We’re living in a bizarre time right now.
Never before has there been such a rapid and significant change to the way that we operate on a global scale. The rise of COVID-19 and the threat of the ever-spreading pandemic has forced people back into their homes.
A few years ago, something like this would never have been possible. Lack of the right technology meant that if there weren’t people in offices, the business world would simply stop turning. However, that’s no longer the case.
For a while now, companies have experimented with the concept of remote working. The cloud environment, now more secure and scalable than ever, ensures that your employees can access the same tools they have at work, from home. On top of that, being stuck in your living room doesn’t have to mean missing out on critical conversations with team members anymore. We’re all more connected now than we have ever been.
A New Era of Communication and Work
Thanks to video conferencing and collaboration tools, social isolation doesn’t have to feel isolating. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen countless news stories about people hosting graduations online or launching their own virtual conferences with nothing but a Microsoft Teams channel set-up and a few cameras. One woman even turned herself into a potato for a video meeting.
The message is clear. Not only are video collaboration and virtual hangouts a viable solution for the future of work, but it’s also something that could be more fun, engaging, and productive than we ever realised. During the week between March 14th and 24th, video conferencing apps were downloaded 62 million times – a world record for the industry.
In fact, Zoom is now considered to be the most popular social network around during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a platform that didn’t have a place in the consumer world when it first launched. However, now that work and personal lives have blurred more than ever, we’re discovering that collaboration tools aren’t just about connecting businesses.
They’re about connecting people.
VCaaS and UC Solutions Are Now Essential
As terrifying as this new pandemic is, it’s also pushing people to explore new options, and “get off the fence” when it comes to diving into cloud technology. UCaaS has become a must-have for businesses that need to keep their communication strategies moving smoothly from a distance. At the same time, video conferencing as a service has seen an incredible boost.
So, is this just a temporary change to how we work, or are we seeing a shift in the Nexus of the future “virtual office”. Now that companies all around the world have been forced to experiment with video conferencing and see the potential for themselves, can we really return to the way things used to be?
It seems unlikely. Market leaders like Zoom’s CEO has said that the shift to video conferencing and remote work is likely to be a permanent change. Now that business leaders know how productive and efficient their teams can be when working remote, they won’t want to go back to more expensive and complicated in-office environments. Virtual is likely to be the new norm.
Paving the Way for the Virtual Workforce
Virtual communications is a concept that companies have been playing with for some time now. It refers to the kind of cloud video solutions that bring us together for face-to-face conversations at a distance. However, there’s more than video to think about too. If companies want to replicate the functionality and productivity of the standard office in the digital environment, they need a full strategy. This means investing in virtual meeting rooms and spaces too.
Solutions like Microsoft Teams and other leading tools that integrate with everything from a business phone to file sharing solutions will be at the heart of this new workplace. Companies will begin to create entire offices that can run online. There’s even the option to run your contact centre at a distance with the right collaboration tools and a CCaaS stack.
