Marketing Research Proposal on

Define Marketing Strategy to increase Market

Share of Sterlite Tech Elitecores Neox Solution
Prepared For:Dr. Jayesh Aagja
Professor Marketing Research
Executive Diploma Programme:-2016/17
Nirma University
Prepared By:Dharmesh Shah (206)
Ravi Rupela
(214)

Date: - 15th September, 2016.

Table of Contents:
Executive Summary:-....................................................................3
Background:-................................................................................. 3
Problem Definition:-......................................................................5
Management Decision Problem:-................................................5
Marketing Research Problem:-....................................................5
Research Objective:-..................................................................5
Environmental context of the problem:-.....................................6

Past information and Forecast.................................................6

Buyers Behavior......................................................................7
Economic Environment...........................................................7
Marketing and Technological skills..........................................8
Research Design:-.........................................................................8
Information to be obtained:-......................................................8
Methods of administrating the questionnaire:-...........................9
Approach to the Problem:-...........................................................10
Verbal Model:-..........................................................................10
Graphical Model:-.....................................................................10
Secondary Data:-.....................................................................11
Market Trend of Enterprise telephony and Cell Center..........11
Forecast of Enterprise telephony and Cell Center.................12
Competing With Giants.........................................................14
Trends in Market:- Bundling of PBX in a packaged deal.........15
Marketing Mix of Neox and revenue Growth Internal data. .16
Qualitative Research Primary data Collection...........................17
Descriptive Research Questionnaire:-.......................................19
Sampling Design:-....................................................................23

Executive Summary:The marketing proposal is prepared on Marketing Research of

Sterlite Tech Eliteocres Enterprise Telephony and Call Center
Solution Neox. As part of the research, existing management
problem is understood, Identified Research problem, interviewed
Internal Experts and External Partners & Customers. The
secondary data is collected from Infonetics and Gartners
published reports/websites along with information from internal
Sales and Marketing Team.
The most important findings of our reports are:
Indigenous Product like Neox can increase market share by
enabling Partnership engagement with Big Technology and
Channel partners.
Can foray into cloud based solution to capture Startups/Small
Enterprise segment.
Enhance Customer appeal and satisfaction by improving
Products operation experience with good packaging and
aesthetic GUI interface.
The complete set of finding will be discussed in detail in analysis
section once the project is completed.

Background:India is seen as a prominent player worldwide in Information

Technology sector. However, most of the Indian companies deal in
IT, ITes and BPO service segments. There are very few companies
who are Product oriented. The Software Product space is
dominated by Deep Pocketed MNCs having Global footprint,
financial muscle and large work-force.
Below factors are responsible for limited growth of Software
Product companies:-

Business Model:- Service has a straight forward model, increase

head-count to increase revenue. It also has as predictable cash
flow which is billed on time spent of Employees. Product
companies have complicated business models. Identifying right
business model for the product is one of the biggest challenges.
Growth:- Service provides linear growth path depending on
number of customers, employees and locations. In Product
companies, growth really depends on value created by products
for consumers.
Innovations:- Service is driven by implementation and service
quality while in Product companies frequent innovations are
required in Ideation, implementation and Scaling.
However, recent spurt in Indian Startups culture resulted in many
renowned companies who are gaining global attention by
delivering solutions in domestic as well as international market.
e.g. DRUVA, INMOBI, KNOWLARITY, ZOHO,QUICKHEAL etc..Most of
these companies have gained the advantage of first movers.
Still there are many B2B technology segments in India which is
dominated by MNCs, Indian companies are hardly seen as Niche
Players or Visionaries in Gartner quadrant.
One of such segment that we are going to research over here is
Enterprise Telephony and Contact Center solutions dominated by
MNCs like Cisco, Avaya, Grandstream, NEC and Siemens.
Enterprise Telephony provides voice communication infrastructure
to organization for intercom calling to enable voice
communication between employees of the organizations within
and across branches, voice connectivity of employees with
outside world people like customers, sellers, partners, distributors
and others. It also offers advanced offering to improve employee
productivity like Call Transfer, Call Conference, Voicemail, Mobility
etc.. MNCs like Cisco, Siemens and Avaya are dominant players in

the market which are challenged by Indian players like Matrix

Comsec and Sterlite Techs Neox.
The research objective would help Decision Makers of Sterlite Tech
- Elitecore to identify and generate Product Marketing Strategy to
gain more market share of Indigenous product - Neox.

