RingCentral is aiming to double its employee headcount in India to 400 over the next year.
The news follows RingCentral’s passing critical regulatory verifications by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) India and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to offer fully compliant cloud phone services earlier this summer.
RingCentral will open its inaugural India office in Bengaluru, with the business currently having over 200 India-based employees working remotely across the country.
Sathesh Murthy, Managing Director and Engineering Head of RingCentral India, commented:
We believe the deep Indian talent pool can help us further innovate and take advantage of these opportunities. As we lay the foundation to provide AI-powered global communications solutions for Indian enterprises, we will continue to invest in people, focusing on innovative approaches to support learning, digital skills development, and training opportunities for talent in India.”
RingCentral has suggested this expansion into the territory will include targeting different markets across India, illustrating the business’s ambition to deliver elite UCaaS services and products.
“We’re committed to delivering the best-in-class communications solutions multinational organizations need to drive better business outcomes, as well as providing a collaborative environment for our employees to engage and thrive,” added Dan Deklich, Chief Development Officer at RingCentral.
The opening of RingCentral’s new India office aims to generate seamless service deployment for global businesses, enabling RingCentral to expand business operations and create multiple job opportunities in the nation.
RingCentral and India
RingCentral has targeted expansion into India’s markets for some time.
Last year, the vendor was granted a Unified Licence by the Indian government, which RingCentral said made it the first compliant UCaaS provider in the country. The licence from the Department of Telecommunications let the vendor provide message, video and phone services, as well as contact centre as a service.
At the time, Vlad Shmunis, CEO and Founder of RingCentral, telegraphed the company’s intention to grow in India by highlighting, “India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and a key strategic priority for us.”
“The Unified License from the Department of Telecommunications will enable us to provide our unified team messaging, video meetings, and cloud phone system to global organisations in India,” Shmunis expanded.
The licence also enabled RingCentral to start building out domestic computing infrastructure in India in conjunction with the Department of Telecommunications.
Only last month, RingCentral began offering a cloud telephony service in India.
As with its claim to being the first compliant UCaaS provider in India, RingCentral said its most recent move makes it India’s first global cloud provider to offer compliant enterprise-grade cloud telephony.
RingCentral’s establishing a cloud phone service in India allows multinational organisations with a basis in India to access cloud phone capabilities. This empowers smoother communication with customers, partners, leaders and workers.
RingCentral isn’t the only UC and collaboration vendor exploring growth in India this year, with Vonage opening an R&D Centre of Excellence in India to drive innovation and strengthen its expansion into the Asia Pacific region.
RingCentral’s 2023 so Far
It has been a “solid start to the year” financially for RingCentral, according to CEO Vlad Shmunis, after the company’s Q1 2023 earnings call in May.
Total revenue grew 14 percent year-over-year to $534 million, surpassing expectations. As well as exceeding total revenue estimations, the company was also ahead on subscription revenues, with a revenue increase of 16 percent year-over-year to $508 million. Annualised Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (ARR) were up, as was the Mid-market and Enterprise ARR.
It’s also been a positive 2023 for RingCentral in its partnerships and product reveals.
RingCentral launched RingSense, a generative AI solution it stresses will allow businesses to turn conversation data into meaningful insights. The first solution in the RingSense portfolio is RingSense for Sales, which analyses interactions between salespeople and potential customers to offer insights and performance metrics.
Another significant announcement was RingCentral for Teams 2.0. Described in RingCentral’s briefing as a “next-gen” UC app for calling, faxing and SMS, the solution integrated RingCentral’s cloud PBX capabilities into Teams via a fully native experience without requiring app-switching.
Among the new features to improve productivity were voicemail transcription, call recording, bi-directional presence sync, and unified contact search. The solution could also be coupled with RingCentral’s CCaaS solution, RingCentral Contact Centre.
In April, RingCentral and Vodafone upgraded their shared collaboration and calling platform to improve the experience of mobile users.
The two vendors added updates to their Vodafone Business Unified Communications (VBUC) platform, powered by Vodafone’s mobile network and RingCentral’s mobile applications, to offer users a unified experience for making calls, sending messages, and launching HD-quality video meetings. The ambition was to transform a user’s iOS or Android device into an extension of their office.
Vodafone Portugal and RingCentral also announced a Vodafone One Net TeamCollaboration with RingCentral UCaaS solution to empower flexible working for Portugal-based workers. The collaboration entailed RingCentral’s messaging and video collaboration capabilities being combined with Vodafone’s fixed and mobile voice communications functionality into one platform.
