Interview with Kumar GB—VP, APAC Prysm Inc.: "Vision is to Enhance the Value of Shared Virtual Infrastructure"

In an interview with Kumar GB—VP, APAC Prysm Inc., he discusses about factors that differentiate Prysm from others and how their tools are helping workforce to collaborate.

Kumar GB—VP, APAC Prysm Inc.

How is Prysm different from existing collaboration solutions?

Collaboration is a widely used term. There are numerous companies that provide basic collaboration capabilities but Prysm offers a unique and innovative environment enabling its users to access various content and data at the same time; while many traditional systems allows its users to only bring up one piece of content for review at a time, when in a group setting. It combines live applications, content, video conferencing, live sources and the web into a touch-interactive visual workspace where teams can simultaneously create, edit, share and store content to maximize productivity, regardless of device or geographical location. Robust, yet easy to use due to its intuitive user interface, Prysm Digital Workplace makes business teams more efficient from the first meeting.

Fundamentally, Prysm is able to unify face to face audio-visual collaboration along with content from multiple sources and that is the differencing factor for the company. We call ourselves a content driven visual collaboration platform, providing relevant data insights in a touch interactive dashboard which supports all kinds of content. Also, Prysm is a solution agnostic platform we integrate our customers previous investment into our platform. Prysm can integrate, Cisco Telepresence and Microsoft Skype for Business into the Prysm Digital Workplace platform which ensures that the customers gets maximum value from their investment. Globally, data drives decisions for across industries, at Prysm customer data resides only on the cloud in a secure fashion. Through an authenticated login, one can access a particular content and can communicate with the creator of that particular project.

Prysm Digital Workplace consists of the following:

• Prysm Application Suite – Dynamic software that combines applications, content, the web and video conferencing for enhanced collaboration experiences that can be shared simultaneously by many locations
• Prysm Cloud – Stores and organizes content into cloud-based visual workspaces enabling persistent access and increased productivity for global and remote teams
• Prysm Displays – Large touch-screen displays available in a variety of standard and customized sizes that are up to 75% more energy-efficient
• Prysm Mobile Licenses – Freedom to access private or shared cloud workspaces from anywhere on any device
• Prysm Services – Prysm is dedicated to providing an unparalleled level of support

Where does Prysm find itself in a market full of big companies with similar solutions such as Microsoft Surface Hub, Cisco Spark, Google Jamboard etc

Prysm Digital Workplace is a shared cloud workspace where multiple users can drag videos, documents, presentations and other content. Like CiscoSpark, it also includes group whiteboarding. It’s one of many systems that are bridging the gap between in-person meetings and cloud-based collaboration. Wireless Screen Sharing is a way for participants sitting in a meeting room to share content on the big screen without a wired connection.

The differentiating factor for us as compared to our competition is three fold, 1) Constant Innovation, 2) Extensive Product Portfolio 3) Experience. At Prysm, anything we do the experience moves along from meeting rooms to huddle rooms to a laptop or mobile phones. We provide a standardized experience across form factors. We offer a platform that allows the users to do all of this, from video conferencing, applications, live sources to content sharing on the same platform. The most important feature of our solution is that. Our solution allows everybody to simultaneously add, edit, move and annotate the content without passing out controls to each other. The data gets automatically stored and the user can start where he or she left off. Prysm is also a hardware agnostic platform, it is compatible with all hardware systems. So, all the investment that a client has already made, be it for video conferencing from Cisco or Polycom, our software works with it. Prysm brings all of this together like no other solution, thereby enabling global and engaging visual workplaces.

How does Prysm see the Indian market for a virtual workplace solution? In the last one year, what inroads have we made in the Indian market? What kind of customers do we have in India? 

The next wave of growth in the enterprise collaboration and employee productivity space, will come from innovation of a different level altogether. This is where the concept of digital workplace comes into the picture. It can help teams across the globe to create, share and save projects by combining applications, content, live sources, video and the web.

A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Prysm in June 2016 highlights that 83% of information workers want the right collaboration tools which can help them be productive regardless of location and time. Looking at the statistics, the global collaboration as a market is expected to double by 2020 and India will be an important part of this growth.  We have been very successful in India with the global organisations which have knowledge workers working globally. This includes Global MNCs and Indian MNCs growing globally. We are now increasing our focus on banking, finance, Smart Cities/Campus implementations and Indian top 1000 companies for delivering the benefit of Prysm Digital workplace platform.

Our long term vision for our customers is to deliver new capabilities which enable the value of a shared virtual infrastructure and the company is relentlessly focused on delivering differentiated and innovative technologies that are future ready as well as industry leading.

Key aspects of Prysm digital Workplace and benefits to businesses and use cases for different verticals such as Healthcare, R&D, Smart cities etc.

Prysm is driving a new era of digital transformation and enterprise agility. Our solutions are streamlining employee productivity across enterprises with our digital canvas based collaboration solutions. Prysm application suite enables teams to explore all their data, content, applications and tools on hyper-visual digital canvases - which ignites innovative thinking, drives decisions, accelerates productivity and transforms presentations into experiences. Customers using Prysm benefit from an open, enterprise-grade solution that integrates with existing collaboration tools and scales to hundreds or thousands of users, while meeting advanced security requirements.

If we look at the current ICT ecosystem, as an industry our processes are revolving around multiple and disparate compute platforms. From laptops to tablets to mobile phones, we look for seamless access to content and information from across these devices and applications. If we are to integrate all of this content across these displays, there has to be a solution agnostic platform which enables them for seamless collaboration. This is especially important from Smart Cities perspective, where there is need for collaboration amongst multiple stakeholders and departments. There is also a lot of information and content which needs to be shared with numerous stake holders in real time. Prysm Application Suite which is device agnostic, has the capability to bring content across multiple displays and replicate the same visual experience across locations and screen sizes and is compatible with all the existing applications.

For Smart Cities we are offering our canvas for command and control centre implementations and dashboards. Our large format content collaboration and mobile solution will allow smart cities to have individual dashboards for each of the utilities and provide an opportunity to consolidate all utility parameters into a single, unified dashboard, in real-time. It will also allow all relevant stakeholders to carry this dashboard experience along with them in their laptops, tablets and mobile devices on the go. This leading edge technology approach will further help them in gaining deeper insights into all aspects of smart cities and enable quick-decision making.

We have similar use case driven offerings for different verticals such as Healthcare, R&D and Smart Cities.

About Recent Partnership with Vega Global, what is the company’s strategic roadmap from a partnership perspective.

Adding leading channel partner is core to our strategy to increase our share in the growing APAC market. The agreement with Vega Global highlights our effort to gain a larger share of the expanding collaboration market by increasing our multi-brand dealer base in the region. The decision to partner with Vega expands our reach and gives our customers the most innovative digital workplace transformation collaborative solutions available on the market.