Aragon 2019 Research Globe Revealed

New insights into the UC&C Industry

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Aragon Research Globe UCC
Unified Communications

Published: August 9, 2019

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Leaders in research and analytics, Aragon, recently revealed their third annual Aragon Research Globe for the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) market. The Globe examined 14 major providers in the UCC market and offered interesting insights into the changing nature of the communication landscape.

According to Aragon, the demand for communication and collaboration is growing at a rapid pace. Voice, video, and messaging offerings are ready to drive the future of UC&C forward, with more providers investing in messaging platforms, conversational AI, and team collaboration tools this year. Additionally, Aragon noted that today, UC&C is one of the largest markets in the world, with demand for each of the modalities within the portfolio increasing. More providers are now working on enhancing their UC&C portfolios with the latest tools and innovations.

Market Momentum Increases in UC&C

Aragon found that email and voice communications continue to be the primary modes of interaction in the modern enterprise. However, messaging is now closing in on email, and video meetings are increasing in popularity. Aragon predicts that by 2025, team collaboration will be the ultimate way for businesses to communicate and collaborate.

What’s more, going forward, Aragon believes that companies will see a greater need to integrate their communication and collaboration abilities with their other business applications via solutions like CPaaS and APIs. Buyers not only want access to more video, collaboration, and messaging tools, but they want those features to be seamlessly included in part of their day-to-day operations.

For those who are still heavily focused on voice, shifting into the cloud is the most significant step forward that a business can make these days. Hybrid cloud solutions are offering larger enterprises an easier way to move into the cloud at their own pace, and Aragon found that UCaaS solutions are growing in popularity as businesses strive to get out of managing their own equipment. Many companies are looking to replace their ageing PBX with enhanced and easier-to-manage solutions. Additionally, the growing demand for video has raised expectations in the modern workplace for high-quality and seamless video interactions available as part of the UC environment.

The Rising Demand for Team Collaboration

Aragon’s research globe also drew attention to the growing demand for team collaboration in the workplace. Countless new collaboration tools have emerged in the marketplace, and UC&C providers are beginning to add their own collaboration features into their packages. Team collaboration is in an exciting position to become the core of today’s employee’s interactions, where people can share information and get work done faster. According to Aragon, this growth in the collaboration landscape is particularly significant for mobile workers that need to be able to get work done quickly on-the-go.

Additionally, a growing preference for team collaboration tools has also driven an increased demand for CPaaS and APIs. Many providers are starting to implement CPaaS capabilities as a core part of their platform offering, ensuring that users can apply the tools and features they need into the processes that they rely on every day.

Aragon believes that team collaboration, particularly with the addition of flexible API solutions, has the power to challenge email and voice messaging as the central point of communication for customers and team members alike. As the age of team collaboration speeds up, reliance on email is winding down, and messaging is emerging as the heart of many business discussions.

All the while, Aragon feels that the market is starting to place “people” at the centre of the UC&C environment, ensuring that everyone can access the omni-channel modes of communication that they need to interact in the ways that feel most comfortable to them. Access to CPaaS and APIs will ensure that going forward; businesses will be able to build the team collaboration and communication environments that facilitate a more productive workforce.

Further Insights from Aragon

Throughout the Research Globe report, Aragon discussed the fact that Intelligence and Automation are becoming increasingly important considerations in the modern landscape. The analysts also noted that conversational AI is becoming a more popular solution as companies search for ways to support both their agents and their customers with intelligent solutions. By 2021, Aragon predicts that 50% of UC&C providers will be offering AI-based digital assistants to enhance the collaboration experience.

Aragon noted that today’s enterprises need to get serious about evaluating their collaboration and communications beyond their core strengths in areas like video and voice. Instead, future enterprises will need to make decisions about who to work with based on the extended roadmaps that vendors have to offer. Aragon believes that this will help businesses to understand better the investments that will be made into future technologies like AI, improved team collaboration, and upcoming integrations.

Discussing the Top Vendors

In this year’s Aragon Research Globe, there were a few notable changes to the vendors mentioned by the market analyst. For instance, LogMeIn and Dialpad were added to the report, while Huawei, Poly, and Ribbon Communications were removed. Additionally, Aragon gave a special mention to a handful of providers in the UC&C environment that didn’t appear on the Globe but do offer notable solutions for today’s customers. These mentions included BlueJeans, PGi, Zoom, AT&T, and Amazon.

This year’s market leaders in the global UC&C landscape were:

  • Cisco
  • Microsoft
  • Google
  • Avaya
  • Vonage
  • RingCentral
  • Unify
  • Fuze

The contenders in the space were NEC, Mitel, and LogMeIn, while Dialpad was announced as a “specialist” in their industry. Nextiva and 8×8 were mentioned as innovators, with a focus on strategy for the future of the collaboration and communication environment.

Aragon’s Research Globe analyses both the strategic approach and the performance of numerous contenders in the Unified Communication and Collaboration space, examining things like market awareness of the product, customer experience, product, R&D, and viability.

According to Aragon, enterprises need to understand that making the most of UC&C is about finding the right combination of collaboration and communication solutions. While it has been common to use best of breed options for multiple vendors in the past, the new trend is now to have more than two capabilities from a single provider. This means that vendors will need to create more comprehensive packages for their customers.

The complete report is available to download now.

 

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