IP Expo: What Will Be the Top Communication Trends?

Guest Blog by Rob Pickering, CEO of IPCortex

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IPEXPOIPCortex
Unified Communications

Published: September 28, 2017

Ian Taylor Editor

Ian Taylor

Editor

The IP Expo Europe event kicks off next week, and we’re expecting to see some exciting discussion about where enterprise IT is going next and how the latest innovations will help drive their businesses forward. As digital transformation strategies start to be rolled out, here’s the hottest topics that voice and UC professionals will be talking about at the show:

Collaboration, Communication and Customer Experience

IPCortex CEO Bob Pickering
IPCortex CEO Rob Pickering

Enhancing and streamlining business communication is still firmly on the agenda. Despite customers demanding more user friendly ways to talk to businesses, and employees looking for simpler, friction-free interactions, communications seem to be becoming MORE complex by operating in increasingly more fragmented silos – far from the promise of a unified utopia.

As we’ve normalised communication as a separate task or ‘special’ sort of interaction, much of us rely on traditional phone conversations, or setting up a video chat, on a completely separate platform. This means comms are devoid of context i.e. separated from the information pertinent to that communication exchange,  frequently frustrating and complicating the interaction.

IP Expo will see a lot of discussions about platform growth, but we’re also interested in how we can break down these silos. One solution we expect will garner much attention this year is WebRTC.

Now supported by all the major browsers, using open WebRTC technology to embed communication into an application or website means communication can happen in the context of a particular task, providing the user with all the necessary information needed to understand the interaction – all without worrying about separate app. installs or plug-ins. This is something I’m passionate about and will expand upon in my talk at the show.

Robotics, AI and Machine Learning

AI, robots and machine learning are shaping the future of data-driven, personalised user experiences and will undoubtedly be a main attraction at IP Expo. Chatbots and early forms of AI are already filtering into contact centres, where they can deal with the most common queries, complaints, requests and make suggestions according to what’s in their database. But what’s really exciting is where AI and robotics converge with contextual communications; this is where we’ll see fundamental transformations in how the real-time enterprise of the future will communicate – via human or machine, or a mixture of the two – with its employees and customers in context: at the right time, with the right information at their fingertips, and in the right application.

Data Security and GDPR

There’s no doubt that security continues to be a top concern for businesses and with high profile cases in the news every week, protecting themselves from data theft, fraud and network breaches is paramount. As GDPR comes into force in May 2018, this will become an even more important topics to those providing voice and video communications, as the definition of what constitutes personal data is extended. The aforementioned contextual communications could play an interesting role in how businesses deal with these challenges because it makes it easier to define how and when people communicate, as well as helping to define the specific data that will be shared and/or stored. Being able to clarify the communications in this way will greatly enhance the ability of organisations to assess the risks associated with that data and apply the appropriate levels of control.

IP Expo will be an exciting place for the comms industry this year and it’ll be interesting to see what trends will emerge, setting the digital transformation agenda for the coming year.

Guest Blog by Rob Pickering, CEO of IPCortex
Rob will be speaking more about contextual communication and why today’s collaboration tools are sabotaging user experience at IP Expo on Wednesday 4th October at 14.20.

 

Artificial IntelligenceChatbotsCustomer ExperienceDigital TransformationSecurity and ComplianceUser Experience
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