UCaaS has become more of the most essential mandatory investments of any business in the post-pandemic landscape. Driven by a rising demand for more flexible, scalable, and agile environment for collaboration and communication, companies have begun to build their entire workflow around Unified Communications as a Service. Estimates now predict around 70% of organisations will be using UCaaS by 2023, to some degree. As the shift to cloud communications continues to soar, our definition of “Unified Communications” is evolving too. Increasingly, we’re seeing new focus on concepts like employee wellbeing, employee experience, personalisation and workflow automation.
What is UC 3.0? Unified Communications in 2022
In May 2019, before the pandemic began, we discussed the impending arrival of a new kind of Unified Communications – one defined by experience. In this definition, we looked at the idea of Unified Communications becoming a cloud-first, disruptive environment, capable of enabling agility and efficiency for businesses of any sizes. Clearly, this vision of UC 3.0 has grown increasingly clear in recent years, particularly with the onset of the pandemic. The rise of new flexible working strategies and “hybrid work” has prompted an increased focus on the use of new innovative apps, aligned tools, and integrations within a flexible UC ecosystem. UCaaS, aligned with the team collaboration tool, is even becoming the central “hub” of the workplace for many companies. In 2019, we defined four pillars of UC 3.0 which remain relevant today:
- User Experience: User experience in the new UC environment focuses on one-to-one communication within daily work life. Users need to be able to connect from anywhere, on any device, powering hybrid working and frontline work for organisations small and large. The user experience needs to flow, integrating mission-critical business apps and workflows that drive productivity and efficiency regardless of location.
- Team Experience: Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of UC 3.0 to evolve in recent years, team experience now involves ensuring staff members can remain aligned on the same goals from multiple locations around the world. Hybrid and flexible work means we need to work harder to bring people together in immersive ways and maintain company culture. It’s also important for companies to ensure they’re improving meeting equity and inclusivity when teams are distributed.
- Customer Experience: CX or customer experience continues to be the primary focus point of many businesses in an environment where consumers are growing increasingly demanding. Since the pandemic, improving customer experience has started to involve a greater focus on digital communications, omnichannel interactions, and self-service.
- Business Experience: This refers to the way companies ensure the entire business thrives in a new post-pandemic landscape. The business experience today is likely to be defined by everything from the use of specific endpoints to align teams, to the way we manage internet connections and security in a hybrid space. The ability to manage and deliver tools is an element of business experience too. In a world of hybrid work, companies need UC tools they can easily provision, patch, and manage from a distance.
The UC 3.0 Layers Crucial to 2022 and Beyond
The evolution of the workplace and the new challenges prompted by the pandemic has made a huge difference to the way we choose and implement UCaaS solutions. Investing in UC 3.0 now means considering your communication needs from a range of different perspectives. Although the exact requirements of your company will depend on a range of factors, common layers will include:
