MANILA, Philippines – Telecommunications player Alcatel-Lucent is expecting organizations to tighten their belts following the financial crisis facing the United States economy. Executives, however, see more opportunities amid these bleak times.

“With the US financial crisis, belts will tighten. The financial industry, however, is just one vertical industry of Alcatel-Lucent. It will have some ripple effect but this will also be an opportunity more than a crisis,” said Derrick Lee, vice president for enterprise of Alcatel-Lucent for Southeast Asia, during a briefing in Manila.

Lee said that Alcatel-Lucent expects to feel the impact of the US financial crisis this fourth quarter but stressed that its business in the Philippines remains encouraging.

The executive said that Alcatel-Lucent has seen a 50 percent year-on-year growth in revenues in the Philippines, expecting a 50 percent growth in revenues by end of 2008.

“Business will go up and down,” stressed Lee. But so far, Alcatel-Lucent has seen the enterprise data and voice markets growing due to the entry of more multinational companies in the Philippines and the growth of the outsourcing industry.

Alcatel-Lucent is now going after the local mid-market enterprise market, which is defined as organizations with 500 to 1,000 users.

For years, Alcatel-Lucent has been serving clients like Meralco, San Miguel Corp., Philippine Airlines, Makati Shangri-La (and soon Shangri-La Boracay), executives said.

This year, the company is going after service providers wanting to sell its unified communications services that will become available on a pay-per-use model.

While Alcatel-Lucent has been in the business of unified communications for five to six years, executives said its new offering will be “multi-service, single server” service that targets mid-market organizations as well as service providers who can push this solution as a managed service, Lee said.

Alcatel-Lucent is now talking with local telecommunications companies on its planned unified communications service, the executive added.