Saw a 30% bump in internet traffic during pandemic: VP, Tata Communications

Hard to predict if this growth will sustain but don't expect a lot of this increased traffic to decline, says Song Toh, VP, Tata Communications

With work-from-home becoming the new normal, companies like Tata Communications are gearing up further to retain and expand their share of the pie. In a conversation with Megha Manchanda, Song Toh, Vice President, Global Network Services, Tata Communications, shares the company’s future in the post-pandemic world.

This pandemic has thrown open an opportunity for a company like yours, do you see this sustaining for some time or is it a stop-gap arrangement and once the physical office comes back it will be business as usual?

What we have seen is that these crazy last few months of pandemic have really changed the point of view and from a technology perspective I think we have proven that we at Tata Communications are ready to continue running the business in a very fast changing world. We have enabled our customers to continue their business in this period as well. It certainly has changed in terms of numbers. For business continuity, we ensure that the employees working from home, employees working in the office, are secure, they have good connectivity and the work continues and proceeds.

What kind of up-pick did you see in the business after the lockdown was announced?

In the month of March we saw 30% growth in internet traffic on our network from January. This turn has continued, and we've been keeping up our network. We've been doing extensive upgrade and modernisation, and we have continued to do that during the lockdown. But in order to serve our customers, our committed team had made sure there was minimal downtime and continued modernisation of the infrastructure. And we see a significant bump in terms of voice traffic carrying over the network as well, as people work from home.

Do you see it continuing for another three, four quarters?

This is hard to predict, but I believe that a lot of traffic will probably not decline. Some of it may shift back to corporate. But the fact that some people will continue to work from home is probably a sustained trend. Percentage wise, different people have speculated and I’d rather not speculate here. Because it's not a hundred percent one way or another.

What is the other trend, apart from work-from-home, which you have spotted in these last six months and which you think is a business opportunity going forward?

I think enabling people to work securely from home, or wherever would be a significant trend. This is especially noticeable in India. And we are definitely seeing a lot of interest in remote working. And we launched this initiative called SCDX (Secure connected digital experience). We help enterprises rebuild and adapt the organisation with this platform. It's not that the technology is super revolutionary. But it’s the fact that they are tied together. We allow employees to work from home with security and performance. We enable enterprises to speak to their customers in a way that doesn't require them to come to the branches of the store.

How bullish are you about the Indian market. What is the growth like? What is the outlook for India for your company or for the sector that you cater to, for the next one year?

We have the right technology, we have the right know-how and we have an ethos to serve our customer. Certainly, everyone is going through some challenging times, the economy is starting to reopen. We are in conversation with some enterprise customers who are revolutionising how they interact with their customers. Now there will be a lot more digital interaction and even digital purchasing and digital service capability that will come in.