UC Predictions for 2023: Company Consolidation Plus Hybrid Work Focus

What’s next for Unified Communications and Collaboration in 2023?

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UC Predictions for 2023: Company Consolidation Plus Hybrid Work Focus
Unified CommunicationsInsights

Published: January 17, 2023

Jonny Wills

Senior Editor

A lot has happened in the past twelve months in the UC and Collaboration space with the rise of AI, company restructuring in the tech industry, and ongoing integrations with, for example, Microsoft Teams.

So what’s around the corner this year? Here we present our2 023 Industry Expert Predictions video hosted by Editor-in-Chief David Dungay where we have enlisted a team of eleven UC&C notaries (scroll for the list below) to enlighten us and answer the following questions:

Have companies finally acknowledged hybrid work is here for good, or do vendors need to prepare for a return to the office? How will the industry cope with economic challenges? What about hardware tech like cameras and whiteboards? Will we see more or less?

For all forecasts: only time will tell, but for now, here are seven significant trends to watch out for this year:

UC Today Industry Expert Predictions for 2023

1. Consolidation of the Space

With a spate of big technology firm redundancies, they are restructuring and with one slightly harsh global player calling them ‘eliminations’, it’s been a time of consolidation across the tech industry and UC space. Some predict enterprise real estate to drop as offices are used less by job cuts and hybrid work. Working from home also saves money for companies looking to save on energy bills.

The big thing for tech firms will be to show investors they can manage accounts and attend to costs while the global economy continues to slow, with retail markets down, house prices dropping, and interest rates rising. Some even predict the loss of some big names in the UC space as companies grapple with bankruptcy or compromise by merging or succumbing to acquisition.

While organisations proceed with a ‘cost focus’, an acceptance of the hybrid and remote work environment seems likely, but one that they will explore even further. Time saved from not commuting or being home for lunch makes for happier workers, and productivity increases as work and meeting data becoming easier to analyse means business leaders will become less apprehensive about employees not being in the office. Further integration with support, tools and features on communication and collaboration platforms only continues to make life easier for hybrid workers.

2. Mobile Phone Integration

For those on the move and with a renewed focus on frontline workers, the continuing integrations with smartphones will prove a productive and efficient solution for companies and their users to save time and money. With zero trust being a buzz term in security, admins and employees are getting used to identifying themselves using geolocation and multi-factor authentication.

Mobile will see further integrations and mirroring of what happens for desktop and other devices, but with simplified versions of apps and tech millennials and Gen-Z have grown up using. This will be a big deal for retail and companies looking to put customer service front and centre as business integrations develop for ubiquitous global names like WhatsApp and Instagram, where customers can talk unencumbered direct to companies looking to curate their spending experience better.

3. Outage Readiness and Data Care

With big firms like Microsoft doubling down on cybersecurity and threats becoming evermore multifarious and cunning, the readiness for outages will be critical in the coming year and beyond. There’s also the matter of organisations migrating and restructuring and service providers and cloud vendors looking to keep data secure. The threats to watch for in 2023 are online account hacking, inside threats, zero-day attacks, data loss, malware, and data security non-compliance.

4. Smaller Uptake in Metaverse Than Expected

With companies looking to save bucks, the significant bet spends will be down this year, which may have a knock-on effect on the metaverse. It depends on take up and if everyone else is doing it. With $100 billion invested in Meta, the firm has a lot riding on its reinvention of the internet and not being on it, but in it. Although 13% of Meta’s workforce was laid off last year, it announced an extensive partnership with Microsoft for the future of work.

It doesn’t seem easy to imagine organisations rushing to a virtual world when they are looking to consolidate and are already face-to-face in Teams or Zoom communicating and collaborating. The key for the future of the metaverse in 2023 will be twofold: what better collaboration can be done with it, and who is collaborating to make the metaverse project work?

5. AI Use in Tools and Admin

There’s generic negative AI futurism and real-world application, and the latter is what will fuel the rise of assisted programming. Microsoft has already bet heavily on AI and ML integration with software and hardware with many AI-supporting features. Admin tools now in Power Platform include making new templates and using low-code or no-code, with implications for hiring less-qualified administrators or empowering present ones.

The new DALL-E 2 model is already making waves in Microsoft Designer and will affect many images in 2023.  It has recently been reported to have spent $10 billion on ChatGPT and its potential for Teams, and the Microsoft 365 family of products defy limits with its superfast language assistance.

