Tata Takes Top MSP Honors

If you haven’t heard of Tata Communications, you probably haven’t been to Mumbai, the site of its headquarters, lately. The global telecommunications company is part of an Indian conglomerate formed in the 1800’s (with over $100 billion in sales from some 100 operating companies).

Tata Communications, itself more than a quarter-century old, now offers managed services as well as an array of network and telecom offerings. The provider even has a submarine cable network, and reportedly has the biggest data center in India. Tata also connects to over 200 countries through its Tier-1 IP network, and has almost one million square feet of total collocation and data center space.

Frost & Sullivan recently held its 2013 Frost & Sullivan, India, Information & Communications Technology (ICT) Awards. And it was there that Tata took home four awards, for Enterprise Data Service Provider of the Year, Hosted Contact Center Service Provider of the Year, Managed Video Conferencing Service Provider of the Year, and Third-Party Managed Service Provider of the Year.

“With strong emphasis on innovation in terms of technology, a vertically and horizontally-diverse service portfolio and strong global network, it (Tata) has succeeded in offering best-in-class products and services together with a compelling value proposition to its Enterprise customers,” said Benoy C S, Director, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East.

In the enterprise data service provider space, Tata commands about fifth of the overall Indian market, giving it the number one position. The company claims that “over half of the all international traffic originating from India travels over its network.”

The other big honor was the Third-Party Managed Service Provider Award. Tata said its revenue in this segment rose some 43 percent in its latest report, and it now commands nearly a quarter of the Indian MSP market in total.