Problem Definition:Management Decision Problem:Interview with Decision makers of Neox Business Unit of Sterlite
Techs reveals that they want to generate sustainable business
and increase revenue through Neox Product line.
Marketing Research Problem:Define Marketing Strategy for Indigenous Software Product Neox
to showcase value creation in Enterprise Technology segment
which is dominated by MNCs.
Marketing research will help decision makers to take all possible
courses of alternative actions like: Product modifications by introducing new features
demanded in market
Optimal promotional mix and product line pricing changes
Identifying best distribution channels and Partners
Identifying factors to Improve product and service delivery
model to gain customer delights
Research Objective:The research should provide the information on following
questions:-

 What criteria do the Organizations consider when selecting

Enterprise telephony product?
What criteria do the Organizations/BPOs use when selecting
Call Center product?
What Value creation is generated by Neox Product line?
What Value creation is generated by leading MNCs like
Avaya, Cisco, Grand stream and Siemens?
How do customers feel regarding Neox Products?
Evaluate the Marketing Mix (Product, Price, Place, and
Promotion) of competitors against Neox?
What are the strength and weakness of Neox products?

Environmental context of the problem:Past information and Forecast

Organizations used to prefer traditional telephone system over

advanced IP communication of Enterprise telephony due to lower
CAPEX and OPEX.
However, Corporate are now adopting the IP communication to
promote Employee mobility, optimization and flexibility in work
culture and collaboration.
BPOs and Call Center is demanding flexible call center solution to
cater frequent changes of business dynamics and offer innovative
ways of satisfying customer values.

Buyers Behavior

Enterprise telephony product selection is made by IT head of

the company.
Call Center solution selection is taken jointly by Business
Process owner and IT head.
SMEs give preference to cost ignoring the advanced features
and benefits and hence choose low-cost product.
Corporate are more inclined towards quality and unique
features offering as driving factor while selecting the
solution.
Organizations having multiple branch offices prefer existing
brands they have been using for their new branchs product
selection unless and until new entrant provides innovative
offering as competitive price.

Economic Environment

As the Enterprise telephony product is not generating the

revenue, it is a mean of connecting Employees with
customers, partners, potential customers and other
internal/external employees sitting in same or other
branches; organizations allocates less budget for the IPPBX
product.
Call Center solution can help organizations to generate
revenues and satisfy existing/potential customers, they can
allocate significant budget for the solution.
There is one more trend observed in the market pertaining to
startups. The startup companies prefer Cloud based solution
instead of in-house/dedicated products to save on initial
expenditures.
Marketing and Technological skills

Sterlite Tech Elitecore has strong marketing team performing

below tasks.
Generate - Product leaflets, brochures and web content, Social
Media Feeds
Promote - Products through Email marketing, cold calls through
phones
Engagement Partners and Customers over Email and Calls.
Majority of the Marketing budget is spent on participations in
Technology Exhibitions and Conferences e.g. MWC Spain, Gitex
Dubai, Convergence - India
Elitecore has renowned and seasoned skill developers who can
build worlds best products architecture.

Research Design:Our research design is exploratory research as we are finding out

alternative course of action to increase the market share of Neox

solution.
Information to be obtained: Market trends and forecast of Enterprise telephony and Call
Center sectors (Secondary Data - External)
Parameter/Criteria preference while selecting Enterprise
Telephony solution and call center solution (Secondary Data
External and Qualitative)
Marketing Mix of Neox product line (Secondary Data
Internal)
Current Customer segmentation
(Secondary Data- Internal)

of

Neox

Product

line

Strength and weakness of Neox Products and MNC products?

