Sterlite Tech is home to India’s only Centre of Excellence for broadband research and Centre for Smarter Networks for next generation network applications. Sterlite Tech engages with customers in more than 100 countries, with a digital web-scale offering across products, services and software. The Company has global scale manufacturing facilities in India, Italy, China & Brazil and two Software Delivery Centres in India. In last few years, company has been contributing in all major projects across India with its excellent networking and communication solutions. Sanjay Parikh, Vice President – Delivery GPSI & Neox Operations, Sterlite Tech reveals more about company’s overall vision and plan for India market.
DT: How has been the year 2018 for you?
Mr. Sanjay: The Company’s Q2 FY 2018-19 performance showed sustained growth, backed by a strong open order book, which stands at an all-time high of around Rs 9,455 crore. This includes the Rs 3,500 crore multi-year system integration contract to design, build and manage the Indian Navy’s digital network. This sustained growth is a result of Sterlite Tech continually scaling its unique silicon-to-software capabilities, and focusing on designing, building and managing hyper-scale data networks for global communication service providers, internet content companies, citizen broadband networks and the defence.
DT: What will be the tech trends adoption for enterprises in year 2019 to watch out ?
Mr. Sanjay: SMEs & SMBs today rely on analog systems running on a copper network with multiple modules. By embracing digital transformation, these businesses can compete with larger competitors by deploying all class-5 features along with unified communication (UC) capabilities & value-added services (VAS) in one box over a single network. It eliminates the modular approach for expansion; thereby eliminating multi-vendor lock-ins. In near future, SME/Enterprises are expected to opt for “Pay-as-you-go” cloud-based models, which lead to reduced CapEx.
By forecasting this scenario, Sterlite Tech’s NEOX capability has launched Hosted PBX platform for CSPs who can host NEOX solution at their Data Centre and offer OpEx based unified communication services to SME/SOHO segment.
DT: How do you see the overall support from Indian government for Digital Transformation Journey in India?
Mr. Sanjay: India is going through a digital transformation with the government focusing more on ‘Digital India’ initiatives. A well-planned digital infrastructure and next-generation software solutions are essential for the success of the Digital India mission. All enterprises are eying this huge opportunity and are adopting new strategies to capture additional market share. Govt.’s “Make In India” initiative has helped Sterlite Tech to invest more into technology and contribute in various solution towards “Digital India” projects, like BharatNet & Smart Cities.
DT: What is your overall road map to escalate your growth further in CY 2019? On what products/solutions you will be focusing in 2019?
Mr. Sanjay: NEOX: Sterlite plans to invest in engineering and customer relations to transform everyday living by delivering smarter networks. The NEOX team, particularly, will focus on delivering Telco grade Softswitch/Hosted PBX platform to domestic as well global telecom companies.
As per new TRAI & DOT, ISPs can now offer IP communication services. This would prove to be great market & opportunity for NEOX solution. As for OF/OFC products, Sterlite is planning to focus on its new innovations, like rollable ribbon cable, retractable cable and aerial cable.
The software team, in particular, is preparing to offer the market a unified data storage platform and several applications based on that. The applications for CSPs can vary from Digital Commerce and Customer Management (DCCM) to new-age billing platform (billing on the edge) along with software-defined networking to help CSPs reduce their CAPEX.
