video, Web conferencing and instant messaging will account for the bulk of 78 percent of the total UC spend, indicating the growing interest among companies to reduce travel and energy costs involved in conventional collaboration methods.

“As the economic crisis looms, SMBs are thinking about cutting costs and boosting customer service strategies to gain a competitive advantage,” said Gina Luk, AMI's Singapore-based consulting and research manager, in a statement. “SMBs are increasingly exploring lower cost, simple to manage, and easy to implement integrated UC solutions from vendors and service providers.”

According to AMI, the adoption rate of UC among SMBs in emerging markets such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines is still very low. These four countries together contribute only about 8 percent of total APeJ UC spends. The case is same with more developed markets such as Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore, which together contribute for about 7 percent of total APeJ UC spending.

 

AMI noted that China, South Korea and India have been on the top hits charts for the past three years. It is estimated by the agency that these three countries together will account for 61 percent of the total SMB UC spending in 2008, followed by Australia and Indonesia at 14 percent.

The biggest concern among SMBs in APeJ is the cost of going on a 100 percent UC platform in the current economic scenario. However, they need to ensure that their employees communicate with customers, suppliers, and colleagues via multiple devices and as efficiently as possible.

 

“Not surprisingly, SMBs want all UC features at lower costs,” says Luk. “SMBs want to be able to call someone on their mobile phone or reply to an email right away, and UC can help them to do more for less.”

While many SMBs in Singapore want to see UC solutions linked to their business goals such as enhanced customer experience and business continuity, the also like to see products that are scalable and simple to manage.

 

As more and more forms of communications are emerging, there is a need for a single point of contact for interaction in businesses. UC, therefore, remains to be a lucrative sector, with major players like Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, IBM, Nortel (News - Alert), and NEC, already active in the market.