We call ourselves a content driven visual collaboration platform: Prysm

Kumar G.B, Vice President - Asia Pacific, Prysm Inc spoke to Dataquest divulging how the company plans to move ahead in India and in what verticals it plans to focus more significantly.

What is the uptake of collaboration solutions in India? Most of the enterprises have already deployed similar solutions, how do you see those embracing Prysm solutions?
As per a survey by Gartner, 46% of companies have a Digital Workplace in place today and 27% are beginning a new project.

According to Frost & Sullivan, India has good potential for growth of unified communications applications, as demonstrated by the projected CAGR of 7.9 per cent in the period from 2008 to 2015. Additionally, I see tremendous opportunities in India because while the CEO’s are still contemplating whether to go in this direction or not, they all are convinced about the visual workplace as an argument, whether it is global companies having footprint in India or the local companies who are aspiring to become global. They are all looking for leading edge technologies to leverage in terms of bringing in innovation between the diversity of talent that is being scattered around the organization.

According to International Data Corporation, (IDC India), the Enterprise Collaboration market in India has witnessed growth during H2 2015 as compared to the market year-on-year. With the uptake in demand for workforce optimization and interaction, the segments such as team collaboration, unified messaging, web & voice conferencing and mobility have become more important than ever.

How is Prysm different from existing telepresence and Skype for Business?
Prysm is the platform of platforms for global collaboration experience. Prysm solutions are beyond the existing collaboration solutions available in India. Fundamentally, Prysm is able to unify face to face audio-visual collaboration along with the content from multiple sources and that is the differentiator for the company. We call ourselves a content driven visual collaboration platform, providing relevant data insights and data is what is driving all the decisions across industries. Prysm integrates Cisco Telepresence and Skype for Business into the Prysm visual workplace platform.

What are the challenges and opportunities you face with licensing model in countries like India?
As discussed above one of the challenges we face is that some of the enterprises have already deployed collaboration solutions in India and CIOs are vary of making investments in new technologies. In this case, licensing model helps in protecting current investments and at the same time providing benefits of new solutions. Our software suite is compatible with all hardware and platforms. Licensing model also helps in enabling the benefits of a virtual workplace to more number of employees across the organisation.

How is your future roadmap for India? How do you plan to acquire your customers hereon?
It has been only a year since we officially started here in India. We truly believe in the potential India has to offer, and our price points and all the other factors are in line with Indian market scenario and demands here.

Initially, we had Indian customers but they primarily purchased our products in the U.S. and deployed in their organizations. Today, with evolution of technology and the understanding that customers possess here, we are able to gain businesses here and deliver directly. In fact, few of our customers who implemented our solutions in India are also now customers in the U.S. and Europe.

Though, the U.S. is still the fastest growing market for us, essentially because we have been there for long time, India could be the second largest market with respect to software on the software side. Besides the enterprises, the government sector in India will also hold huge potential for us - with the push towards ‘Digital India’, special-purpose clouds and applications will emerge to focus specifically on connecting devices and machines, which will drive our business momentum.

Which are the key growth verticals for your company? Which is/are the new verticals/segments you are aiming to target in India?
Customers across verticals including BFSI, IT/ITes, M&E, education are looking for solutions that would help them better their business and optimize their operations. Almost every industry in India has become IT-centric – organizations have become dependent on IT to deliver products, services and to interact with various stakeholders.

We believe that the key industries of growth will be sectors like banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), telecommunications, healthcare, education, and the public sector.

Our long term vision for our customers is to deliver new capabilities which enable the value of a shared virtual infrastructure and the company is relentlessly focused on delivering differentiated and innovative technologies that are future ready as well as industry leading.

Some of our key global customers are:
Education: University of Denver, Boston University, Texas Tech University, Qatar University
Tech: Wipro, GE
Broadcast: Dubai TV, Beijing TV, CNBC