Unified comms services to the rescue!

Even though the Covid-19 epidemic is almost ended, employees have shown they can work efficiently and productively from home – and many are planning to continue doing so. According to recent research by CCS Insight, employees are adamant that remote working will continue to be an important function of their professional life. This will notably influence how IT departments reformat telephony, unified communications (UC) services, and Wi-Fi networks to enable post-pandemic working.

According to a recent survey of 660 European and US workers, 90% of those who can work remotely want to keep this option open, while barely over a fifth (21%) wants to work from anywhere all the time. The desire for full-time remote employment varies somewhat by nation, with 38% of Germans, 36% of Americans, and 33% of Britons wanting to work remotely. More than six in ten respondents, or 62%, prefer a hybrid model in which they would work from home three days per week.

The modern business needs hybrid setups

Gartner predicts that by 2023, the percentage of remote workers will have increased to over two-thirds of digital workers, with needs shifting toward work-from-anywhere capabilities. People continue to hold meetings over the internet, even as pandemic restrictions have eased and offices resume operation.

According to the survey, the use of the two most popular platforms, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, increased by over 50% in 2021, with employees using them by 47% and 41%, respectively. Traditional voice technologies, such as phone calls, have decreased by 20% compared to pre-pandemic usage.

It's more than just utilizing video conferencing, it's a shift from voice to telephony applications, and the lines between different types of work-related communications are blurring.

According to the research company’s latest findings, a third of workers anticipate their usage of desk phones will decrease in the next year, and online meetings via meeting applications are expected to grow.

Popular applications combine enterprise communication, telephony, and video conferencing as cloud-based UC services with straightforward subscription terms. In reality, the unified communications as a service (UCaaS) market has matured; the services available are superior to on-premises systems. Gartner's Magic Quadrant for UCaaS, published in October 2021, lists Cisco, Microsoft, Zoom, 8x8, and RingCentral as industry leaders.

According to Gartner's report, Microsoft is almost always chosen for messaging by Gartner clients that subscribe to Microsoft 365. However, in stressful telecommunications settings such as hospitals, manufacturing, field services, and retail, its customers choose providers with the most comprehensive abilities and a longer track record, such as RingCentral, Cisco, and 8x8.

While senior IT executives are familiar with infrastructure spending and will prefer to achieve economies of scale by reducing communication expenses, employees like to use the tools they are most used to, which means they may arrange and host video conferences on their preferred video conference app, even if the organization has a company-wide contract with another vendor.

Deeper integration

UCaaS is frequently compared to communications platforms as a service (CPaaS), where services are tailored to businesses that wish to create functionality compatible with their existing internal business systems. The idea of Open Platform as a Service (OPAaS) is to assist organizations in developing and enhancing their end-to-end client experience.

According to a Forrester study published in October 2021, seven of ten businesses are confident about providing information to consumers when, where, and how they request it. The global study of 1,037 customer and digital experience decision-makers and influencers shows that 98% of CPaaS users are "very" or "extremely" successful at providing information to their customers that they need, as opposed to just 37%.

A capability that has seen growing market demand is the integration of global communications capabilities with business applications to make workflow processes more efficient, according to Gartner.

When it comes to picking a unified communications solution, there are certainly a lot of alternatives. Most solutions include off-the-shelf video conferencing, phone calls, and text messaging. Businesses that need to streamline their processes may want to consider how these technologies connect with their customer experience platform, CRM, and other IT systems. What is apparent is that these systems must be able to accommodate hybrid working patterns, suggesting that office wireless networks will require a change.