unified communications statistics uctoday

Unified communications is now at the heart of almost every company’s technology stack.

It doesn’t matter which industry you’re involved in, or what kind of business you run, if you want to keep your organisation running smoothly, then you need a plan for corporate comms.

The problem for most organisations, is that there’s more to communication in the current landscape than just voice calls.

Employees, shareholders, and even clients are all involved in a wide variety of conversations. Some of those discussions happen via video, others occur through text, and some are all about web-based conferencing.

Combine the need for an ever-evolving communication stack with the demand to manage conversations through call-queuing, routing, and hold features, and it’s easy to see why UC is so essential.

Building a Business Case for Unified Communications

By 2025, the market for unified communications will be worth $167.1 billion. However, numbers like that might not be enough to convince your business leaders that you need a new UC strategy.

Creating an effective unified communication plan could mean completely re-working your entire tech stack. Many businesses are now taking their UC environment to the cloud with UCaaS and hosted services. Others are building UC strategies that combine with collaboration tools and contact centres.

Just like any major transformation in a business, your unified communication plan requires significant time and planning. Knowing the facts and figures around what makes unified communications so essential for any company, is a great way to get buy-in.

Top 10 Facts You Need to Know

Unified Communications has been around for quite some time. According to Vyopta, the original launching point of the UC marketplace happened in the 1800s, during the time of the telegraph. Since then, the way we define and use unified communication is changing. Here are some facts to keep in mind:

  • The UCaaS market is big in North America: in 2018, the North American market accounted for 50% of the global revenue for cloud-based UC. This indicates that North America are some of the biggest adopters of UCaaS. Source: MZA Consultants
  • Older phone systems are going extinct: 61% of companies surveyed in 2018 said that they would be switching to VOIP as soon as their other phone contracts expired. Source: Blueface Business Communications.
  • The Growth of UC is consistent: For every year between 2015 and 2018, UC reported a growth of more than 20%. Source: Gartner.
  • The UCC market is growing too: The Unified Communications and Collaboration market will grow at around 8% CAGR between 2020 and 2026. Source: GM Insights.
  • PCs are using up less IP traffic: In 2018, PCs accounted for 41% of IP traffic. By 2022, Cisco says that PCs will only be responsible for 19% of IP traffic. Smartphones will account for 44%. Source: Cisco.
  • Cloud and UCaaS are becoming more popular: Frost and Sullivan also say that the number of annual hosted IP and UCaaS users will increase to 11.3 million in 2024. Source: Frost and Sullivan eBook.
  • 90% of organisations are involved in digital transformation: Zeus Kerravala said in 2019 that 90% of organizations have at least one digital initiative in place. At the same time, cloud UC is growing at a 14% CAGR rate. Source: A Buyers Guide to Cloud Comms, Zeus Kerravala
  • Companies are leaving legacy tech behind: As companies transform, they’re moving from legacy tools to hybrid infrastructure and the cloud. Digital transformation investments will exceed $6 trillion by 2022. Source: IDC.
  • Many companies still don’t have the right integrations: 69% of employee phone conference, and video solutions aren’t integrated with their CRM. What’s more, 86% of respondents still say they rely primarily on their phone to connect with a global team. Source: The State of Enterprise Communications, Avaya

Top Statistics to Support your Business Case

The facts show that the world is moving more aggressively to enhanced versions of Unified Communication. Not only do companies want all of their comms tools to work seamlessly together, but they want to be able to manage them in a versatile cloud environment.

If you’re still struggling to present your business case to your boss for UC, or UCaaS, here are some top statistics to help you.

  • Other companies are already investing: In 2020, communications will account for 36% of IT budgets, at a global cost of $3,878 billion. Source: 2020 Cloud Communication Trends by Voxbone.
  • Poor communication tools harm performance: RingCentral’s study on the future of the digital workplace found that 70% of respondents considered communication inefficiency is a challenge to getting things done. Respondents said they often toggle between 10 apps an hour. Source:
  • Employees struggle with disjointed communication tools: Evidence from No Jitter in 2018 found that 81% of workers use disparate solutions for conferencing, 83% use different tools for video conferencing, and 88% jump between apps for messaging. Source: No Jitter.
  • Mobile and distance working are driving demand for cloud: Mitel’s cloud adoption study show that 41% of workers polled were currently experimenting with distance working. Source: Mitel cloud adoption white paper.
  • Companies use UCaaS to access innovative functions: Mitel’s research also found that aside from supporting remote workers, cloud technology helped companies to increase access to innovative functions not available from legacy tools. Source: Mitel cloud adoption white paper.
  • Many companies are moving to cloud while adopting UC: Frost and Sullivan discovered that 33% of companies have already moved to the cloud. 38% say they’re planning on doing so in the next two years. Source: Frost and Sullivan eBook.
  • Bad communications are costly: The cost of poor communication is around $37 billion. According to 400 surveyed companies with 100,000+ employees, communication barriers cost most organisations around $62.4 million each year in lost productivity. Source: Holmes Report.
  • Private clouds are still popular for UC: Private, single-instance cloud solutions seem to be the best option for 64% of companies switching to UCaaS. However, revenue from public cloud technology should grow by a rate of 14% by 2022. Source: MZA Consultants.
  • Positive sentiment is increasing for UCaaS: UCaaS is growing at around 20-30% year over year, with positive sentiment pushing more companies towards UC in the cloud. Source: Cleveland Research Company.
  • Reliability and security are key: Reports from Frost and Sullivan show that Reliability (50%) and Security (47%) are the biggest concerns for companies investing in UC technology. Open standards and interoperability follow close behind (36%). Source: Frost and Sullivan eBook.


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