With more than two decades of experience in the world of telecommunications, the MD of SIPHON and EVP of Unified Communications at Nuvias, Steve Harris, certainly has a lot of insight to offer the industry. Over the last ten years, Steve has been deeply involved in the sector of unified cloud communications, and this year, he decided to publish his own collection of predictions for how the industry will evolve in the months ahead.
To learn more about Steve’s thoughts on the changing nature of UC, I caught up with him for a quick talk about the future, and what we can all expect to look forward to in 2018.
Continued Consolidation and Acquisitions
2017 was a year brimming with mergers and buy-outs in the unified communication sector. As more organisations began to realise that they couldn’t offer end-to-end solutions for UC without incredible amounts of scale and resources, we saw everything from significant moves like Cisco‘s decision to buy BroadSoft, to smaller plays in the local markets.
Steve told me that he believes this trend will continue through 2018, and we’ve already seen some purchases taking place already.
“There are a lot of stagnant companies out there searching for ways to accelerate. We’re seeing more people carefully bundling services, and making acquisitions to become increasingly competitive.”
I asked Steve what he believed the impact on customers to be when these big purchases happen, and he told me that Nuvias is constantly keeping an eye on their vendors to prepare for big changes.
“The impact for most people is more a degree of uncertainty around what they need to be prepared for.”
The Growth of Video for Communication and Collaboration
Steve’s second prediction for 2018 is that we’ll continue to see increased numbers of video deployments in the UC industry. He told me that while video deployments were once seen as a solution exclusively for larger enterprises, advances in the more cost-effective solutions for IP connectivity and hardware has made it a more realistic option for companies of all sizes.
“I think video is now becoming something that people really “demand”, whereas it used to be something that was simply “nice to have”. Video makes life easier in the meeting room, and not only does it save on costs with things like reduced travel expenses, but the price of implementing video has gone down too. With virtual meeting rooms (VMR) and cloud solutions, video could be a powerful new revenue stream for service providers and resellers in 2018.”
Large Vendors Making their Mark
Tying in with his first prediction on consolidation and growth in UC, Steve also predicted that more companies in the space would be looking for ways to differentiate, expand, and make their mark on the industry. As mentioned above, 2017 saw Cisco moving into the cloud space with their acquisition of BroadSoft, and there have been countless new developments with the re-branding of Microsoft Skype for Business to Teams, and Amazon‘s entry to the market with Chime.
“I think we’ll continue to see larger UC players in the industry all the way from 8×8, and RingCentral, to Fuze developing their space in the market. 2018 will see an onset of new and more mature organisations in the UC world, with specialist players exploring new opportunities and verticals.”
UC Security Becomes Critical
Like many experts in the UC marketplace, Steve is just one of the many professionals who believe that security will be more important than ever in the years ahead. As GDPR looms just around the corner, and more cyber-attacks are reported on the news, every CIO is thinking about how they can take the next step in UC protection.
“Obviously we’ve seen a lot of growth in the service provider marketplace because security is a key component of the cloud infrastructure. However, we’re also seeing more demanding and knowledgeable enterprise CIOs who are going beyond standard firewalls and cyber-security in the purest sense, to look at how their UC deployments can be shored up too.”
As we move further into 2018, Steve believes that there will be an ever-increasing value placed on UC analytics and security, protecting end-user data, and defending against attacks.
“Today, CIOs aren’t asking what the cost of security is, but what the cost of failing to provide it might be.”
UC and Everything “As a Service”
Finally, Steve’s last prediction for 2018, is that everything will continue to move towards an “as a service” framework. There’s been a huge amount of growth in the SaaS world over 2017, and more end-users are beginning to expect that they should be able to purchase their entire strategy for UC using “as a service” solutions.
Steve announced in his predictions that the market for /unified-communications/ucaas by 2020 is expected to reach a value of $1.15 billion, and be believes that providers will need to start working harder to develop a complete solution for video and voice hardware, along with cloud and engineering services.
“In the past, one of the main things that prohibited growth was that people could go out and buy an application as a service, but then they’d need to find the finance for all the hardware required to utilise those services too. What we’re starting to see more now, is people going to their providers and asking how they can get VMR solutions, the cloud, and other UC strategies all wrapped up into one neat package. They want everything provided on a monthly charge, which allows them to evolve in a more agile way.”
With the industry moving at a faster pace than ever before, it’s no surprise that “as a service” solutions are becoming more popular.
“I think this is a genuine new requirement, where people want to bundle everything into a clear monthly package, then have a technology refresh at the end of their contract.”
Steve’s predictions certainly reflect many of the trends that we also considered for the future of UC towards the end of 2017. How do you think we’ll see the market changing in the months ahead? Let us know in the comments section below.
