2020 launched us hurtling into the future of work, at a speed we simply weren’t prepared for. Studies have now revealed the pandemic and its challenges accelerated digital transformation by a number of years, pushing us over the “technology tipping point”.
Today, video is the new voice, the virtual world is our collaborative playground, and the workplace is officially “anywhere”. The new “Zoom-style” approach to agile, video-first conversations is set to remain as companies discover the age of hybrid work. However, there are a lot of new innovations yet to come, from extended reality interactions, the rise of Web 3.0 and the potential of the metaverse.
The question for modern brands, is how do you prepare for, and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of a post-pandemic workplace?
Where is the UC Industry Headed?
The age of the “Zoom style” workplace, defined by agile, remote workers, hybrid environments, and a multitude of engaging communication styles has officially changed the business world forever. However, the momentum for growth of change is still present, pushing companies to consistently search for the best way to connect and empower their teams.
Paving the way for a stronger future of work today starts with a re-evaluation of UC 3.0, and how we bring people together. The rise of hybrid work has prompted employees to rethink what “going to work” really looks like.
The daily commute and office environment is far from the only option, and it’s something many employees would actually prefer to avoid. 76% of employees have already confirmed their companies are shifting to hybrid work.
Conversations about employee experience are shifting to focus on things like aligning team members wherever they are and avoiding the issue of the “second-class citizen” in a hybrid environment. In the meantime, discussions around customer experience are beginning to prioritise “digital” engagement, where agents can use their experience, access to information, and the right technology to drive more personalized interactions on a range of channels.
To compete in a world where the definition of “experience” is evolving, companies are rapidly discovering the need to move away from disconnected, legacy tools, to contextually-enhanced solutions for communication and collaboration.
UC 3.0 is the ultimate environment for these synchronized and synergized experiences, focused on improving communication between teams, users, and customers, by baking deeper focuses on a multitude of experiences into digital transformation strategies.
Making the Shift to UC 3.0
Unified Communications 3.0 empowers companies by delivering a true sense of alignment for more contextual, meaningful, and informed conversations. We’ve seen a number of leading companies in the industry embracing this concept in the last couple of years, bringing more diverse tools and solutions together.
Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Webex enable conventional channels like voice and email, but they also allow for interactions through video, messaging, and even immersive XR technologies. What’s more, these environments are becoming increasingly open, flexible, and adaptable.
For today’s digitally-transforming brands, the shift to UC 3.0 begins with finding the right vendor – a UCaaS, pure-cloud innovator capable of unlocking a host of versatile features and capabilities. The most effective vendors in this ecosystem are usually the ones willing to embrace flexibility for the purpose of innovation.
UC vendors are now partnering with CCaaS vendors to give teams more of the technology they need in a simplified all-in-one cloud environment. This single-pane-of-glass ecosystem is a key concept to consider when you’re making your move into a new era of technology.
Increasingly, companies are learning that failure to integrate the collaborative UC environment with the CX space only causes more headaches later on, due to disjointed information and teams.
Preparing for Innovation with UC 3.0
To find the right vendor for your UC 3.0 strategy, you’ll need to consider a number of crucial points. Flexibility is important, as is the right culture in your business, to pave the way for change and continued growth. However, you should also be looking at innovation.
As the communication landscape continues to transform, your ideal provider should be one capable of offering a ramp into various new and innovative technologies.
A number of major brands have already begun sharing their maps for extended reality innovations like mixed, virtual, and augmented reality. Microsoft Teams has the Mesh and HoloLens ecosystem, Zoom is accessible through Oculus headsets, and Cisco Webex recently partnered with Google Glass.
Of course, there’s no set rule which requires companies to focus exclusively on solutions from a single vendor either. The most important factor for many business leaders moving forward will be the cloud vendor they choose to invest in. The architecture offered by this vendor needs to be flexible, liquid, and capable of integrating with the other tools you choose.
Fail to choose the right solution or open integrations and growth could be troublesome as you continue to search for ways to innovative and evolve in a changeable communication ecosystem.
Preparing for a New Era of Tech Trends
A focus on preparing for UC 3.0 will be crucial for companies paving the way for digital transformation and a post-pandemic landscape. However, as we consider the question “What comes after Zoom?” it’s also worth looking at the emerging tech trends which may influence your communication technology choices.
Now, more than ever, we’re living in an experience economy, where experiences matter to us more than anything else. To create meaningful moments, companies are increasingly investing in tools to enhance digital interactions, and we’re all living more digitally augmented lives, both inside and outside of the workplace.
In 2022, as we begin to take some of our initial steps out of the pandemic, workplace technology is evolving at an incredible place. Every business leader is focused on “digital transformation” and prepping their workplace for crucial concepts like workplace wellbeing, employee experience, workflow automation, and the age of hybrid work.
One particularly interesting concept for the new era of work life, is Web 3.0.
