“We Will Continue To Focus On Bringing The Next-Gen Collaboration Technology To Our Customers”

Organizations of all sizes are swiftly shifting their approach to make the utmost use of modern technological solutions to boost their productivity. The working culture has drastically changed and companies are deploying advanced collaborative solutions in their workspaces to increase work efficiency. Organizations have started realizing the significance of technology and are adopting such next-gen technology solutions in a quest to not fall behind in the race. Poly, a leading advanced technology solution brand, is helping all such companies to get the best collaboration solutions to enhance their working capabilities. Rajeev Ranjan, Editor & Publisher, Digital Terminal explored many interesting information regarding the industry and Poly's roadmap to grow while interacting with Pierre-Jean Chalon, Senior Vice President, APAC Sales, Poly. Read below the excerpts of the recent exclusive interaction- 

Mr. Rajeev: How has Poly performed in this calendar year so far?  

Mr. Chalon: We are happy to report that Poly has had a great year so far – we rebranded as a company, introduced many new solutions for the modern workplace and won many prestigious projects in the country.

• Rebranding – earlier in the year, Polycom and Plantronics rebranded to 'Poly'. As Poly, we are able to leverage the combined talents of the legendary audio expertise of Plantronics and powerful video and conferencing capabilities of Polycom to overcome the distractions, complexity and distance that make communication in and out of the workplace challenging.
• Introduced new solutions in the market – we launched several technological solutions for the modern workspaces. These include Poly Studio, our award-winning plug-and-play USB video bar for small huddle room collaboration; G7500, a video conferencing and content-sharing solution for medium and large conference rooms and Poly Studio X series – industry's first all-in-one video bars that does not require a separate device to run conferencing apps such as Zoom and Teams.

Moving forward, we will continue to focus on bringing the next-gen collaboration technology to our customers and adding value to our portfolio through advanced software and analytics.

Mr. Rajeev: How is the work culture changing in India with the support of technology? What are the current trends in the market?

Mr. Chalon: With the onslaught of technology, increased connectivity and a new generation of young professionals entering the market, the workspace as we know it has completely transformed. Office cubicles have been replaced by open offices and employees no longer have to physically be present in the office to get the job done. We see a few trends –

• Organizations moving from on-premises to the cloud – The move from on-premises systems to cloud-based communications is accelerating regardless of organizational size. An overwhelming 82 percent of global businesses surveyed recently by Frost and Sullivan reported they have moved or plan to move part or all of their enterprise telephony solutions to the cloud.
• Focus on human centered collaboration – Going forward, every communication and collaboration will focus around user experience, not just the room or the space. Imagine a person being able to place video and audio calls securely and privately wherever they are, using just voice commands to start and stop any connection.
• Managing distractions in open offices – Office cubicles have been replaced by open offices as it fosters greater collaboration among employees. However, while there has been a rise in open offices, companies are tasked with managing the disruption and noise created in these open spaces. Given this scenario, businesses will have to address workers' need for some disruption-free time and space. Huddle rooms, phone booths, and "hybrid offices" will grow.
• Remote or anywhere working – The millennial mindset is giving rise to a new workplace culture as organizations and recruiters are beginning to realise that the ways to attract and retain this generation of workforce need to be different. According to industry reports, millennials value flexible work arrangement as the most important aspect while choosing an employer. Therefore, it is critical that if companies want to hire and retain the best talent, they need to encourage anywhere/remote working culture. They have to empower employees with the right technologies and tools such as video conferencing to support this.

To summarize, companies will have to design workspaces keeping the requirements of a modern worker in mind and provide suitable working environments to help retain talent. 

Mr. Rajeev: What is the role of a CIO in the creating the modern workspace? Which of your products/solutions are in huge demand especially in the Indian market?

Mr. Chalon: CIOs play a critical role in creating modern workspaces as they are the experts on key workplace technology. In order to design modern workspaces, it is imperative that CIOs and IT leaders work closely with the senior leadership and HR teams to put forth a workplace strategy that satisfies the need of a modern worker. Since Poly has a wide range of customers with different needs – ranging from requiring collaboration solutions for small huddle rooms to big meeting spaces, we counsel CIOs based on their requirements and meeting room space. As more traditional offices transform into modern workplaces, companies are increasingly interested in solutions that enable flexible, efficient collaboration. For example:

• Poly Studio for huddle rooms – thanks to the rise in the number of remote workers, the culture of flexibility and open knowledge sharing among employees, the way that the workforce collaborate in the modern workspace has evolved significantly. Today's employees want technologies which can be easily used in smaller meeting spaces, or "huddle rooms", where groups of 2-6 can escape the noise to collaborate, often with coworkers in other locations. Poly Studio addresses the huddle room needs of the modern office its HD audio and video clarity brings boardroom capability to even the smallest of spaces.
• G7500 for bigger meeting spaces – today, we are spending more time in meetings than ever before and collaborating in different ways thanks to an increasingly global workforce. These factors are generating demand for video conferencing solutions that make meetings more productive. Poly developed G7500 with these factors in mind. The G7500 has been one of our fast-moving products of 2019. 

Mr. Rajeev: What are your plans (GTM) for expanding your footprints in the new markets across India?

Mr. Chalon: India is a very important market for Poly. Many sectors – from the government, to the healthcare are huge adopters of our technology.

Some of our plans for the market include –

• Huddle room market – Physical workplaces are moving towards accommodating an increasing mobile workforce through open office layouts while making huddle rooms available to catalyze spontaneous, ad hoc and private collaborations. Huddle rooms are quickly gaining momentum in India and Poly plans on leveraging this opportunity through solutions such as Poly Studio.
• Engagement with alliance partners like Zoom, Microsoft – We want to be the solution of choice whenever and wherever collaboration clouds reach people. We work closely with industry leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Zoom and take an open-architecture approach that ensures users of all the best technologies can seamlessly connect.
• Government sector – As Digital India moves closer to becoming reality across all of India, there is a need for collaboration technologies that deliver mission critical government services, improving equity of access for all citizens of the country. Poly is in a good position to support the government's effort in enabling digitisation of the country through our collaboration solutions. 

Mr. Rajeev: How do you manage your distribution channels to keep your sales graph smoothly moving in an upward direction?

Mr. Chalon: We are committed to working with our distributor and channel partner ecosystems to deliver the most comprehensive set of Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) solutions in the market. Poly has a dedicated team who work closely with distributor and channels to help them in handling any challenges they may face in growing the business smoothly. We also have a partner program which provides a consistent framework to enable both Poly and its partners to engage in and develop a business relationship that will result in growth of solution revenues and customer success.