We will continue to invest in communications and networking portfolio: Pierre Samson, ALE

By Sanjeeb Kumar Sahoo

Pierre Samson, who has recently taken charge in APAC region as Vice President of Sales at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) has over 12 years of experience in the industry and has held senior leadership positions as Head of the Unified Communication & Collaboration Business Unit for Large Accounts at Orange Business Services and most recently as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Sales Officer at Lexsi, a cyber security specialist which was acquired by Orange in 2016. In an interview with Voice&Data, Pierre elaborates on the ALE’s presence in the APAC region, specifically in India. Excerpts:

Voice&Data: What will be your strategy to strengthen ALE’s presence in the APAC region, specifically in India?

Pierre Samson: ALE operating under the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise brand, has formed four regional sales organizations to better serve its partners, customers and their markets. By placing a focus on specific market segments for growth and accelerating the shift to new business models, each of the four regions have their own dedicated sales staff supporting their defined industry-specific sales strategy, cloud sales strategy and channel strategy, with a complementary sales enablement and services delivery.

Within these four regional sales organizations, ALE will extend its successful industry approach in hospitality, healthcare, education, government and transportation sectors. This industry approach will deliver tailored solutions, integrated with industry-specific business processes to enable new business opportunities, address growing demands for IoT-enabled communications systems, and simplify the job of IT staff while reducing costs for the business.

Voice&Data: What new opportunities do you see in this dynamically growing region?

Pierre Samson: APAC is a growing market with huge potential and a crucial market for ALE. We have evolved from a time when the goal was for people to connect with each other via voice communications, to a new reality that includes data transfer to enhance the actual communication. The focus today is to connect everything – people to smart objects, and things to other things, including people to other people (beyond just voice) – and this also includes text and video communications.  It’s because of this, companies all around the world are welcoming technology and services that evolve employees’ reach and productivity. In this new world order, we see tremendous growth opportunities of IoT in the region especially with India engaging to build 100 smart cities in the country and expanding transportation industry that will reap the benefits on IoT deployment in this market.

Voice&Data: To further consolidate ALE’s market position in India, what will be your offerings in terms of the products/ solutions?

Pierre Samson: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is placing an emphasis on different industry verticals, and will enable hospitality, healthcare, government, education and transportation customers to accelerate their digital evolution. ALE will focus on cloud-based services and offers to deliver innovative technology and business models that simplify IT and enable new digital business environments.

Voice&Data: What are ALE’s growth plans for the next five years, both in the APAC region and in India?

Pierre Samson: We will continue to invest in communications and networking portfolio. With our company taking a vertical focus, we will also invest in providing verticalized solutions to target key segments like hospitality, healthcare, transportation, and others. Asia Pacific continues to be a growth market for ALE. We will continue to invest in this region.

Voice&Data: According to you, what trends that will reign the industry?

Pierre Samson: The practice of investing huge sums of money on hardware and infrastructure is fading quickly. Customers across all industries, particularly the ones that we are aligning ourselves with, are rapidly seeking ways to partner with organizations on new ways of purchasing and consuming technology. They want to pay for what they use across all aspects of their IT spend and not just storage and compute. This presents a strong opportunity for the channel to become a true partner to their customers, to build out solutions whereby they win together and share the risk.

Voice&Data: Government of India is very keen to develop smart cities. Globally, ALE has been part of many smart city projects. What kind of solution does ALE has for the Indian smart cities?

Pierre Samson: India is an important and emerging market in the region and we are delighted to be part of building the communications infrastructure for what is to be the world's best smart city. The government's vision to increase investments and improve the country as a whole is aligned with our goals to invest, build and provide advanced solutions in India. We will help in improving the communications and network strategies for businesses in the country with our solutions. Key customers being in infrastructure projects like metros, government, defense, and hospitality.

Voice&Data: How important are the government policies for a company like ALE (APAC & India)?

Pierre Samson: For any country to be on a growth trajectory, the government policies are very critical. During the past decade or so, various governments in the region, including government of India have taken pro-growth policy decisions, which resulted in growth of the economy. Like any other business entity, we too get an opportunity to be part of this growth story.