Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C) has been a fast-moving industry for some time now. The arrival of new technology constantly pushes people to experiment with the way they communicate, whether it’s in the office with colleagues, or with potential customers. During 2020, the UC&C space, like many others was hit with a tornado of transformation.

The rise of the pandemic changed the way that people could communicate on a fundamental level, and collaboration emerged as a virtual experience, enabled through video and file sharing. As terrifying as the COVID-19 outbreak was, it also became an incubator for innovation in communications.

Tim Banting, the Practice Leader, Enterprise Communications at Omdia, recently published a LinkedIn post, outlining his predictions for where the market might be heading following the disruption of 2020. According to Tim, UCC is now a “strategic platform”, where businesses have to build future strategies for survival.

What Will Define UC&C in 2021?

Banting noted that for many businesses, COVID-19 was the initial spark that pushed them to recreate or rewrite their business continuity plans. Companies needed a new way to ensure that the lights could stay on when people weren’t able to join in shared environments. The traditional office environment largely became a thing of the past in 2020.

At first, companies assumed that the shift to remote working would be temporary. Yet, as evidence of productivity improvements continued to mount, remote and hybrid workforces grew more permanent. Moving into 2021, Tim predicts the following trends will shake the UC&C space:

  • Best of suite over best of breed: According to Banting, 36% of companies have up to 10 different solutions for communication and collaboration. This obviously leads to communication silos, complicated contracts, and excessive costs. Now that businesses are preparing for a more long-term shift in working styles, organisations will need to find a way to consolidate numerous services into a single solution for UCC
  • UC vendors capitulate to their competition: Traditional UC vendors are starting to resell the platforms of their former rivals. Traditional UC vendors will need to focus on revenue from professional services to begin growing more effectively
  • Consolidating customers will see team collaboration as a UC ultimate destination: Microsoft, Slack, Cisco, and Zoom have new add-on options to expand their collaboration systems, including cloud-based telephony and calling plans
  • Market segmentation is changing: Previously, UCC solutions focused on two specific styles of work, knowledge, and office workers. Basic video and voice functionality might not be enough for ongoing team productivity. Frontline workers have often been underserved and neglected when digital transformation initiatives began. However, since the rise of COVID, this may begin to change
  • Universal endpoints will prevail: One of the biggest areas for CAPEX in a comprehensive UCC offering is devices. As-a-service solutions will lower switching costs for customers, purchasing proprietary hardware to support a walled garden. Customers are likely to consider hardware vendors that can support various UCC services, alongside standards-based system

 

 



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