(Qualitative and Secondary data)
Parameters influencing to opt for MNC products. (Qualitative)
Methods of administrating the questionnaire:Depth interviews in person with internal respondents.
Interview over Phone with external respondents like customers
and Channel Partners.

Interviews with Industry Experts

We have done several interviews with Technical, Business and
Marketing Experts of the company. There were personal
interviews in their office cabin with average time of 30-45
minutes.

Interesting perceptions of Industry experts are listed below:1) Indian companies rarely promote partnerships; instead they
try to capture the market independently.
2) Indian companies dont do STP properly and lose focus on
existing products to tap new lucrative opportunities.
3) Indian companies follow Product orientation approach rather
than Market orientation approach.
4) Organizations have pre-determined mindset that Indian
companies never provide superior quality products against
MNCs.
5) Software product companies always try to replicate the
things available in market and hence marketing innovation is
not happening to showcase innovative offering.

Approach to the Problem:Verbal Model:A Customer realizes the need to buying IPPBX or Call Center
solution for new office or as an expansion process. Then he or she
would come to know about Indigenous Neox product through
Partners, distributors and consultant. Customer would compare
the Product against other available brands over Internet. Based
on initial evaluation, the customer would request Demo of the
product. If Customers need is provided through Product offering
and Price is affordable and competitive then with assurance of
best Post Sales Service Customer will buy the Neox Product.

Graphical Model:Awareness
Education

Evaluation

Purchase

Experience

Expansion
Need

Secondary Data:Market Trend of Enterprise telephony and Cell Center

Key Market Segments:

The Enterprise Telephony sub-market in India witnessed the
highest decline in UC&C market, with -7.9% decline year on year.
The market during H2 2014 marginally recovered due to the
uptake of Pure IP Telephony (Pure IP PBX, IP Phones and Voice
Gateways). With the same shift from traditional telephony such as
PBX/Key systems and AD phones to IP based telephony; the share
of the former segment is on a declining trend.
The Enterprise Collaboration market in India witnessed growth
during H2 2015 as compared to the market year-on-year. With the
increasing demand for work force optimization and interaction,
the segments such as mobility, unified messaging, social media,
web & voice conferencing and team collaboration have become
more important than ever. Further, the increasing penetration of
BYOD (i.e. Bring your own device) is driving the growth in Mobility
and conferencing solutions. Room based video solutions still
remain to be an elite category with more and more desktop and
mobility video solutions carving niche in the market.
The Contact Center market in India saw a decline of -2.3% in H2
2014 as compared to H2 2013. The segment is very much
dependent for growth on the new announcements by the
government and expansions/plans by the Telecom operators.
Though still in nascent stage, the cloud based contact centre
solutions, are seeing traction across the Enterprises, big or small,
with the advantages of low initial expenditure. Upcoming verticals
like e-commerce, Healthcare and Hospitality along with traditional
ones are expected to drive future investments
IDC India Forecast:
Adoption of UC solutions in SMBs is sure to boost incremental
revenues in the coming quarters along with the traditional
verticals. Government initiatives and increasing adoption of III
platform by the Enterprises is pushing the need for smart network

solutions that can sustain the growth of unstructured network

traffic. Upcoming verticals like e-commerce, healthcare and
hospitality along with traditional ones are expected to drive future
investments. UCaaS is also expected to gain traction as
anytime/anywhere access to the technology with relatively low
CAPEX and OPEX (as compared to traditional solutions) would find
interest from the market.

(Source:containerId=prIN25830515)

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?

