-Bruce Downing (Managing Director, Asia and South Africa) of ShoreTel.

What is unified communications (UC)?

Unified Communications, or UC, is a term used to describe a communications system that includes voice and data, as well as collaboration tools and applications delivered on a single platform. ShoreTel UC leverages Voice over IP to bring together VoIP telephony, instant messaging, video conferencing, mobility, presence and collaboration capabilities into a seamless business environment.

How can UC solutions help manufacturers meet the key industry challenges and the growing pressure to innovate?

Unified Communications solutions that offer scalability, availability and reliability, as well as ease of use and management, deliver the most value to manufacturers. Dealing with distributed offices or multiple remote plants can be a challenge for manufacturing companies; however, a UC solution that allows integration between legacy systems, whilst consolidating communications technology onto a single platform, will ensure continued growth – leveraging existing assets without costly production days.

Using advanced call-routing features and centralised management across the system, ShoreTel helps minimise operational headaches, whilst maximising user adoption and customer satisfaction. Providing the organisation with the means to communicate easily and effectively – across diverse geographies, time zones and devices – enables better collaboration; and through that, there is more dynamic innovation.

Can you share examples of ShoreTel customers who have successfully adopted UC in their manufacturing facilities, and the benefits they have reaped since?

ShoreTel has a number of manufacturing customers in Asia using our UC, Contact Centre and Mobility solutions. For example, Tien Wah Press (TWP) was first established in Singapore as a family-run letterpress business in 1935. TWP has two main locations – its sales office and manufacturing plant are in Singapore, and it has two additional plants in Malaysia. They wanted to upgrade their old analogue phones and reduce costs across their multiple plants internationally, so they decided to implement a ShoreTel UC solution because of its affordability and flexibility.

A second customer who is still rolling out ShoreTel UC solutions across Asia Pacific is a global manufacturing company, with its APAC regional headquarters in Singapore, as well as a manufacturing plant and additional sites in India, Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

This customer deployed ShoreTel Contact Centre, UC, Conference bridges and IPhones across the entire organisation. The company needed a scalable multi-site communications platform to replace its ageing PABX systems. After significant evaluation, it decided ShoreTel’s simplified infrastructure – which could be managed by a regional team with call cost savings – was compelling enough to upgrade the telephony system to a full UC solution.

What have been some of the significant milestones for ShoreTel recently?

ShoreTel has had a very successful last 12 months in Asia. We doubled the number of new customers in the region in 2013; we were awarded the NetworkWorld AsiaÕs Rising Star Award for Communications and Collaboration; we made significant investments in new headcount in sales and marketing; and we appointed a new distributor in Singapore Ð Ingram Micro.

We also had a number of major product launches across our entire solution suite – including the ShoreTel Dock, ShoreTel Contact Centre 9.0, ShoreTel Mobility 7.0, as well as ShoreTel 14.2, our fully virtualised Unified Communications (UC) solution.

 How do you see 2014 for ShoreTel Asia?

In 2014, we expect to continue the growth that has been characteristic of ShoreTel in Asia over the last three years, and to consolidate our presence in key verticals. We expect to have a number of existing customers complete their UC roll outs and be available to speak to the media and deliver case studies about the benefits they have realised as a result of their investment in ShoreTel UC solutions.

 How is Asia performing vis-a-vis the rest of the company?

With more than 50 per cent of the worldÕs population based in Asia, this is a significant market for ShoreTel and one that has the focus of the organisation. In early 2014, our Global Product Management team visited the region to talk to partners and customers and help them better understand the drivers and unique market concerns in Asia. Our objective is significant growth in Asia, in line with company performance across the world.

Where do you see manufacturing growth for ShoreTel in Asia?

Business has never been more challenging for manufacturers that are faced with more competitors, as well as increasingly aggressive pricing and demanding customers. Regardless of the nature of the manufacturing business, the performance of the communications system can help manufacturing organisations meet these challenges, across the entire value chain.

ShoreTel has a number of Asian manufacturing customers who use our UC solutions, s that their workers can reliably contact one another with speed and ease, regardless of their locations. As these organisations scale up and down, the process needs to be smooth and efficient for those managing the communications systems. Even a small glitch or missing feature can contribute to costly delays or shutdowns; which, in turn, hurt both the bottom line and the company’s reputation.

With the growing need for optimal business communications in this industry, ShoreTel’s competitive edge with our UC solutions will continue to drive new Asian manufacturing firms to adopt ShoreTel for the foreseeable future.

 Describe the importance of R & D at ShoreTel.

ShoreTel places a very high degree of focus on innovation, research and development. This is demonstrated by the appointment in 2013 of Don Joos as our CEO, an executive with very broad business experience, including direct management of the ShoreTel engineering/R&D organisation.

 What kind of investments did ShoreTel make in 2013?

Globally, in fiscal year 2013, ShoreTel invested about 17 per cent of total annual revenue in R&D. This reflected in the regular release of improved features and functions of our existing UC, Mobility and Contact Centre solutions, as well as the brand new and innovative solutions that are part of our product suite, like the award-winning ShoreTel Dock.

*Bruce Downing is Managing Director, Asia and South Africa, and his current focus is to establish and build new partnerships, create market demand in ShoreTel’s new markets of operation across Asia, as well as continue to grow ShoreTel’s business in its more established Asia markets – including Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Based in ShoreTel’s regional head office in Singapore, Bruce is responsible for managing ShoreTel’s business operations, sales, channels and go-to-market strategy across the Asian and South African regions.