Siemens Enterprise Communications in SA is looking to employ more people - despite its parent company, Siemens AG, based in Germany, laying off 16 750 people internationally.
Fred Maurus, divisional manager for technology management and marketing for Siemens Enterprise Communications in SA, says not only is his company separated from Siemens AG, but the growth it is expecting puts it on a completely different trajectory from that organisation.
In a recent one-on-one interview with ITWeb, he explained the company is looking towards unified communications solutions to make up 30% of its local turnover in five years` time, working from a near-zero base at the moment.
"Companies only started to look at unified communications about two years ago," says Maurus. "A few things have been rolled out by Microsoft and Cisco, but the only two companies on the forefront of these technologies are Microsoft and Siemens, and Microsoft does not have a holistic, integrated system."
Maurus says few South African companies have come to terms with the principles of voice over IP (VOIP) at this stage, much less unified communications, or communications-enabled business processes, the phase thereafter.
According to him, only about 25% of the enterprise market has rolled out VOIP, and then only as a replacement technology, not as a foundation for new applications over the IP platform, such as unified communications.
"As the economy is slowing, business is becoming more competitive and, while enterprises wish to improve their processes, there is a resistance to change, so you have to prove your solution first."
To this end, he says services surrounding unified communications are increasingly becoming important, changing the traditional telephony market Siemens has always played in.
"You have to try and sell the benefits, so the picture is changing from hardware to software and services. In the future, the big enterprises will buy on the value we will offer."
For this reason, and because Siemens Enterprise Communication is looking to unified communication solutions for tremendous growth, Maurus says the company is looking to employ.
"We need high-level people - business architects and so on. Our whole business is shifting, so we might also reorganise, but we will not be getting rid of people."
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