The 2017 edition of Enterprise Connect is finally over, and what a week it was. The vendor booths were packed full of exciting technology, and every speech seemed to have something new and inspiring to offer. This year, since UC Today were able to see the experience in person, we thought we’d share some of the key takeaways that we got from the conference experience.
1. The Cloud is Growing
The concept of the growing cloud experience isn’t a new one for Enterprise Connect. However, it’s only been recently that the value proposition of the cloud has led to a cheaper and quicker way of committing to Unified Communications when compared to on-premise solutions. Finally, UCaaS providers appear to be focusing more on new ways to use the cloud to create and develop new experiences. For instance, RingCentral is moving towards an integrated team workspace, while Vonage makes use of Nexmo for appealing to developers, and 8×8 leads with contact centre solutions.
2. APIs are Everywhere
This year at Enterprise Connect, almost every single company was discussing what might be done with communications APIs, known as CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service). This is pretty significant as you consider the fact that UC is finally living up to the vision of being more “platform” than “product”. The appeal of products from the like of Nexmo and Twilio are catching the eye of software developers, but it will be interesting to see whether APIs could start to get the attention of traditional UC buyers too!
3. Team Collaboration
Team collaboration solutions were everywhere at this year’s Enterprise Connect. There’s a much larger number of competitors in the collaboration industry today than there was only a couple of years ago. For instance, Cisco was showing off Spark, while BroadSoft demonstrated their “Team One” solution, and RingCentral boasted Glip. All that, and Mitel was showing off their “MiTeam” in the background, while Microsoft introduced Teams, and the list went on.
4. The Physical Meeting Space
We’ve seen plenty of innovation when it comes to creating bigger and better virtual meeting spaces over the last few years, but this year at Enterprise Connect, we learned that the physical meeting space isn’t dead either. A number of vendors were showcasing products designed to improve the physical meeting space, and even introduce aspects of the virtual world. For instance, Cisco’s Spark Board won the “Best of Enterprise Connect” award for this year!
5. Digital Customer Experience is Everything
Finally, the hype around digital transformation was at an all-time high. While thousands of different digital initiatives can be deployed across a host of verticals today, everyone’s looking for ways to improve customer services. Companies are looking for new and improved ways to boost the contact centre with everything from artificial intelligence, to UC solutions. This year Enterprise Connect drew attention to the technology while reminding us that none of it matters without a great initial connection with our customers.
