2020 was a rollercoaster for the UC industry. 2021 brings even more uncertainty. UC solutions were designed for the kind of quick adaptation necessary for these fast-changing times. Many of the trends we saw emerging over the years, slowly gaining traction with enterprises, call centres, and carriers small and large, are now rapidly meeting the challenges in today’s COVID (and soon, the post-COVID) era.
Here’s what we expect for 2021:
Scramble for integration solutions
Businesses are rushing to integrate their existing applications/systems with solutions that extend these benefits to the work-from-home (WFH) workforce, offering greater access. In a matter of weeks, COVID challenged businesses to extend all real-time communications functionality – phone, presence, video – to their entire workforce, while simultaneously freezing all budgets. Customers had to “do more with what they already had.”
This created a rush to integrate existing technology with new solutions that created secure, real-time access for the WFH workforce. Fortunately, many UC solutions are designed to serve this purpose, as they are flexible enough to integrate securely with older technology to add these new features.
Many customers are leveraging the opportunity to bring in new functionality or otherwise level-up their infrastructure. For example, some have added WebRTC for remote workers. Others have significantly increased VoIP call capacity – for the immediate need to support the WFH workforce, but also for the longer haul.
WFH Solutions Become a Permanent Necessity
Solutions for remote workers are of paramount importance. Since the pandemic began, we’ve seen many cobbling together what they could, to make it work. But WFH will outlast the pandemic, going from temporary to permanent, with many employees either remaining remote or splitting their time. Businesses are now looking at this as a longer-term technology investment.
Expect budgets to reflect this, as IT managers will be looking to purchase i.e., hardy SIP-based VoIP phones that integrate with old and new solutions; products that allow secure integration with PBXs and home-based equipment, and that can handle a rapid capacity expansion if necessary; high-quality cameras for video conferencing; and more.
Security: A New Perspective
The issue of security has crystallised for everyone. News about hackers breaching some of the world’s highest security systems has become an almost daily event. This has many IT managers concerned about opening up access to remote workers.
Security is no longer just about keeping intruders out of the corporate mainframe. It now must extend to people’s homes – how do you secure a worker’s personal phone? Or their home internet connection (which is shared by the family), all from the corporate side? At the start of the pandemic, many businesses wound up shipping VoIP phones to their workers ASAP. This was a smart move, as the IT department could ensure that SIP security technology was embedded as part of the phone, using SIP to authenticate users, prevent viruses, etc., in essence extending enterprise-class security to the home.
