By Roderick T. dela Cruz: Cloud is the future, says a 31-year-old Indian engineer in an interview at a coffee shop in the tourist section of Makati City. Vikas Kakkar, vice president and head of international business strategy of Knowlarity Communications Pvt. Ltd., is referring to the cloud, where everything is shared. His company provides cloud-based solutions to handle, manage, track and distribute telephone calls for small and medium businesses and enterprises. Cloud, often used as a metaphor for the Internet, has been changing the way businesses are conducted and has opened opportunities for startup companies such as Knowlarity, an Indian company considered a pioneer in cloud telephony products, to expand to other markets such as the Philippines. Small businesses in the Philippines are beginning to embrace cloud telephony, the new technology in voice communication that is replacing the conventional telephone system, says Kakkar. “Cloud telephony is the future. Sharing resources is what everybody wanted to do.” he says. Knowlarity, which has headquarters in Singapore, is expanding in the Philippines, where cloud telephony begins to blossom. Knowlarity, he says, came from the words knowledge and singularity. Knowlarity is India’s largest provider of unified communication solutions that replace the traditional private branch exchange or PBX. The ubiquitous cloud solutions are less costly and more functional, says Kakkar. “We have built our own platform in the cloud and are proud to be able to manage 1 million calls an hour,” he says. Knowlarity’s main product, SuperReceptionist, enables small companies to project a big-company image in terms of handling calls, he says. Nearly 200 companies in the Philippines are already using SuperReceptionist and he expects to get 300 more customers on board by next year. “SuperReceptionist is your personal receptionist hosted virtually, that makes it easy for customers to reach you. It is a tool to track the efficiency and productivity of your business and employees. With SuperReceptionist you get all the data and insights on call traffic, to know what is happening,” he says. “In the days to come, I feel that cloud telephony solutions like SuperReceptionist will be ahead of traditional PBX [private branch exchange] system, which will disappear in the near future,” says Kakkar. He says with SuperReceptionist, a small company can monitor all calls so that they cannot lose business leads. “What happens is that business owners usually lose leads, therefore lose revenue. With SuperReceptionist they are able to manage and track all these calls thanks to call forwarding, call recording, real-time analytics and much more” he says. “Basically, we replace traditional expensive communication hardware system with affordable and intelligent cloud based telephony solutions for SMBs and enterprises,” says Kakkar. Knowlarity does not provide hardware, but only cloud solutions to connect existing phones and mobile phones to their system. Kakkar says a small travel agency with two employees can handle multiple customer inquiries simultaneously. “With SuperReceptionist, they can project a big company image, even with two employees. If you change your office, you don’t have to worry about changing your phone number. You can track everything on your mobile. There is no need to be in your office, you can take your call even outside your office,” he says. “There are many advantages to cloud telephony. SuperReceptionist is a cost-effective solution that makes you look bigger, more professional and that enables you to be always reachable even if you’re not. Wherever you are, SuperReceptionist is always with you serving your business,” says Kakkar. Kakkar has been traveling to the Philippines on a monthly basis for a year now, basically to explore the market. “I am very optimistic in the Philippines. People are friendly and warm. If you introduce them to something new, they are keen to try and get more details about it. They are very open-minded in terms of technology,” says Kakkar. Knowlarity, which was established in 2009, views the Philippines as “a virgin market.” Asked to explain further, Kakkar says: “Cloud telephony is kind of new in the Philippines. We are actually the first player in the Philippines offering cloud telephony services but we are quite comfortable with this since we have been the pioneers of cloud telephony in India and we are the largest provider of PSTN cloud telephony in the world.” “It took us the first two months to get a few clients. But in the last three months, we acquired 100 customers. If we go by that speed, we will definitely achieve the 500-customer mark next year,” he says. Knowlarity, which has been in the Philippines for one year, employs seven people and operates a data center in the country. ‘”The Philippines is one country that is performing well and where there is huge opportunity. There is a great number of SMBs here and we have great acceptance in the market,” says Kakkar. “We already have many partners in the Philippines who are excited about selling our products. Like in India where we are close to 1,000 partners we intend to build up a significant partner presence in the Philippines who will be localizing our products and selling it in the Filipino market,” he says. Knowlarity targets startups in the Philippines, who welcome new innovation. “We can customize solutions based on their requirements. We see huge potential in small and medium enterprises by selling them SuperReceptionist” he says. “In the days to come, I don’t see any competition coming in. So the opportunity is huge. And we will be able to target large enterprises. Once we covered Manila, we plan to move out to other provinces like Cebu,” he says. Knowlarity is also expanding globally. “Headquartered in Singapore we also have offices in Turkey, Dubai, Philippines and India. We have presence in 65 plus countries but are focusing in expanding in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Latin America,” says Kakkar. Kakkar says among these markets, the Philippines offers one of the most exciting opportunities for the company. “The Philippines is a very attractive market and we have received a very good response so far. I think we will definitely cross 500 customers by the end of next year. We are very excited and optimistic that we’ll do very well in the Philippines” he says. Source: http://manilastandardtoday.com/
