It’s been an unprecedented two years for the unified communications and collaboration industry, and 2022 is unlikely to be any different.
As we enter another year set to be dominated by the move to hybrid working, UC Today sat down with Steve Rafferty, Country Manager UK&I at RingCentral, to discuss what he expects to be the biggest challenges and opportunities over the next 12 months.
Businesses Need to Address the Great Resignation or Risk Losing Talent
The pandemic has shown employees around the world that they can be as productive when working from home or remotely, and this trend is only going to continue.
Rafferty said that employees are going to demand more flexibility than ever and warned businesses that they could pay the price if they don’t deliver.
“We’ve seen a lot around the great resignation and how businesses really need to heed that warning, and give works a flexible working environment,” he explained.
“We recently conducted a survey that found that a quarter of workers are expecting to change role over the next few months; I don’t think there’s ever been a time when it’s been like that.
The challenge for businesses, Rafferty said, is to create an environment that people want to work in – or risk losing them.
“It’s imperative that businesses take this into account when they’re building the workplace of the future and they need to make sure they give employees an attractive environment,” he added.
“Businesses have a real challenge to nail that down over the next few months”
AI Adoption Will Accelerate Even Faster
Rafferty said that artificial intelligence is only going to play a more important role in how people are productive and communicate.
He said that AI will increasingly be used to take menial tasks away from workers and to help create enjoyable environments in which to work in.
“Video calls are prevalent everywhere now and having a nice background is one thing, but how about automating note taking and pushing out actions?
“They’re the areas we’re going to see really take hold next year to help employees be more productive on the move and at home, to give them more time to do strategic work”
Security Will be the Number One Conversation with Customers
Security was becoming a top priority even before the pandemic, but the mass move to remote working and dispersed workforces has created even more opportunities for cybercriminals and, therefore, more challenges for businesses.
Rafferty said that the increasing use of collaboration tools such as video and messaging means that more IP than ever before is tied up in digital platforms – making it more important than ever to protect these platforms.
