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Consilium CXO-Exclusive UC Forum 2009
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After its maiden success in 2008, Consilium Unified Communications Forum has returned in 2009 with a unique theme for the CXO's of the industry. The Forum has been broken in three legs with an event happening in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.
Consilium CXO-Exclusive UC Forum 2009 was conducted in Bangalore at the "Hotel Royal Orchid" on January 24th 2009. Similarly, the Delhi event was organized at the majestic "Palms - Town and Country Club", Gurgaon on February 22nd, 2009. The event attracted thought leaders, visionaries, CXO's from the industry and was hugely successful in driving home the emphasis on essence of UC in today's environment.
The event kicked-off with welcome address from Pramod Ratwani, President, Consilium Software. The proposition of the welcome address was brief – how can UC help you in the troubled times of recession so that you can stay one step ahead of the competition. Pramod also discussed the key market drivers which are guiding UC to take the pole position in the buzziest technologies of 2009 and beyond. |
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Pramod Ratwani opens the Consilium UC Forum in Bangalore |
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Consilium UC Forum also featured Cisco as the co-sponsor for the event. The key note presentation by Venu Venugopal, Director, Customer Business Transformation, Cisco centered around Collaboration and provided an aerial view of Cisco UC solutions. Cisco - Business anytime anywhere concept was discussed in greater detail in the main presentation of the event delivered by Minhaj Zia in Bangalore and Vinay Dua in Delhi.
The showpiece feature of this unique event was the interactive panel discussion which was powered by the luminaries of the industry. The panel discussion attracted active participation from the elite audience who got an opportunity to discuss topical subjects affecting their business in an open forum. While Pramod Ratwani moderated the panel discussion, the panellists at the Bangalore event comprised of Ashvani Srivastava, CEO, Health Highway; N Gajapathy, CEO VG Solutions; Venu Venugopal, Cisco and Col. Arvind Saksena, CIO, Consilium Software.
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When asked if India is ready for UC, Ashvani Srivastava noted "for India Inc., it was time to get incubated to the UC environment. Many organizations look at investments in technology with a view point of making profit in short term but technologies like UC have to be viewed with a perspective which stretches in the long term".
On the co-existence of Cisco and Microsoft in the UC landscape, N Gajapathy, opined that it was encouraging to note that Cisco and Microsoft are already in consultation to sort out the issue. It is still the early stage of UC adoption and sorting out such issues can send the right signals to the industry.
Experts said in this time of business transformation throughout the world the biggest issue before UC vendors is to find ways to make their products integrate with the various processes of an organization. Any UC product cannot be successful or deliver benefits to the customer unless it can integrate with various processes and tools and should be easy to use. |
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Ashvani Srivastava makes a point while other panellists observe during Bangalore event |
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The panel discussion at the Delhi event was no less stirring with industry veterans Sunil Gujral, EVP and CTO, Quatrro and Navtej Matharu, VP & CIO, Serco sitting in the elite panellist position, joined by Venu Venugopal from Cisco while Pramod Ratwani again moderated the discussion. |
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Sunil Gujral observed that inter-operability was a major issue and customers would derive maximum benefit from UC solutions when they are not asked to forklift their existing investment in technology. He also noted that benefits of UC are universal and apply in equal measure to SME segment also - saving of real estate cost, better accessibility for mobile workers being prime examples.
Navtej Matharu is excited about the advent of UC via SaaS but felt that the pinnacle in UC as a service would be reached when its application becomes as simple as getting a mobile bill for phone usage. The future should see an IP assigned to an individual and it should stick with him no matter which organization he goes to.
Sunit Tyagi, VP, Genpact, raised a pertinent point that for adoption of UC to increase, the vendors should be ready to demonstrate the hard ROI of UC as against soft ROI.
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Navtej Matharu (extreme left) and Sunil Gujral (second from right) at Consilium UC Forum, Delhi |
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