Big hitters like RingCentral are already seeing the upside of AI, which will continue to help as cameras and whiteboard use grows in 2023. This comes mainly with the alleviation of meeting fatigue. The key will be keeping it simple. RingCentral has already invested heavily in AI for desktop and mobile.

6. Growth of ‘The Platform’

This might be an obvious prediction, but it’s important to see the wood for the trees. The worlds of platforms will continue to grow, and thus with it, platform vendors and third-party ecospheres and the creation of niche use cases.

With Teams, for example, Microsoft has created a more stable communications and collaboration platform that pulls in all its historic widely-used apps and leaves room for third parties to develop new ones. In the mix are the cross-collaborative live capabilities of Excel and PowerPoint and the introduction of instant work-record tools like Loop and Syntex, which use AI assistance.

In essence, if users can use a platform without hassles, then the marketing spiel of ‘seamless integration’ is proven to work. After all, like a good Spielberg special-effects movie, it all works if we ‘can’t see the join’. When all the whistles and bells toot and chime, organisations will realise how encompassing platforms are for them. As hybrid work has changed the approach of company culture so that platforms can support companies with productivity, morale, time-saving and well-being, not to mention UC&C.

Regarding platforms, we must recognise the continuing convergence of UCaaS and CCaaS. For organisations, integration takes much consideration and planning, but the holy grail of internal and external communications on one platform will be hard to resist for most in 2023.

7. An Obsession with ChatGPT

So finally, we come to the buzzword of the moment. Those who have seen the deliberately scary Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube and TikTok, where he enthuses wildly about ChatGPT’s potential, ChatGPT’s potential, probably owe more to the fact it has focused on the skills of a humanities professor. But every C-suite executive I’ve been lucky to speak to has mentioned it, and one can’t help but conclude that most companies in the UC and collaboration space are looking into it. One CEO I know used it to devise a sentence to explain his complicated job to a ten-year-old, which it did, instantly.

The question in 2023 may be less about how it arrives quickly in the apocalyptical sense and more to do with developers and decision-makers deciding how best to implement it or even how to do that across the UC space.

For one, its currently free: so how to monetise it? For two, it has the potential to be unwieldy, with its vast resource of knowledge, meaning every answer is on the table. This may not be to the liking of some companies looking to avoid questions or guard against competitors. The last thing they may want is a language bot that can process sensitive company information in three seconds.

One thing is for sure, 2023 will begin with an obsession with ChatGPT as it rivals the metaverse for its potential seismic impact on the internet.

*As a guide to the video, here is who is on the panel and some of the topics they will be discussing:

  • Jon Arnold, Principal Analyst, J Arnold and Associates: consolidation of the UC space; mobility and UCaaS integrations; focus on hybrid work by UC industry
  • Andy Rawll, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, 8×8: scrutiny on big bet projects; new integration for established tools like Google Chrome and Microsoft Teams; C-suite leaders focus on contact centres
  • Aymeric Senechal, Head of Communications, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise: solution accessibility; stable infrastructure and contingency plans; Internet inaccessibility; data care
  • Blair Pleasant, President, COMMfusion: small amount of vendors looking at Metaverse, more roadmap and direction; AI use in tools and race to add more; mergers and acquisitions
  • Daniel Root, Senior Analyst, Wainhouse Research: enterprise real estate to drop; visual collaboration; whiteboards become more ubiquitous; growth in hybrid technology
  • David Danto, Director of UC Strategy and Research, Poly: return to office mentality to ‘morph’; introduction of camera arrays for best shots in meetings; environmental, social governance to be improved standard
  • Melissa Swartz, VOIP and Cloud Phone System Expert, Swartz Consulting: rising interest rates to test tech firms; end-user organisations to focus on optimisation and expense audits; focus on frontline workers needs; AI and analytics expansion for customers and employees
  • Zeus Kerraval, Founder and Principal Analyst, ZK Research: platforms to rise in communications and platform vendors to grow, especially for third-party ecospheres and creation of niche use cases
  • Adam Wilson, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Vonage: continued convergence of UCaaS and CCaaS; further integration opportunities for business apps
  • Jamie Hughes, Partner Manager, Evolve IP: businesses committing to apps related to hybrid work; quick fix versus bespoke solutions
  • Paul Taylor, Sales Director, Voiceflex: SIP Teams direct routing growth for larger organisations to continue; the beginning of a change in sub 100 user marketplace
Artificial IntelligenceCCaaSCustomer ExperienceFrontline WorkersHybrid WorkMicrosoft TeamsUCaaS

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