Forecast of Enterprise telephony and Cell Center

The global business and residential VoIP services market

grew 8% in 2013 from 2012, to $68 billion
SIP trunking shot up 50% in 2013 from the prior year, driven
predominantly by activity in North America; EMEA is
expected to be a strong contributor in 2014
Sales of hosted PBX and unified communication (UC)
services rose 13% in 2013 over 2012, and seats grew 35%
due to continued demand for Enterprise cloud-based
services
Global residential VoIP subscribers totaled 212 million in
2013, up 8% year-over-year
Managed services are benefitting from the continued
adoption of IP PBXs: Roughly 10%20% of new IP PBX lines
sold are part of a managed service or outsourced contract
Infonetics expects continued strong worldwide growth in VoIP
services revenue through 2018, when it will reach $88 billion
(Source:- http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/2H13-VoIP-UC-Services-MarketHighlights.asp)

Competing With Giants

Defending with Home Field Advantage:- For defenders like Neox,

the key to success is to concentrate on the advantages they enjoy
in their home market. In the face of aggressive and well endowed
foreign competitors,
Neox frequently needs to fine tune products and services to
the particular and unique needs of customers.
Neox can do better by focusing on consumers who
appreciate the local touch and ignoring those who favor
global brands.
Neox could strengthen its distribution network to defending
its home turf.
(Source:- Competing with GIANTS, Survival strategies for
Local companies in Emerging Markets by Niraj Dawar and
Tony Frost Harvard Business Review May 2009)

Trends in Market:- Bundling of PBX in a packaged deal

Telecom Service providers approaches enterprises offering PRI

line with PBX. The recurring billing commitment is the only
requirement of service provider ensuring PBX cost. Thus customer
gets multiple benefits in a single deal by means of cost saving on
CAPEX of PBX in addition of 30 communication channels.
SOHO/SME Market Trend
Opex based
bundling model

Vendors/Channel
Partners

Service
Providers

End Customer

The vendors themselves do not contact the end-customers; all

transactions are initiated by the service providers who procure
the PBXs from the vendors/channel partners or dealers and then
enter into the bundling package deal with the end-customer.

Large Enterprise Market Trend

Vendors/Channel
Partners

Capex based pricing

model

End Customer

Large enterprises have traditionally been reluctant to adopt

schemes where they do not have full ownership of their
equipment. However, if a cost benefit analysis is done and proves
beneficial, they are more open towards hosted or managed
services models.

Challenges

Vendors are finding difficulty in good quality support and services

due to tighter profit margin of bundling.
Customers with owned PBX can switch service provider for better
service. Under the bundling scheme end customer is tied-down to
one service provider.
(Source:- Service provider stimulus in the Indian Enterprise
Telephony market via bundled PBX package Asia Pacific Market
Insight By Lavanya Palani Batcha - Forst and Sullivan)
Marketing Mix of Neox and revenue Growth Internal data

Neox Segmentation:-

Neox Target & Positioning: -

Neox product is positioned as highly customized product with best

After sales service support with unique Product differentiation of
Single box solution for IPPBX and Call Center requirements.
Product:- Its in-house developed product providing very good
features offering in Enterprise telephony and Call Center
segment. Enterprise telephony Products is segmented into Neox
Plus (up to 400 employees) for SMB and Neox Advanced (4002000 employee) for Corporate customers.
Neox product has Technical Sales team called Pre-Sales who
converts leads into Accounts by offering and educating
customers, Product team who builds product features and Support
team who performs installation and give technical support to
customers.
Price:- Prices are 20-30% less than MNC counterparts. No
additional prices on advanced features. Pricing is mainly on
Number of extensions and customized requirements.
Place:- The product is sold through midsized distributors and
channel partners, Government projects and Big ISPs are
customers are approched through Direct Sales model.
Promotions:- New leads are sourced from market and cold calls
are made by Inside Sales team. Once Lead seems interested, it is
forwarded to particular Sales person based on location. Bulk Email
marketing is also performed periodically to promote new Business
offering. Emails are targeted to Partners and End Customers.
In last two years the revenue growth of Neox Product is more than
30-40%.
Qualitative Research Primary data Collection
We have taken telephonic interviews of Partners and Customer
and Personal interviews of Neox Sales, Pre-Sales and Distributors

