Unified Communications- Cisco's Best Collaborative Effort

The Indian market for unified communications (UC) is dominated by biggies like Cisco, Microsoft, and Avaya among others. Not only these players have a fairly large market share, but they have also managed to gain significant mindshare of the solution providers/system integrators in the country. This is visible by the fact that in this year's Channel Satisfaction Survey, the solution providers have clearly endorsed these three majors only, out of which, Cisco has emerged as their #1 choice.

Like last year, with its impeccable scores, Cisco has again proved that it is still the reigning leader in the UC space. From the leadership in overall product/service reliability to the convenience in installation, adoption, and scalability, Cisco has scored quite high in overall product quality in comparison to its competitors. After-sales support has been another catalyst for Cisco's UC success, be it the company's technical expertise and geographical reach throughout the country. By concentrating on the credit facility, fairness on claim settlement, promptness with turnaround time in providing online support and having an interactive site for resolving any of the queries of its solution providers, Cisco has redefined its success story in this segment. However, the company needs to focus on the effectiveness with which it manages disruption due to its change in personnel.

For Microsoft, which is lagging slightly behind Cisco in the overall survey scores, the main reason to cheer is its dominance in the product/service demonstration as well as innovative offerings for the both the partners and customers. Though it majorly lacks in innovativeness of market development programs, solution providers seem to like the company's advertising strategies and allocation of funds for marketing.