Jio, Cisco may extend partnership to tap Rs 500 billion enterprise market

Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) and the US-based Cisco Systems are likely to extend their partnership to tap the ₹50,000-crore strong enterprise market with a services portfolio which the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco plans to commercially launch shortly.

“As they (Jio) make enterprise move, Cisco would start working with them closely for the intuitive network, collaboration, cloud and security,” an industry source told ETTelecom.

In 2012, India’s new telecom entrant and the California-based networking major entered into a strategic alliance across multiple technology areas including deployment of voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) — a fourth-generation (4G) technology-based networks — for its consumer business.

Jio, according to the source, would be using the company’s key technologies to deliver network-based services that Jio would aim to offer to large companies.

With telcos’ consumer business likely to become stable only by the end of 2018, following the merger between Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, Jio is now preparing to tap the ₹50,000-crore strong enterprise market pie dominated by Bharti Airtel and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

Reliance Jio didn’t respond to ET’s emailed queries till the time of going to press.

Jio’s arch rival Bharti Airtel, as of quarter ending June 2018, has more than 4.55 lakh enterprise customers that contributes close to 15% of its total revenue while state-run BSNL, that mostly serves public sector companies, garners 25% revenue from enterprise business which it plans to further grow.

The telco has created a complete greenfield Internet Protocol or IP-backed network based on VoLTE technology, and its partnership with Cisco includes IP/MPLS, data centre, integrated mobile core, service provider Wi-Fi, contact center, security, and enterprise IT.

The industry source quoted above said that since digital services are being delivered through telecom networks created by operators, the role of mobile carriers have become central to the entire digital play across sectors.

The telecom arm of the oil-to-retail conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) is aggressively rolling out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) wireline offering JioGigaFiber, particularly in commercial establishments across India’s top cities.

“They have not launched enterprise solution yet which is few quarters away. Go-to-market talks are underway, and they (Jio) are looking at what extra services can be delivered,” the person familiar with the matter added.

In order to gain first-hand business experience, Jio has already deployed Cisco’s enterprise solutions in its Mumbai headquarters premise that can house upto 5,000 employees. These include Cybersecurity solution and WebEx collaboration tool in addition to routers and switches.