NEW DELHI: Ericsson expects the ongoing consolidation in the Indian telecom industry to offer a big business opportunity to the Swedish telecom gear maker’s managed services business."It is a potential opportunity specifically from managed services view point. We do multivendor managed services, and are already managing all the other vendors in India," Jeroen Dorrestein , vice-president and head of operations, Ericsson India, told ET. "Large consolidation opens up the market because it brings new dynamics, it brings bigger parties," he said. Reliance Communications (RCom) is the biggest managed services customer of Ericsson in India. The company currently has around 15,000 people involved in managed services operations. It plans to increase this number going ahead. "We have big-big ambitious plans on growing business. If you double your services business, then you are going to need more people," Dorrestein said.Ericsson also has Bharti Airtel as one of its oldest managed services partner. Asked if the company is planning to work with Reliance Jio , he said, "We have an ongoing engagement with Reliance Jio. We have a number of projects ongoing- we are supplying a number of solutions. We have a couple of teams on the ground that provides services."The government needs to chalk out a forward-looking technology policy for the telecom sector. Telecom services are set to become heavily data-centric. Service providers need to gear up for advanced analytics, machine learning and the Internet of Things. Hence the need for end-toend solutions in telecom, including innovative managed services and dedicated hardware.