Asia Pacific Unified Communications (UC) Services 2007

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled Asia Pacific Unified Communications (UC) Services 2007 provides insights into UC services in six main sub-regions: Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), greater China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Other areas covered include market drivers and restraints, in-depth revenue forecasts, analysis by vertical segment and enterprise size, distribution trends, as well as competitive landscape analysis. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following services: consulting, implementation and integration, maintenance, managed service, and hosted service.

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Market Overview

Industry Participants to Seize Opportunity in the Unified Communications Services Market

The popularity of UC has resulted in renewed sales for traditional maintenance services and new revenue streams from services that are opportunity rich, such as professional and managed services. Industry participants are recognizing this and cashing-in on the UC services market, making excellent future growth prospects for the Asia Pacific market. "With the mushrooming of businesses in Asia Pacific and the influx of foreign multinational companies (MNCs) in the region, there is a definite positive impact on investment in communications network infrastructure and equipment," notes the analyst of this research. "This coupled with rapid migration toward internet protocol (IP) communications, particularly IP telephony, have been the strongest drivers for the adoption of UC services." Hosted service, the largest service segment, will experience healthy growth until 2011, driven by superior enterprise communication requirements from organizations with multiple office locations and significant number of mobile workers. Maintenance is a major growth engine for UC services in developing markets, whereas in developed markets, participants are shifting toward enhanced services, in addition to maintenance. Implementation and integration service is another promising area within UC services. Collaboration and integration are set as the next phase of UC professional services, transitioning from the pilot phase to more-comprehensive deployment, involving integration of various UC elements from a variety of 'best-of-breed' vendors and other business applications, in the coming three to five years.

The greatest restraint inhibiting the adoption of UC services is the difficulty in justifying return on investment (ROI). The entire UC operation process involves long-term strategic planning with business process re-engineering and, in some cases, a complete change-management program. It includes changes to existing business processes and structures and the way people work. Due to the lack of a credible hard-dollar ROI model coupled with an inability to demonstrate the benefits of UC services in business process transformation effectively, not many enterprises are committed to change the already established work culture, to embark on UC deployment. "In the midst of economic uncertainties, it will be an uphill task convincing enterprises on the ROI," notes the analyst. "During the 2008-2010 timeframe, cautious spending among enterprises is expected with a longer sales cycle and enterprises will place priority only on UC services, directly aiding growth in their top-line."

To enable enterprises to operate in a truly integrated UC environment, participants should equip themselves with competent skill sets. It is critical to have trained and certified experts who are skilful in both voice and data integration. They should also understand the right fit of UC into the organization's existing business processes, supporting a much wider company strategy. "To strengthen the UC service offerings of market participants, partnership is essential and participants without an end-to-end play in UC should work closely with various partners of different services components that complement their deliverables," concludes the analyst. "It is also important that they associate with key UC service vendors like Microsoft, Cisco and IBM to gain a strong foothold in the market."

Market Sectors

Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:

• Consulting
• Implementation and Integration
• Maintenance
• Managed services
• Hosted services