2013 North American Audio Conferencing Services Growth Leadership Award

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1 North American Audio Conferencing Services Growth Leadership Award 2013 Frost & Sullivan 1 We Accelerate Growth

2 Growth Leadership Award Audio Conferencing Services North America, 2013 Frost & Sullivan s Global Research Platform Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800 analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies. The company s research philosophy originates with the CEO s 360-Degree Perspective, which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research methodology. This unique approach enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth, innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present the 2013 North American Growth Leadership Award in the Audio Conferencing Services market to Arkadin. Key Industry Challenges The North American Audio Conferencing Services Market is facing various challenges that have been impacting its health throughout the years. However, end users continue to demand audio conferencing services to reduce travel costs and improve collaboration among geographically distributed workers. Commoditization, competition and the economy are contributing to exert pressure on audio conferencing average price per minute. Major price pressures represent the biggest hurdle to revenue growth in the audio conferencing services market. While the incentive to save travel costs has always spurred growth in audio conferencing services, many organizations have settled into the new normal that is characterized by stable yet smaller budgets and more cautious spending. While Frost & Sullivan expects the market to continue to grow in terms of total minutes consumption within the coming years, pricing pressures are likely to continue keeping revenue growth rates in check. Frost & Sullivan firmly believes that audio conferencing services revenue to gradually flatten and decline within the coming years due to the maturity of the market and price compression effects. Furthermore, the growth of on-premise-based audio conferencing solutions, such as audio conferencing bridges or unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platforms is expected to also affect the overall audio conferencing services opportunity. Enterprises might choose to lower costs by purchasing on-premises audio conferencing bridges to carry internal conference calls across the enterprise network, rather than paying for external connections and per-minute rates for conferencing services. Additionally, audio conferencing is quickly becoming a standard option in many unified communications platforms, allowing enterprises to leverage these features and avoid deploying external audio conferencing services. Last but not least, small and medium-sized business (SMB) potential usage of either 2013 Frost & Sullivan 2 We Accelerate Growth

3 consumer-based conferencing solutions or free conferencing services continues to have an impact on the overall audio conferencing services market in terms of growth. While businesses see the increased value in utilizing business-grade conferencing solutions, employees are adopting new and emerging technologies that provide alternative means of communication. As consumer adoption of these tools rises, employees will increasingly use these communication tools in their business environment thereby cutting into the need for professional-grade audio conferencing. Having a growth leadership position in an intensely contested and challenging market is evidence that the company has effectively overcome tough market conditions and has executed strategies that have allowed it to consistently grow year over year. Continued growth also demonstrates that the vendor has been flexible enough to adjust its course in accordance with changes in customer priorities. A growth leadership position is very well perceived by customers that seek investment protection and a solid partner. Furthermore, a growth leadership position demonstrates that the company has a strong vision for delivering greater customer value. This market position inspires customer trust, which translates into more loyal buyers. Finally, a growth leadership award increases company visibility, helping position product portfolios more successfully among decision makers and end users. Best Practice Award Analysis for Arkadin The Frost & Sullivan Award for Growth Leadership is presented to the company that has demonstrated excellence in capturing the highest annual compound growth rate for the last 3 years. Arkadin s Performance in Audio Conferencing Services Market Frost & Sullivan is pleased to recognize Arkadin with its Growth Leadership Award for its outstanding performance in the North American Audio Conferencing Services Market. Over the last three years, Arkadin has been growing noticeably in the North American Audio Conferencing Services Market capturing around 40 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in terms of total audio conferencing revenue a number well above the overall market CAGR, making it the fastest growing provider in the audio conferencing industry. This accomplishment has not only positioned the company as one of the top ten North American audio conferencing vendors in the region, but also as a fierce competitor in the overall global conferencing and unified communications and collaboration market. With over one billion audio conferencing minutes consumed in 2012, Arkadin has achieved this leadership position by offering a complete suite of conferencing, collaboration and unified communications solutions, demonstrating a strong commitment to technology innovation, and placing considerable emphasis on local needs Frost & Sullivan 3 We Accelerate Growth

4 Key Performance Drivers for Arkadin Offering a Complete Suite of Conferencing and Collaboration Solutions Arkadin offers a complete suite of conferencing and collaboration solutions that address a large variety of customer needs. Its audio conferencing services portfolio ranges from reservationless 24/7 audio conferencing services (ArkadinAnytime) to high-profile attended conferencing events (ArkadinEvent). Allowing toll and toll-free number access from 50+ countries and offering a wide number of conferencing features, Arkadin conferencing services can be deployed on a pay-as-you-go basis or through subscription packages with a flat fee per month. While pay-per-use models are still used by many businesses in North America, monthly plans are emerging allowing businesses to budget their audio conferencing expenses in advance. Frost & Sullivan notes that Arkadin offers both pricing options, thus giving customers choice to use the model that best fits their consumption patterns. For large enterprises, Arkadin also offers the opportunity to customize the conferencing services in order to match the business unique needs. Customization typically involves creating specific solutions with tailored features, account management, support and reporting. Furthermore, Arkadin complements its audio conferencing offerings with a complete set of web, video collaboration and unified communications solutions. On the web conferencing front, Arkadin provides audio communications integration with ArkadinAnywhere (Arkadin s own SMB-geared web conferencing solution); Adobe Connect; Cisco WebEx and ArkadinWebcast (Arkadin s webcasting offering, a fully white-labeled solution in partnership with ON24 and Nasdaq OMX). On the video front, Arkadin offers video managed services as well as ArkadinVideo, a hosted video conferencing offering in partnership with video conferencing vendor Vidyo. Arkadin also offers audio conferencing integration with various unified communications solutions including Microsoft Lync (hosted and on-premise), Cisco Jabber and IBM Sametime (on-premise). Arkadin s strategy is focused on providing a one-stop-shop for conferencing, collaboration and unified communications-as-a-service to its customers. Frost & Sullivan benchmarking shows that Arkadin s complete suite of solutions is strongly positioned vis-a-vis its competitors offerings and provides a compelling value proposition to business customers. Demonstrating a Strong Commitment to Technology Innovation As various technological trends emerge in the conferencing and collaboration space, Arkadin s response has been to embrace technology innovation, striving to address the evolving requirements of various businesses around the world. It's Frost & Sullivan s opinion that a strong commitment to innovation was demonstrated with the launch of Arkadin s Cloud Collaboration platform approx. two years ago. Arkadin 2013 Frost & Sullivan 4 We Accelerate Growth

