SME CHAT
“WE OFFER SIMPLE AND SCALABLE UC AND COLLABORATION EMPLOYING GENUINE OPEN STANDARDS.” medium-sized businesses. OpenScape Office Contact Center makes it possible for SMEs to bring unified communications to their contact centers. HiPath 3000 is our flexible unified communications platform that scales from 20 to 500 users. HiPath 1100 provides high-performance telephony experience with up to 140 users support. Openscape Office MX Platform is an allin-one, unified communications appliance with network connectivity. OpenScape Office LX is the only unified communications and collaboration software solution built specifically for small and medium sized businesses. OpenScape Cloud Services offer on-demand access to enterprise-class unified communications applications. What kind of advantage you offer over the competition? Our USP is Open Standards. We offer simple and scalable unified communications and collaboration employing genuine open standards to ensure our UCC solutions integrate seamlessly with other applications and communications platforms. This Open Communications approach not only simplifies initial implementation and deployment, it also safeguards financial investment by enabling further expansion and integration to all future capabilities. Moreover, it makes them easier to use, driving user adoption and maximizing return on investment (ROI). The key
differentiators of SEN are: Long-term financial viability and future scalability, Impressive new management, Solutions interoperability, Investment protection, Wide breadth of solutions, services, and deployment models, Enable unified business responsiveness, Flexibility in delivering communications-enabled business processes. How has been your GTM and channel engagement strategy? As of GTM, Siemens had been determined to outperform the dismal market conditions of the past year, which it did based on shipments and revenues. The voice market last year was off by more than 20% and the data market by about 15%, though things were improving by year’s end. The company did better by several percentage points than overall market numbers, according to various research reports, for its voice/application and network infrastructure/security business units. On a very bright note, its professional/managed services business unit actually improved by 10% last year despite the down market. Second has been our strong initiative to shift its traditionally heavy focus on direct sales to more third party distribution channels. This would have the effect of greatly expanding market coverage and potential sales opportunities. Several key partnership relationships have been announced during the past year, such as the very recent deal
with Shared Technologies. Another significant partner announcement last year was NetLink’s acquisition of Siemens’ local assets across various countries. Our third GTM strategic chunk has been the organization of the company on a global basis focused on customers, markets, and channels. The historic focus of Siemens had been on large enterprise customers and global accounts. Though we have not ignored the small business segment, the strength of Siemens had been at the high end of the enterprise communications market with the strongest coverage of dispersed geographic markets with local corporate presence. Establishing world class benchmarks for its staff and field organizations and support structure is our primary goal still. And finally, Siemens has been impressively successful in restructuring itself to save more than 500 million Euros in costs. This was done by downsizing a relatively bloated organization, scaling back bureaucratic processes, and cutting back on various expenses such as travel, IT, and real estate. Recent and future cost savings mechanisms are designed to ensure long term financial viability and future scalability. On the Siemens voice and applications business unit: after a slow start a few years ago, shipments of our OpenScape platform began to take off substantially for both voice and UC/messaging licenses (though older technology offerings followed the overall market decline initially). Globally, OpenScape voice shipment orders increased last year by almost 10%, an impressive result considering market conditions. In the US market the increase was multi-fold, with individual system installation size increasing a factor of 50%. Some upcoming product announcements were also previewed, with the OpenScape name replacing the HiPath branding convention. Siemens remains a strong competitor on the worldwide stage for enterprise communications and a force in driving the development of the market. Our shipments of OpenScape platform have already begun to take off substantially for both voice and UC/messaging licenses. Our go to market & engagement strategy with regards to indirect business is to cover the bases as we cover the globe. Globally we have over 720 accredited and exceptionally loyal Channel Partners. We focus on Strategic LME clients too, select global & regional accounts and select vertical markets including Healthcare, Finance and Public sector. We have been striving to adapt and execute our Global Go-To-Market Strategy in India this year and initially it was a moving target given the dynamism of Indian market. We have so far come up in flying colours with the biggest market chunk. SME
SME CHANNELS 41 JUNE 2011
Chat - Rahul Kulkarni-Siemens.indd 41
6/19/2011 8:53:47 PM