Web 3.0 and the New Digital World
The concept of web 3.0 (also known as Web3) is gaining a significant amount of attention in the post-pandemic landscape. This technology promises a new kind of internet, one based on “decentralised”, technology, permissionless innovation and distributed ownership. It’s in this virtual landscape where we find the initial building blocks for the metaverse – an ecosystem set to change the way we interact with technology forever.
The metaverse could form a significant portion of “what’s next” for companies following the shift to a more collaborative business ecosystem. The way we communicate at work has changed significantly since the pandemic, with Zoom-style calls growing faster than ever before. We discovered video was perhaps the most effective way to ensure the success of working from home.
Video and Zoom-style collaboration paved the way for a future where we could discover new styles of work, where teams could be more agile and flexible. However, there are still underlying issues in our hybrid work environment.
2D video meetings, even with extra enhancements like “Together Mode” can only do so much to recreate the “presence” we feel in real-world spaces. While it’s difficult for anything to completely replace the power of face-to-face interactions, extended reality can create a sense of presence we don’t get elsewhere.
XR and the Metaverse focus on concepts like stronger virtual identities and communities, will pave the way to an environment where we feel less disconnected from our colleagues when we’re distributed around the world.
At the very least, 3D communications are set to make a significant splash in the near future. Meta (previously Facebook) sold more than 10 million Oculus VR headsets in 2021, and it was the number one downloaded app for the app store in the USA on Christmas Day. This is a clear indication that mass adoption of VR is already here.
Bringing Immersive Technologies into the Workplace
Looking at the metaverse and Web 3.0 is an excellent way to start exploring what might be possible in a future of work “after Zoom”. In this same landscape, we can begin to discover new concepts gaining attention and steam, like ambient computing. The concept of “ambient” computing involves making technology feel invisible and consistently accessible, like being surrounded by AI in the workplace.
Augmented reality experiences have already begun to demonstrate the potential of bringing more digital content into the real-world environment, and Meta is set to soon release its own augmented reality smart glasses with stylish Rayban frames.
The introduction of smart glasses people can comfortably and happily wear on a daily basis will prompt a rapid mass adoption of this technology among consumers, which will also bleed into the workplace, further enhancing the way we work. Already, companies like ThirdEye are using mixed reality headsets to augment field service engineers, giving them the support, expertise, and information, they need to improve resolution times.
Virtual reality experiences are also growing more common in the business landscape. Meta is far from the only VR headset today. Brands like HTC VIVE are working alongside major companies like BMW to give users virtual tours of cars. The solution allows VIVE Pro headsets to give customers an experience of sitting inside of a new car. Pico Interactive is working with Inflight VR to offer in-flight entertainment in virtual reality too.
Then there’s the mixed reality space to consider. We’ve got Microsoft HoloLens introducing us to the potential of mixed reality, allowing teams to collaborate more deeply with digital versions of products. HoloLens also enhances remote assistance by allowing teams to leverage 3D digital assets.
Magic Leap is another excellent vendor in the mixed reality space, looking to release a next-generation headset in the near future. The Magic Leap team pivoted into the enterprise environment from the consumer landscape in 2020, focusing on helping businesses to strengthen their workplaces with access to extended reality. Magic Leap even partnered with the Spatial VR collaboration platform to pave the way for more immersive meetings.
There’s a host of industry verticals taking advantage of immersive tools today, from education and training, to healthcare, construction, real estate, logistics, manufacturing, automotive, and retail.
Navigating a New Landscape
The way we communicate and collaborate in the post-pandemic world is evolving at a truly incredible pace. The creation and implementation of new technology and trends is certainly helping to ignite this growth. For instance, the XR market is expected to be ten times the size it was in 2021 by 2024.
While we’re still mapping what the future of work might look like, there’s a lot of opportunities out there for early adopters looking to take advantage of more immersive, tech-rich, and experience-focused innovations.
At this point, the UC and collaboration markets are frequently described as “mature”, but this doesn’t mean they don’t still have exceptional room for growth. We’re seeing a lot of rapid transformation in the space, as well as plenty of consolidation and competition appearing from adjacent markets.
As technology, the internet, and innovative new creations, like the Metaverse, become more deeply entwined with how we define communication and collaboration, the number of available options for business leaders will only continue to transform.
The only way to stay ahead of the curve is to ensure you have the right foundations in place for an agile and flexible UC environment. A comprehensive, cloud-based landscape which allows companies to access the technology and tools they need as their teams evolve is crucial. Only with this level of flexibility will companies ensure they can take advantage of everything from XR and the metaverse to connected clouds covering everything from CCaaS to UCaaS.
So, what comes after Zoom? There is a myriad of answers to this question. We’re likely to see more immersive technology in the long-term, metaverse experiences, and a wider range of web 3.0 innovations. However, perhaps the initial answer to this question is simply “more Zoom”.
In the longer term, expect to see Zoom and other vendors continue to innovate with immersive technologies in the B2B space as users adopt extended reality as another method to communicate and collaborate.
If you’re interested in XR technology and the vendors working in this space, visit:
- XR Today for the latest industry news and insights
- XR Awards 2022 celebrates the latest vendor innovations
