Heading in 2022, the landscape for unified communications is stronger than ever. Increasingly, we’re beginning to see vendors distributing truly connected environments, intended to maintain and enhance the productivity of people wherever they are. Unified Communications has evolved to become an increasingly flexible, ever-transforming concept, capable of adapting to suit the needs of the user.
For some time now, the terms UC and UCaaS have started to become indistinguishable. The cloud appears to be the only reliable way of ensuring business continuity, as communication trends keep changing. By 2028, experts say the UCaaS market will be worth around $70 billion.
As the definition of UC continues to evolve, becoming more flexible, intelligent, and user-focused, we’re left to wonder what the future might hold. These are my predictions for the Unified Communications market in 2022.
The Rise of Inclusivity By Design
For virtually every company, UC is no longer a nice to have a concept, but a mandatory part of running a successful business. This is particularly true in the post-pandemic age, where companies need to find new ways of enabling and aligning in-office and remote employees.
Right now, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the future of work might hold. Hybrid and remote work concepts are still in their infancy. I think we have an exciting road ahead, but in many ways, we’re still in a pretty unpredictable place.
In the last couple of years, companies have begun to discover exactly how flexible the workplace can be. Business leaders convinced that remote workers couldn’t be productive have been proved wrong. New styles of work, like hybrid working, have emerged from the woodwork, introducing avenues we never considered before. Hybrid work is now the preferred model for 55% of employees.
What we do know is that the definition of work has fundamentally changed. Work is now something we do, not a place we go. Heads-down workers are naturally attracted to hybrid work, but the evolution of new collaboration and UC platforms will connect the frontline and head-up workers more than ever. We’re discovering that UC can be a tool for linking everyone in your workplace, no matter the role. This means future vendors will need to ensure their UC apps are inclusive and accessible for all kinds of employees.
Flexible Work and Employee Wellbeing
In a recent blog, I mentioned that if UC vendors hope to thrive in the new world, they need to play a role in empowering better employee experiences.
Many innovators in the UC space are already implementing features for safety, inclusion and wellbeing. This helps position UC apps like the office social network, connecting and empowering employees in the work anywhere culture. Offering wellbeing insights within the UC app of the future could be the key to better work/life balance, as well as keeping staff happy and healthy.
I love what Microsoft is doing with Viva right now, and we’re starting to see evidence of Viva in Microsoft Teams now too. I believe the Viva technology will be a dominant player in the employee experience boom of the future. If UC vendors can tap into the Viva API, team and user wellbeing insights could be a powerful addition to UC apps in the future.
Additionally, now that the vast majority of organisations have already embraced cloud communication and collaboration tools, we can already work from anywhere. However, working at any time is likely to become a more common workplace trend too. UC is primed to deliver this new phenomenon, encouraging wellbeing by allowing teams to manage their own schedules.
The pandemic has allowed many companies to abandon the restrictions of the 9-to-5 workplace and replace it with a more agile mindset. Organisations that get the blend of culture and technology right will benefit greatly from giving teams more freedom.
Video and Messaging Dominate Business Communications
While phone calls might still have a place in the UC environment, it’s fair to say that video and messaging are rapidly taking over as the preferred forms of communication. The video became a must-have investment in the pandemic era, with 90% of people saying they find it easier to get a message across on video, and 76% using video for remote work.
As the future continues to revolve around hybrid work, companies will embrace video as a way of bringing context and depth to conversations. Without video, digital synchronous communication loses some of its appeal. While audio-only spaces do part of the job of connecting teams, video offers much greater potential with augmented conversations, powered by artificial intelligence. You can even place employees in the same virtual space with video or use captions to improve communication.
Alongside video, messaging has also found a critical place in the future of work. The success of TikTok and bit-sized video apps show we prefer to communicate quickly. Before most people start a video call, they’ll often send a message; it’s quick and convenient for the times when we don’t need to discuss something instantly. Zoom even recently introduced visual voicemail, which is a kind of Snapchat experience where you can leave mini video messages for someone to pick up at their own convenience.
The rise of video messages could be another form of short snappy communication that combines the benefits of chat and video into one experience.
Collaboration and Communication Gets Smarter
As the way we communicate and collaborate evolves, the spaces we create for collaboration are changing too. Room kits are more popular than ever for teams looking to build efficient and convenient meeting spaces. Collaboration bars and plug-and-play video devices are also an essential tool for team members working in an ever-flexible environment.
