DQW News Bureau New Delhi, Dec 13
The Asia-Pacific enterprise telephony applications (ET apps)
market (excluding Japan) is expected to enjoy very high growth at a CAGR
(compound annual growth rate) of 33.7 percent from 2005 to 2012. ET apps, which
are in the nascent stages of adoption, could account for over 30 percent of the
total enterprise telephony market by 2012, from only 5.2 percent in 2005.
ET apps are a set of applications that reside on the telephony
platform to provide additional productivity enhancing tools. These include
vertical (industry) specific applications, as well as horizontal applications
such as voice mail, unified communications and interface applications. The
deployment of such applications is presently pervasive in countries such as
Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). By 2009, the Greater China region comprising
China, Taiwan and Hong Kong is expected to surpass ANZ as the largest adopter of
ET apps solutions.
New analysis from global growth consulting company, Frost &
Sullivan, Asia Pacific Enterprise Telephony Applications (ET Apps) Market
CY2005, revealed that revenues in this market, covering 12 major Asia-Pacific
countries ex-Japan, totaled $77.2 million in 2005 and is forecasted to be worth
$589.9 million by end of 2012.
"As IP (Internet protocol) deployments continue at a rapid
pace, CIOs (chief information officers) are increasingly seeking ways to utilize
the underlying IP platform to increase productivity and reduce costs,"
noted Prasannavadan Gaitonde, Industry Manager, Frost & Sullivan.
"Companies are moving to the next stage of utilization of their voice
networks beyond the standard benefits of TCO (total cost of ownership) reduction
and toll bypass towards enhancing productivity and integrating applications in
their business processes."
As a result, applications on the telephony platform are finding
greater acceptance and are likely to provide the next level of growth for
enterprise communications. Vendors are responding by building applications and
forming partnerships with third party application developers in order to tap the
market.
The integration of voice with business processes provides for
better customer service and helps to improve productivity within enterprises.
Hospitality, healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and,
to a certain extent, retail and manufacturing, are some of the industries that
have started deploying ET apps in order to increase productivity.
Despite the favorable outlook, the Asia-Pacific ET apps market
is wrought with significant challenges. Among the restraints is the difficulty
in justifying tangible RoI (return on investment), especially for
productivity-based applications. Most enterprises do not have the metrics to
measure the savings brought about by the increased productivity of the workforce
or the greater customer satisfaction resulting from improved efficiency. The
high cost of IP telephony end-points are also an added challenge, as well as the
lack of standardization of voice platforms and the requirement for vendors to
shift from product sales to solutions selling.
"Solutions sales have longer selling cycles and require an
understanding of customers' business needs, rather than purely offering a
lower priced commoditized product," said Gaitonde. "This often proves
challenging for vendors and their sales channels, who for years have been used
to selling products."
Given the enormous potential for ET apps in the Asia-Pacific
region, vendors will do well to further educate the market, demonstrate
quantifiable RoI, and target specific verticals for niche applications.