Collaboration is a bigger buzzword today than ever before.
In the digital landscape, the term collaboration doesn't just mean "working together" anymore, it means syncing conversations, productivity, and efficiency among employees who are often separated by different apps, technology, and even geographical locations.
As the demands for trends like remote working and globalisation increase, the collaboration boom is set to get even bigger, with businesses of all shapes and sizes turning to chat apps, file sharing solutions and video for help. It's no wonder that IDC expects the market to reach a value of $3.5 billion this year, up from $2.9 billion in 2018.
So, what can we expect to see from collaboration this year?
App Overload Leads to Cluttered Communication
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Rob Scott, Publisher & Founder, UC Today[/caption]
According to a RingCentral study from 2018, App Overload is a severe problem in the current workplace, and it's an issue that's only getting bigger. According to survey results from over 2,000 knowledge workers in the US, UK, and Australia, employees are exhausted by the number of messages, emails, and notifications they need to deal with every day.
3 quarters of the respondents said that they are collaborating regularly at work, with the majority handling more than four communication apps on any given day. It seems that the availability of so many different apps is harming the collaboration landscape, rather than helping it. Up to 7 out of 10 workers waste an hour each day just hopping between apps. With so many distractions in the workforce, privacy and productivity may be a challenge in the year ahead. That is - unless we can find a solution for true consolidation.
Standard Definition is So Last Year
In 2018, UC Today interviewed the CTO of Lifesize, Bobby Beckman, who told us that the millennial generation would lead the way for greater adoption of video conferencing technology. It's safe to say that we've seen demand for video increasing, particularly as it becomes easier for teams to access. However, today's modern workers aren't happy with just any standard of video, 4K screens have become the new must-have feature.
In a world where we're recreating our face-to-face interactions through hand-held devices and computer screens, little differences like the option to stream in 4K make a big difference. The chances are that 4K will become even more commonplace in the years ahead, as things like 5G improve our mobile connectivity.
Team Apps Won't Always Play as a Team
We've already seen evidence that team apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams are taking over the workforce. There are countless options to choose from today, and each offers valuable capabilities for their users. Unfortunately, if you need features from more than one application, you're going to have some friction, as the most popular apps don't play well together - yet.
Third parties are doing what they can to make integration more accessible, but it's going to be a long and bumpy road. In the meantime, you can expect to see more vendors enabling external calling to PSTN numbers. This means more UCaaS entrants coming into the market. We've already seen this with Cisco and Webex Calling. Additionally, Zoom entered the telephony industry in 2018 too with their new cloud telephony service, exclusively reserved for people using the Zoom conferencing platform.
Welcome AI and Virtual Assistants to Your Meetings
Just like your voice calls, video conferences can provide plenty of useful data about everything from customer preferences to meeting habits. Combine the data available from your daily meetings with virtual assistants and AI, and you've got everything you need to optimise your business conversations.
In 2018, organisations began to experiment with the possibilities of voice assistants in meetings, using them to take notes, transcribe conversations and even add follow-up conversations to their schedule. As we move into 2019, you can expect to see more Artificial Intelligence potential within your meetings. Even at a basic level, intelligence could help you to optimise your meeting lengths, schedule conversations that suit everyone's calendar and record essential details from discussions.
