One of the most relevant questions that have been popping for business leaders lately, is “How can organizations improve their communication systems to effectively help and manage their remote employees?” And how can productivity be maintained and even improved nowadays?
The answer to this question comes from understanding unified communication trends that businesses should think about this year. Let’s explore them in this article.
Unified Communication-as-a-Service (UCaaS)
The increasing adoption of UCaaS is one of the most important trends in unified communication today. Enterprises and many large companies invest in UCaaS to improve their communication platforms and channels and boost voice, SMS, video, and email in the cloud. The great advantage of unified communications as a service is that it brings cost-effective and agile solutions to any business.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees have started working remotely, which urged companies to find better technology that would enable seamless communication and enhance productivity. Luckily, UCaaS empowers businesses to manage unified collaboration for employees, no matter where or when they’re working.
AI is expanding
AI is making its way into a lot of industries, and telecommunications are no exception. In the upcoming years, AI will grow to become a common solution in unified communications, which makes it a trend all over the globe. Today, using new technologies to improve collaboration and productivity is responding to the need for achieving faster, better results.
Cloud computing and storage
On the list of this year’s unified communications trends, cloud computing has its well-deserved spot. And it couldn’t be any different, since there has been a large demand for cloud computing and storage, and this technology is used nowadays by almost every business. You can expect more integrated and comprehensive cloud solutions from providers that dare to update their products and services, for the benefit of their users.
New focus: employee experience (EX)
Unified communication trends include an all-time favorite: improved customer experience (CX). However, this year, the focus is fast shifting to employee experience (EX). And it’s no surprise that improved EX leads to better CX, which is ultimately the goal of a business. By enabling employees to become more efficient, unified communications increase customer satisfaction as well.
Voice services and Voice over IP (VoIP)
In the past year, the need to improve call quality and connectivity while increasing capacities has been on a list of top challenges for many businesses. Moreover, VoIP is on the rise, and IVR – interactive voice response – is also entering the unified communications, enabling efficiency and flexibility for call centers and their customers.
Enterprise mobility and security awareness
Mobile communications have evolved immensely over the last years, bringing new challenges every day in terms of increased risks. Cyber-attacks happen more frequently and the more connected your devices are, the more your business risks a breaching. So, it is essential to update risk management as soon as possible.
When it comes to enterprise mobility, the need to provide more flexibility and improve the experience of employees has been a key pain point. The increase in remote working has also caused an urge of updating cybersecurity, with the attack surface being now more expanded than ever. That is why companies should build a better cyber risk culture, and HR leaders can also be involved in risk management. For this to happen, unified communications need a safe and secure development and implementation.
Last but not least, a culture of security awareness should be among the top priorities for businesses all around the world. Enterprises need to ensure teams and employees still follow organization policies when working remotely.
To wrap it up, technology, employee experience, and awareness will definitely contribute to building and improving a modern communication system to support remote teams and their productivity throughout the year.
