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Sri Lanka one of the growth markets: Alcatel Lucent

08 Jun 2015 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}      

By Zahara Haris
Sri Lanka will be one of the main key markets for Alcatel-Lucent, which is a France-based company according to  Matthieu Destot, the vice president and head of Alcatel Lucent Enterprise who briefed the media recently on focused markets and growth strategies. 
“Our vision is to double the revenue in the next five years. We need to bet on where we see this growth. Sri Lanka is one of those countries,” he said.
Alcatel Lucent is a leading IP networking Ultra-broad brand access, and cloud technology specialist which believes that networks are the foundation of an ultra-connected world. It is a French headquartered company which does 1 billion dollars of business worldwide and holds a 50 percent of market share in France.
Destot told that they focus on four markets which are hospitality, education, health care and manufacturing because they have solutions dedicated to each of these markets  and will be mainly focusing the hospitality market in Sri Lanka.
“I met several customers and saw prospects, and when you are going around Colombo it is amazing to see constructions, hotels, and that is a clear target for us.”
He explained about “smart guest solution” which is a telephony solution specially designed for the hospitality industry, enabling guests to use their own mobile devices to access hotel services. It can be downloaded as an app on the guest’s smartphone, compliments existing in telephones in hotel rooms.
“We are doing this with WiFi. When we enter  a hotel, our solution is very specific. It would be very complex if we need the IT manager to look at our smartphone, give WiFi access, check security, do the access control. We first provide the network infrastructure and we name a guest profile. Once the guest has done the checking, he/shecan access the network and then we tell him/her to go to navigation store and pick up the application required. It can be an application to enter the room, it could be to reserve dinner in the restaurant, it could be to operate the air-conditioning in the room. That is what smart guest solution is all about”.
“Last year we decided to focus Alcatel Lucent enterprises on enterprise market. Now we are fully dedicated to this enterprises market. One key point is we are able to do investment because we are a debt-free company. We have no debt. We have 15 percent of the investment in R&D research, and invest more in sales and services capability,” he added. 
Apogee International, the sole distributor for Alcatel Lucent products in Sri Lanka will cater to local customers with its local presence.