5 Cloud Collaboration platform is an IP network enabling worldwide PSTN and IP connections via a single list of country access numbers; all converging to an intelligent dispatcher, which routes to the appropriate conference bridge. Frost & Sullivan notes that unlike other types of conferencing architectures, an international conference is hosted on one single local bridge, eliminating the need for multiple IP links among several bridges. Premium audio quality and call availability is achieved by eliminating the typical delays during connections between bridges and the risk of quality degradation when transmitting VoIP. Audio quality and call availability are also assured by allowing third-party organizations to continuously measure Arkadin s bridges and provide certified results available to all Arkadin s customers. Finally, high network security is assured via Arkadin s closed private network which offers high platform resiliency and complete redundancy. The outcome of two years of rigorous research and development, Arkadin s Cloud Collaboration platform is today very popular among large organizations, with 30 percent of Arkadin s conferencing call minutes coming from this platform. Arkadin s strong commitment to customer-centric innovation has also been key to its efforts in developing advanced conferencing features and capabilities. Evolving market trends such as enterprise mobility; consumerization of IT; PC and VoIP communications; and feature convergence and integration are continuously taken into account when developing new product enhancements. With continuous product upgrades and launches, Arkadin strives to always ensure that its customers have the technologies and services they need to do their jobs better and more efficiently. Placing Large Emphasis on Local Needs Arkadin serves approximately 37,000 customers all over the world, including North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and developing markets in Latin America. One of the keys to the company s success is its considerable focus on addressing customers specific local needs. With 51 global offices in 31 countries, Arkadin provides technology, conferencing bridges, and local support in every region it operates. Customer support is offered in 18 languages allowing regional customers to have a global reach, but always with a local feel. Today, more than 70 percent of Arkadin s team is customerfacing. In North America, Arkadin is headquartered in Atlanta. It employs approximately 300 dedicated staff members and operates two large regional operations centers. With the North American operations targeted for expansion, Frost & Sullivan finds that Arkadin s North American customer service team is continuously recognized for exceeding results in client satisfaction metrics related to high customer retention rates, low customer churn rates, low customer service call wait times, and high client satisfaction scores. In addition to the company s own regionally focused staff, Arkadin also leverages more than 70 regional expert channel partners, including service providers, value-added resellers (VARs), master agents and agents, which are fully trained and certified to address 2013 Frost & Sullivan 5 We Accelerate Growth

6 regional customer needs. Conclusion Frost & Sullivan is honored to name Arkadin as the recipient of the 2013 North American Growth Leadership Award in the Audio Conferencing Services Market for its impressive growth rate in terms of audio conferencing service revenue over the last three years. Frost & Sullivan independent analysis of the Audio Conferencing Services Market clearly shows that Arkadin is well positioned to leverage its strengths and accomplishments to further address end user's conferencing, collaboration and unified communications needs in the North American market. In recognition of Arkadin s continued focus on delivering best-inclass conferencing and collaboration solutions with a compelling service portfolio, innovative technology, and emphasis on local needs, Frost & Sullivan presents Arkadin with the 2013 Growth Leadership Award in the North American Audio Conferencing Services Market. The CEO 360-Degree Perspective TM - Visionary Platform for Growth Strategies The CEO 360-Degree Perspective model provides a clear illustration of the complex business universe in which CEOs and their management teams live today. It represents the foundation of Frost & Sullivan's global research organization and provides the basis on which companies can gain a visionary and strategic understanding of the market. The CEO 360-Degree Perspective is also a must-have requirement for the identification and analysis of best-practice performance by industry leaders. The CEO 360-Degree Perspective model enables our clients to gain a comprehensive, action-oriented understanding of market evolution and its implications for their companies growth strategies. As illustrated in Chart 1 below, the following six-step process outlines how our researchers and consultants embed the CEO 360-Degree Perspective into their analyses and recommendations Frost & Sullivan 6 We Accelerate Growth

7 Chart 1: The CEO's 360-Degree Perspective Model Critical Importance of TEAM Research Frost & Sullivan s TEAM Research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our research process. It offers a 360-degree view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by integrating all seven of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Our experience has shown over the years that companies too often make important growth decisions based on a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and commission. Frost & Sullivan contends that successful growth strategies are founded on a thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best practices, and demographic analyses. In that vein, the letters T, E, A and M reflect our core technical, economic, applied (financial and best practices) and market analyses. The integration of these research disciplines into the TEAM Research methodology provides an evaluation platform for benchmarking industry players and for creating high-potential growth strategies for our clients Frost & Sullivan 7 We Accelerate Growth

8 Chart 2: Benchmarking Performance with TEAM Research About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit Frost & Sullivan 8 We Accelerate Growth