Our Guest of this Month - Mr. Neeraj Gill, MD, Polycom India & SAARC

What is the core strength of Polycom? 

Polycom has been a global leader in video conferencing and audio conferencing for a very long time. In fact, today in terms of conference phones worldwide, we have actually about 85-per cent market share and also in terms of video conferencing we are the market leaders. Polycom becomes a natural and most appropriate choice for any customer or channel partner who is looking for a suitable vendor for any video or audio conferencing. 

Secondly, apart from being a leader, we actually believe in the open standard technology. We can integrate any large IT vendor solutions today. From the UC perspective, today a large number of vendors are employing Polycom technology and its solutions - be it the people at Microsoft or IBM. Since our products are based on open standards, the customer has the choice and flexibility of choosing Polycom technology and working it into a number of UC solutions. The flexibility that it allows a customer to choose the best-of-breed solutions from Polycom and other IT vendors gives us the strength. This also helps our partners in building the best-of-breed solutions to take them to their customers. 

For how long you have been associated with the IT industry?

I have been associated with the telecom and IT industry for close-to 22 years. I have been associated with the IT industry or telecom industry since 1988 and worked across three different continents - in India, Europe and US. 

How do you find your channel communities? 

In different parts with different jobs, I have worked with channels before also. I think channels in India are a very confident and strong bunch of entrepreneurs. They have a great reach into the customer segment. Be it a large enterprise or if you look at the large SMB marketplace or if you look at the government today, channels have built a huge reach into each of these market segments. And for any technology company like us, it is the only way to go to the market.

What makes Neeraj Gill popular in the channel fraternity? 

Communication is an inherent element in all kinds of relationship - whether it is channel-channel or channel-vendor. So long as your line of communication remains open and transparent, trust starts building up and this particular trait will make you very popular amongst your channel partners. This is what I believe in and have always ensured it and would maintain it in future also.