Collaboration tech to help govts function better: Dinesh Malkani

Interview with President, sales for India & SAARC, Cisco

With the new government expected to put emphasis on improving broadband connectivity, global networking company Cisco expects a bright future in India since it derives a significant part of its revenues from government business. In an interview to Surabhi Agarwal, new president, sales, India and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Dinesh Malkani, talks about how the company is upbeat about the investments from the telecom sector, increasing its spend on data. Excerpts:

What is your take on the new government’s focus on technology?

My belief is the country will go through a massive transformation process and information technology (IT) will play a big part. The last term when this Bharatiya Janata Party-led government was, it was about roads, now it is broadband. We are the largest provider of internet solutions. So we think, we are quite well-positioned to participate in this agenda of the government. Besides, when you provide broadband, you also want to deliver better services in the area of education, health care, etc. There are areas in which we have innovated locally. We have made-in-India solutions. For example, we have developed solutions to provide education remotely in rural areas. We have a lot of governments around the world who are using our collaboration technologies. So there is an opportunity to help governments function better.

How is Cisco’s telecom business doing, considering the sector has a huge debt?

If you look at the last-year results of the telcos, you will see voice has largely flattened while data growth has been phenomenal, with smartphone penetration increasing in India. We have been working with telcos on their packet core technology that helps them offer third-generation (3G) services. We are working with fourth-generation (4G) providers from an end-to-end network perspective. We have had extremely good growth in the service provider area last year and that continues. India is still underpenetrated in terms of smartphones, but it is growing. I think, people have now understood the advantages in downloading data. According to a latest report by Cisco, 67 per cent of all data which is flowing through the networks is video. It means, you need to have networks which are high speed. All the telcos are calling out this area as a future growth driver as it helps these become healthier. So, we are very positive about investments in this space.

What are the other areas you see telcos investing in?

These companies have investments in networks which are heterogeneous but they need to be optimised to ensure calls don’t drop and better service is given. Another area where we are working with some operators is Wi-fi. Since spectrum is still limited and the demand very high, service providers want to use Wi-fi so a user who has 3G or 4G but is not getting the access can connect through Wi-fi.

You mentioned about creating India-specific solutions. Can you talk about some investments in that space?

One of the key things we have done is we have a facility in Bangalore out of which we have started to innovate for India. We have 8,000 engineers in this centre. For example, we have created a solution called CEED (Cisco Education Enabled Development) for the Indian market that we are deploying in schools in rural areas. We realised that in small areas, the prices of video conferencing had to be brought down and a simpler solution provided. We are also going to announce a very good networking product we have built in India. This is expected to be launched in September. There are a number of such examples.

How has the enterprises market been for you?

Banking typically starts to get very bullish when the economy picks up. So, if the economy trends in the right direction, we will see banking coming back. The way banking is done is becoming a lot more electronic and digital. That’s an area where we are working with the banks. Now two more banks are coming. All of these provide immense opportunities for technology companies.