Mitel, the leading communications provider, recently published a new report into the state of Unified Communications as a Service in Europe. The research includes information taken from 1,000 decision-makers in the IT landscape, sharing their views on the third edition of the Europe-wide survey from Mitel.
The study found that across Europe, more agility is becoming the top reason for businesses to migrate communication strategies into the cloud. This is the third consecutive year in which Mitel has been able to conduct research into the adoption of the cloud by European companies. The survey conducted in conjunction with Spoking Polls highlights the rising adoption rate among companies. Mitel also acknowledges a new maturity in migrating to cloud and as-a-service models.
In large part, the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating this trend by transforming the economy and highlighting how significant it is for companies to find vendors that allow them to remain productive and agile, regardless of the environment.
A New Attitude Towards Cloud
The survey from Mitel demonstrates that 44% of respondents are already willing to consider migrating their contact centre environment into the cloud. This represents a massive increase of 29% since 2018. The survey comes at an important time.
Currently, the European markets and the UK are sitting on the edge of an economic crisis. Businesses are having to rapidly adapt to cloud communications, with as a service strategies at the helm. Notably, while Mitel found that demand for innovation and agility is growing, it isn’t essential at any price.
The survey found that companies will only migrate communications into the cloud if doing this helps them to meet their operational and business goals. This maturity comes from the fact that agility, the top reason for migrating (35%), now takes precedence over functional components.
UK companies were more concerned about agility today than their European peers, with 46% ranking agility as the highest concern on their agenda, compared to around 35% for Europe as a whole. Innovation is also an important concern taking 28% of the vote today. This is significantly lower than the percentage for innovation in 2018.
New Approaches to Cloud Migration
The Mitel research discovered other signs of an increasing maturity in cloud migration throughout the UK. During 2018, 88% of the respondents said that the cost of migration was the most important metric when evaluating ROI. 2 years later, the IT decision makers surveyed were less concerned with migration costs at 24%. However, they are concerned about specific costs for certain equipment.
