Unifying your communication tools is a crucial strategy for improving business efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing productivity. Increasingly, however, companies are realising that to create the most intuitive and agile communication stack, they need flexible foundations.
Unified Communications as a Service, or UCaaS, combines multiple crucial components of business operations into one environment. A UCaaS provider can offer companies a single all-in-one environment where they control everything from their VoIP technology to their collaboration tools.
To help you understand the impact of UCaaS, and why it’s so essential to your business, we’re bringing you some of the most relevant UCaaS stats from recent years.
Building a Business Case for UCaaS
UCaaS takes all the benefits of your aligned communication strategy and places it in the cloud.
This flexible environment means that companies can reduce initial expenses when investing in UC technology. At the same time, you have the freedom to scale services up and down according to your needs. UCaaS systems offer pay-as-you-go solutions to keep ownership costs low.
UCaaS isn’t just a way to save money, however. It also provides easy access to the latest innovations in the UC market.
You can access new technology on the cloud without having to rip and replace existing tools. According to Transparency Market Research, the UCaaS industry will have a value of $79.3 billion by 2024.
When building a business use case for UCaaS, it’s essential to know your numbers. For instance, it’s much easier to convince your boss that it’s time to invest in cloud when the rest of the world is already using it for digital transformation. Nemertes research tells us that 19.1% of companies are using UCaaS for calling strategies already.
Top 10 Facts You Need to Know
As the communication landscape continues to evolve and technology grows increasingly advanced, UCaaS is becoming the most popular way to deploy new UC solutions. Here are some crucial facts to keep in mind when you consider UCaaS for your company.
- UCaaS deployments are growing: UCaaS is now more popular than ever, with a market growth rate of around 29%, year over year. Source: Synergy Research
- Companies want all-in-one environments: Today’s businesses prefer a single-pane-of-glass landscape for all of their communication tools. 68% of UCaaS buyers say that all-inclusive capabilities are crucial to their purchasing decisions. Source: Frost & Sullivan
- Remote work is driving UCaaS growth: As employees spend more time away from the office, UCaaS ensures they can access the right technology. Harvard Business reports show that people working remotely are usually more productive, and happier in their jobs. Source: Harvard Business Review.
- Security is still key: When deploying remote communication solutions, 95% of businesses say that they want to use VPN connections to keep data private. Source: Mitel.
- Flexibility is a key benefit of UCaaS: There are various advantages to communications in the cloud. However, 31% of companies are keen to use UCaaS to shed technical debt from legacy systems and processes. Source: Freshworks.
- New innovations are appearing in UCaaS: Cloud-based technology gives businesses greater access to innovative tech solutions. Constellation research says that by 2025, the AI market will surpass $100 billion. Source: Constellation Research.
- UCaaS supports a dynamic workplace: The workforce is more diverse than ever, with various different generations working together. The generation taking up the majority of the workforce, millennials, demand the flexibility and work/life balance that UCaaS brings with remote work opportunities. Source: Deloitte.
- Increased flexibility and agility are the most exciting features: Masergy research found that increased IT flexibility and agility was the biggest driver of UCaaS investment, with 40% of respondents looking forward to those benefits. Factors like increased productivity and improved communication quality are crucial too. Source: Masergy.
- Data security is a concern: Though many companies are keen to move into the cloud, 70% say that they’re concerned about data security. 63% are worried about global service consistency, and 57% are unsure about network performance management. Source: Masergy.
- VoIP is growing increasingly popular: One of the biggest features of a UCaaS stack, VoIP, has grown drastically over the years. The global mobile VoIP market is set to reach a value of 145.8 billion by 2024. Source: Grandview Research.
Top Statistics to Support your Business Case
It’s clear that the need for cloud-based communications solutions is growing.
Companies from all environments are entering into a period of transformation. No-one can afford to be left behind with expensive or clunky legacy equipment.
If you still need help demonstrating the value of UCaaS to your business, the following statistics will help.
- Other companies are already evolving: Your competitors are already moving away from legacy tools and spending more cash on the cloud. IDC tells us that investments in digital transformation will go over $6 trillion by the time we reach 2022. Source: IDC.
- Connected communications strengthen productivity: Aligning your team under a single communication platform has massive benefits. Over 75% of UCaaS users experience heightened productivity levels. Source:
- Most companies are planning a move to the cloud: 38% of businesses say that they’re planning on making the move to the cloud with their communication technology. 33% of respondents have switched to the cloud already. Source: Frost and Sullivan.
- Companies feel safer in the cloud: One of the major factors increasing cloud adoption is a positive sentiment towards cloud security. The result is a 20-30% year-over-year growth in cloud technology adoption. Source: Cleveland Research Company.
- Increased uptime is a big benefit of the cloud: 80% of respondents in a Frost and Sullivan whitepaper said that increased uptime was a major benefit of the cloud. 80% also saw freeing up IT with hosted services as a significant advantage. Source: Frost and Sullivan Enterprise-Class Cloud communications whitepaper.
- European companies associate the cloud with innovation: Mitel found that 81% of European companies responding to its survey saw the cloud as the top way to access innovative new tools. Source: Mitel Cloud adoption as viewed by European companies report.
- Cloud makes companies more competitive: Mitel’s study also found that improved training for new hires, and more readily available solutions to specific business problems where valuable features of cloud communications. 41% of respondents said UCaaS solutions could help them overcome more specific issues. Source: Mitel Cloud adoption as viewed by European companies report.
- Workplace trends are driving UCaaS growth: Workplace trends like remote and distance working are heightening the need for the cloud. Globalization, BYOD, and mobile working makes UCaaS essential. These trends are likely to continue for the next 5 years. Source: Cleveland Research 2019 UCaaS industry growth report.
- Cloud is crucial to business evolution: Evolve IP found that 15% of the time we spend communicating in the current landscape is wasted. 74% of business CFOs say that the cloud will have the most measurable impact on their company’s transformation. Source: Evolve IP Unified Communication driving communication transformation report.
- UCaaS strengthens various business operations: Evolve IP also discovered that UCaaS led to improved productivity for 72% of respondents, better collaboration for 91%, and faster problem solving for 88%. Source: Evolve IP Unified Communication driving communication transformation report.
