Rob Scott explores a new approach to reviewing the UC stack
A well-connected team is the lifeblood of any thriving business.
In today’s ever-changing, agile environment, traditional solutions like email are no longer enough to facilitate fast and accurate communications. As workers become increasingly mobile and diverse, companies need a strategy that ensures real, consistent results.
Team collaboration software is a market with a growth rate of 9.0% CAGR between 2018 and 2025. This technology has quickly emerged as the ultimate way to keep employees on the same page. However, not just any team collaboration tool will do.
Companies need a system that supports the rise of UC 3.0.
We’ve seen numerous changes in the unified communications market in recent years.
When Unified Communications first began, organisations were limited to complex, siloed technology. Communications strategies existed in islands across the company network. Then UC 2.0 arrived, bringing with it concepts like convergence and omnichannel communications, where tools began to align.
UC 3.0 is where we’re heading today. It’s a global transformation of the unified communications market, where companies of all sizes are adopting the cloud, team collaboration apps, and even disruptive tech like AI.
Originally, it was only small and agile companies that could be flexible enough to take this new approach to communications. Enterprise businesses simply had too many existing tools and investments to replace. Smaller, digitally-focused companies could jump into the cloud with little or no risk of wasting any existing legacy PBX systems in the process.
However, though the situation between smaller and larger organisations varied, both were facing a change in the communication marketplace.
Innovation became the name of the game as vendors joined forces to create unified stacks of tools more comprehensive than ever before. Companies put aside their differences and consolidated, pushed into action as “experience” became the only way to stand out in a crowded market.
Features and price points are no longer enough to capture and maintain the attention of an increasingly demanding audience. Businesses need the pillars of Unified Communications 3.0 to stand out among their peers.
Aragon Reserach Predicts: By YE 2025, team collaboration will be the primary way that people collaborate and
communicate.
Over the last decade, we’ve seen a growing drive among all businesses, towards cloud-focused services.
An ongoing need for agility and flexibility made cloud the only real option for today’s communication stack. First, we saw hosted voice – a way for brands to adapt their calling solutions according to their changing needs. Next, applications on a hosted platform entered the market.
Many exciting new vendors have entered the marketplace with a vision to create cloud services on microservices architecture. They’ve built their systems form the ground up to provide agility, scalability, and innovative solutions to customer problems.
We’re seeing a convergence, unlike anything we’ve ever known before. Platforms are growing modular, and capabilities that once existed exclusively in their own islands are now appearing in the application stack as native services.
The new “as a service” framework is at the heart of UC 3.0.
It delivers a brand-new level of accessibility, mobility, and functionality, and transforms the way that we work with new productivity and efficiency solutions.
All the while, emerging technologies are also playing their part. Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and various other new ideas are also making their impact on our marketplace.
With so much change to account for, business communication decisions now come down to four essential pillars:
It’s all about breaking down your new tech investments to match your business objectives with the solutions that can provide the right outcomes.
For instance, if your goal with implementing collaboration tool is to improve team experience, then you’ll need to make sure that your chosen software is created with your workstream in mind. Does it offer:
Every collaboration system offers its own range of benefits. The only way to ensure the right results is to start from your personal company problems and work backward.
More to come on UC 3.0, watch this space. Comments welcome.