We’re on our way to a future of smart spaces, enhanced by things like video, embedded virtual assistants and AI guidance. Virtual agents will be particularly valuable in the years to come, as they can bring context to a meeting, along with insights and actions. Your virtual assistant can record meetings in real-time and transcribe information when necessary, or surface information crucial to a conversation.
Going forward, our meetings will also be more virtual than in-person. People will want to join conversations quickly and safely, at the touch of a button, without having to worry about travel. Meetings in the digital world are more convenient, more intelligent, and prepped for new, disruptive technology. We might even see our meeting rooms transforming even further in the future of VR and extended reality technology.
We’ve already seen a few “UC vendors” integrating virtual reality environments as the next logical step for meetings and immersive conversations. At the time of writing this, Cisco announced its new Webex Hologram solution which offers a whole new meeting experience in augmented reality, coming soon in 2022. I’d expect to also see a lot of VR software vendors getting acquired by leading UC and collaboration brands like RingCentral, Zoom and Microsoft in the years to come, to unlock this new landscape. Here are a few top VR collaboration vendors we recently showcased on XR Today.
UC Vendors Battle Meeting Fatigue
Some teams are struggling more with the transition into the age of digital work than others. There have been various problems to address over the last couple of years, including meeting and video fatigue caused by endless team interactions.
The team collaboration space has emerged as the central work hub for most modern teams. Microsoft Teams is the “home page” for the workplace in the new landscape. UC vendors are already realising they need to integrate with Teams if they’re going to continue gaining customers. With the acquisition of Slack, Salesforce will be looking to compete with Microsoft going forward too.
In this collaboration-first world, it’s easy for team members to get overwhelmed, and UC vendors are baking in tools for things like meeting breaks and “focus time” into their apps to handle this. However, it’s also important for individual business leaders and organisations to think about how they can reduce fatigue too. Policies and best practices need to be introduced to reduce fatigue, so users don’t get sick of virtual communication and collaboration.
The ability to send recorded meetings to team members who can’t attend a conversation in-person will be useful, as well the ability of team members to choose their “focus” and “meeting ready” time slots.
Customisations are Trending
The personalisation of UC hardware and tools is growing increasingly common in the new age of work. I’ve noticed users being able to influence the decision-making of business leaders. Investments will need to be made into technology that employees are comfortable using, to maintain a positive employee experience. Low-cost but unreliable headsets and webcams won’t survive the hybrid workplace. Usability is key for your employees.
In the software environment, customisations are becoming increasingly common with no-code and low-code applications and integrations. Workflows with access to contextual information are driving smarter experiences and productivity. Going forward, UC vendors will need to invest in creating marketplaces that provide users with ready-to-go integrations for all the vital apps they use every day.
Preparing for the Future of UC
As we look ahead to 2022 and beyond, companies will need to focus more heavily on optimizing the employee experience, by investing in quality video-enhanced platforms, accessories, and room kits. These tools need to be inclusive, safe, and flexible, with plenty of insights and analytics to help teams and users be more productive.
At the same time, security and compliance will need to remain a priority, underpinning global collaboration and communication deployments. Platform reliability and vendor credibility shouldn’t be taken for granted. We’re seeing more and more major changes among vendors, which means companies are looking more seriously at smaller, but more secure platforms.
When deciding which tools to invest in for UC, you’ll need to ask yourself where your priorities lie. Are you looking first and foremost for features, reliability, scalability, data privacy, availability, security, innovation, or just a trusted brand?
UC Today in 2022
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We’ve got an even better line-up of UC & Collaboration focus topics for the year ahead, here’s the 2022 editorial calendar:
- JAN – UC in the Hybrid Workplace
- FEB – Optimising Conversations with Video
- MAR – UCaaS Bootcamp
- APR – Comparing Hybrid Meeting Room Kits
- MAY – Maximising EX with Work from Home Tech
- JUN – Endpoints Personalisation
- JUL – UC Service Management
- AUG – Fusing UCaaS & CCaaS for Digital CX
- SEP – Cloud Calling and BYOC
- OCT – Conversational Analytics
- NOV – UCaaS Security Strategies
- DEC – Team Collaboration in the Future of Work
Plus, for vendors in the UC space, we have a range of enhanced media opportunities. To find out more, request our media kit.
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