team members. 8 interviews have been conducted so far with

average interview time of 45-50 minutes. Laddering technique
was used to know Customers motivations and driving factors
which impact purchase of products and their analysis and
experience of Neox products against competitors.
Following key findings are collected from qualitative research: Neox should be marketed by Technical partners not by nontechnical partners as they are not able to convey the proper
means and benefits of the product.
Neox team should train partners regularly on creating more
technical awareness as partners role is more important
factor during Pilot project called PoC, if they couldnt
demonstrate benefits to key employees of customers who
are decision makers and end users then customer will chose
competitors product and customer is lost.
Increase partnership with big technology providers instead
of going solo in market. Top management should start
evaluating possibility of partnership with complimentary
solution partners to provide End to End solution to the
customers.
Give consistent post-sales experience to customers, most of
the time its satisfied but sometimes delay in service annoy
customers.
The Neox solution should start offering services on Cloud to
tap Small Enterprise and Startup market who doesnt want
to spend much on Capex during initial phase of their
companies.
Product quality is at par with MNCs just need to market
them effectively with aesthetic look & feel.
Based on Exploratory research following finding/hypothesis can be
developed for further research project.
Neox

should

focus

on

partnership

with

Infrastructure

providers like GPoN and Network switches providers &

Consultants to penetrate the market as they are the first
contact points whenever organizations start or migrate in
new offices.
To cater lower segments like Small Enterprises & Startups
who dont want to spend on CAPEX in initial phase of life,
Neox can start new Business model of putting its services on
Cloud and offering services on rental.
Enhance Customers operation experience during PoC the
most critical phase before taking decision to buy the product
or not.

Descriptive Research Questionnaire:Welcome to the Sterlite Product evaluation survey!

Thank you for agreeing to take part in this survey which measures
Customer preference for IPPBX products and satisfaction for Neox
Product. Your inputs are valuable to us to server you better in
future.
All answers will be kept in confidentiality. The survey would take
approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

Your Name

Company

Designation

1. How likely you would recommend Neox product to other

organization or friend or colleague?
Not at all

Very Likely
1

2. Please rate your satisfaction level for Design of Neox

Product.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

3. Please rate your satisfaction level for Convenience of Neox

Product.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

4. Please rate your satisfaction level for Quality of Neox

Product.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

5. Please rate your satisfaction level for knowledge of Partner

about Neox Product during demonstration.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

6. Please rate your satisfaction level for implementation of

Neox Product.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

7. Please rate your satisfaction level for after sales support of

Neox Product.
Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very
Satisfied

8. How do you rank Neox product against Avaya, Grandstream

and NEC in following categories.

Much
Worse

Worse

Same

Better

Much
Better

Price
Design
Quality
Implementation
After Sales Support
Partner knowledge
Competency

9. Would you Prefer Cloud based IPPBX and Call Center solution
in future?

Yes

No

10.
If you have answered NO in above
question then please specify the reason in text box below for
not preferring cloud based solution.
If you have answered YES in above question then skip this
question.

11.
Network Switches?
Cisco

DELL

Who is your preferred vendor for

HP

DLink

Other

12.
Would you Prefer Single Technology
Partner for IPPBX and Network Switches?
Yes

No

13.
If you have answered NO in above
question then please specify the reason in text box below for
not preferring Single Technology Partner.
If you have answered YES in above question then skip this
question.

14.
Finally, we would like to know if you
any comment which we should be aware of. If so, please
write in below text box.

Sampling Design:Target Population

Sampling Frame
Sampling technique
Sample Size
Execution

Neox existing and potential

customers, 90% of the respondents
would be from India
Customers data provided by Neox
Sales team
Judgmental sampling IT heads and
End Users of Product
25-30
Online Survey, invitation by Email
containing survey link