Best-effort No More

Today’s real-time big data access needs, with dashes of cloud often thrown in, demand stringent service level agreements to be in place

Gone are the days of legacy data access requirements, where enterprises could live with or without loosely defined service level agreements (SLAs) with service providers being in place. As businesses go digital, big data streams are flowing to and fro the enterprises over multiple channels.

Historically, enterprise data services primarily comprised the leased lines, Ethernet services and MPLS-VPN services among others. However, in an extended form it also covers certain managed services as well as various hosted and cloud services. Hosted contact centers and conferencing (audio and video) also constitute a small percentage of the market.

According to PwC, banking and financial services, information technology and business process outsourcing call centers are some examples of high-growth sectors in the country. A majority of these are intended for tapping the growing enterprise market for both voice and data connectivity. The enterprise market is primarily being led by the demand for connectivity from the IT, ITeS, government and financial service segments.

The enterprise data services market in India is fairly diverse and increasingly competitive. Service providers understand the needs of the enterprise customers quite well and offer services that are comparable with those available in the developed markets. Two factors have significantly contributed to this: one, India is a focus market for a significant number of large global organizations across various verticals, including the important ones like manufacturing, BFSI, IT/ITeS or retail; two, India is also home base for globally significant service providers like Tata Communications, Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel, which have networks and points of presence in various key markets across the world.

This has meant that the differences between the various service provider