Sify Technologies: Integrating Enterprise Communication

India is home to many telecom giants. Yet, only one service provider can be identified as a truly focused player serving the telecommunication needs of enterprises—Sify Technologies.

With an extensive pan-India network and robust last-mile connectivity on both wireless and wired lines, the company has been addressing the market’s demands for data communication in real time. Sify’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it offers the entire suite of ICT services, eliminating the need to work with multiple service providers.

The biggest challenge that Indian enterprises face is catering to a highly diversified market. As the economies of scale do not support such a wide spread infrastructure, they typically reach out to service providers to address their Wide Area Networking (WAN) needs. This, and the advantage of uniform service levels throughout the network is where businesses see Sify’s relevance.

As organizations increase their distribution footprint, they require real-time data communication. With new age platforms like social media bringing customers closer to enterprises, organizations are being pushed to transform themselves by adopting cloud and other technologies to improve their customer experience. With a sea change in enterprises’ expectations from their telecom service provider, they will look for a multifaceted partner and that is where Sify comes in.

“As a telecom player, just providing the last mile connectivity no more meets the demands of enterprises. What they look for, besides connecting the branches, is an able partner who can handhold them through their cloud journey and also top it with a services layer around fully managed networks, managed Wi-fi, LAN, and security. This is where they see the merits of the integrated ICT offerings from Sify, which sets us apart from other telecom players,” says Daniel Alex, President and Head-Telecom Business at Sify Technologies.

Today, the company serves over 4,500 telecom customers across diverse industries ranging from manufacturing, education, healthcare, with its leading industry segment being the banking and financial sector, which fully leverages Sify’s vast network and capabilities.

“Our network, which covers over 1,500 towns and cities, makes us relevant from the smallest to the largest bank and other financial institutions in the country. One such example is us building and managing the country’s central banking institution’s high availability real-time settlement system nationally,” explains Daniel.

Sify, with its culture of innovation, has several firsts to its credit. It was the first private ISP in the country, the first to roll out MPLS services, and the first to build and operate Tier 3 data centers in the country.

The company now has five distinct business segments, of which its Telecom business is the largest revenue contributor. Along with Telecom, another infrastructure-led segment is its Data Center business. It also has three practice-led businesses; Cloud and Managed services business, Applications Integration services, and Technology Integration business unit to aid seamless system integration. Between this extensive suite of services, the company enables Digital Transformation services for companies that require hand-holding through their journey of migrating to newer technologies.

Daniel recounts the project his firm executed for the Department of Post as an example of the scale and relevance of Sify’s network. The department is the second largest social employer and boasts of being the only entity in the nation which has access to every nook and corner of the country. The client wanted to overhaul its regular postal systems and explore banking services as well. Sify successfully bid and won the project to connect 30,000 post offices. Once the project was completed, it was the largest MPLS network in India, transforming DoP into a large Payments Bank and the biggest logistics player in India.

Having covered the communication needs of enterprises across India, Sify has been strategically extending its network internationally in the U.S. (Los Angeles and New York), Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, London, and recently in France (Marseilles). This will help them cater to Indian companies which want to expand internationally as well as serve international companies who want to enter India. Apart from looking to expand their global footprint in Europe and the Middle East, Sify is also supplementing services over their existing infrastructure. Through these investments, the company acts as a key enabler to many web-scale and leading content companies.

“In times to come, we will add more services to our enterprise stack around managed security, WLAN, UCaaS, and SDN, making ourselves more relevant to enterprises in their digital journey,” says Daniel.