Where in the World is netsapiens? Exploring Opportunities in Asian Markets

Happy summer everyone! It is good to be back home in La Jolla, California, enjoying the weather and quality time with the netsapiens team and my family. In mid-May I flew to Chicago to attend International Telecoms Week (ITW) 2017. Soon after, I boarded a flight to Singapore, embarking on a journey that included stops in Bangkok, Thailand and Tokyo, Japan. Now that I’m back, I want to take the time to reflect on the purpose of my trip and where netsapiens is headed through the rest of 2017.

Taking Unified Communications to the next level

As I mentioned in my interview for JSA TV at ITW, our team is eager to take unified communications (UC) to the next level by scaling into international markets. As a result of this trip, I am pleased to report that plenty of opportunities exist for us to work internationally with other businesses seeking to provide best-in-class UC features to their end users.

Considering the ongoing success of our ‘unified experience’ model here in the States, the time is right to explore further development abroad. Here’s a fun historical fact—the very first installation of our UC platform came from a service provider in Singapore! The same organization was also a seed investor that helped us start our journey to empower service providers across the USA. In a sense, netsapiens is beginning to come full circle. Our new focus on expansion is leading us back to markets from which part of our initial support came from. However, just as netsapiens continues to evolve, so too do the needs of the service providers and the enterprises we’re aiming to work with.

Appealing to the clusters: building a roadmap for expansion

While in Singapore, I attended CommunicAsia 2017, an information and communications technology conference for the Asia-Pacific region. From my meetings at the event, one fact quickly became clear—businesses in international markets often utilize UC features in ways that differ from here at home. These end-users tend to group or cluster according to the specific anchor application (voice, video, SMS or chat) of value to them. From the resort-like convention centers of Singapore to the highly efficient public transportation networks of Tokyo, I saw clear diversity in terms of culture and ways of doing business. It’s clear to me that only a truly customizable UC platform like our SNAPsolution can empower service providers in international markets to meet the needs of the clusters they serve. This was very encouraging as it is consistent with our long term belief that empowering many unique providers will continue to help them provide more purposeful services to address these clusters.

In my last message at the beginning of the year, I promised to share with you details on where we are and where we are going. As we move through the rest of 2017, our team is going to take the feedback from this trip and work to create a robust international strategy. We want to find partners and clients that align with our values and are eager to differentiate themselves in the very large markets of the Asia-Pacific region. Stay tuned for the exciting times ahead!