We’ve all been a witness to the unprecedented massive digital transformation that has taken place in the past year. No aspect of our lives has been left untouched by this paradigm shift. Most of the platforms and services that consumers engage with daily have changed beyond recognition in an incredibly compressed timeframe.
Of course, a lot of it has to do with the COVID-19 outbreak. Interest in UCaaS technology has jumped by as much as 86% in the wake of the global pandemic.
It goes without saying, then, that all businesses and organisations, irrespective of size or scale, should be cognizant of and try to make the most of UCaaS trends for their own growth.
However, before we proceed to understand how organisations can leverage the upcoming UCaaS trends, let us look at the basics of the platforms and its benefits.
UCaaS trends signify the new default –
Businesses are used to isolated, disparate communication habits wherein all their communications take place on a variety of platforms and mediums. This has posed to be a hindrance, of course.
It doesn’t allow for collaboration, doesn’t lend itself to coherence or efficiency, creates data leakage risks, and so on. It’s no surprise hence, that more and more businesses are quickly pivoting to UCaaS platforms.
What UCaaS technology offers is an integrated, coherent, and unified platform for all the communication needs of any business. These cloud-based unified communication platforms boast of in-built advanced capabilities and indeed offer new functionalities in this era of rapid digitisation.
Here’s a quick look at four of the most important benefits that UCaaS platforms offer –
1. Significantly better for collaboration –
We’ve witnessed this first hand, how the pandemic forced all organisations into embracing remote work and how collaboration on projects emerged as a problem area given the distributed nature of the workforce.
UCaaS technology solves this challenge and a lot more. Given that it is a cloud-based platform, employees can text, call, video chat, make presentations, and more, no matter where they might be based out of.
Similarly, even if there are some employees in office and some who are working remotely, they can collaborate just as seamlessly on that one single platform given the location-agnostic nature of cloud communications.
2. Removes the hassles of multiple backups –
We’re all very familiar with the fact that data sanctity is a huge deal for almost all businesses these days. Organisations are generating an ever-increasing amount of data and they need all of it to be safely and securely stored.
Till date, this used to be a big challenge on legacy, premise-based server solutions owing to issues like data theft, need for manual backups, problems handling large amounts of data, periodic updating, and so on.
UCaaS platforms solve this issue seamlessly. You can schedule backups, allow for auto backups, store your data on the cloud, clearly define access and so much more. It is, of course, the safer option.
3. It is (much) cheaper –
The thing which matters the most to a business’ health and sustainability in the medium to long run is cost-efficiency. UCaaS platforms are significantly more efficient and much easier on the pocket. UCaaS trends are headed towards making it even more efficient.
For example, you don’t need to install an in-house technology team or hire specialists to manage your communication and data systems. Similarly, these systems eliminate the need to deal with and avail services from multiple vendors as well, given how UCaaS technology takes care of all your needs on a singular, unified platform itself.
4. Flexible to the core –
UCaaS platforms allow for near limitless flexibility, in all kinds of functions. For example, one can very easily add or remove employees from internal communications with just a single click.
In times like these, when businesses have to prepare for any and all kinds of disruptions, such rapid scaling flexibility is a boon.
Similarly, you can integrate a number of peripheral services/technologies like CRM systems, advanced analytic tools, and so on to significantly enhance the capabilities for your business going ahead.
“The act of innovation and the attempt at enhancing efficiency gains never ceases, no matter the software. Same goes for UCaaS technology. Its growth has been relentless and UCaaS trends for 2021 portray an ever-more advanced and capable technology for businesses to leverage.”
The next generation of UCaaS trends for business communications–
Even though UCaaS technology currently is far more advanced than any other existing alternative, it has continued to grow all this while. Following are the four key UCaaS trends to watch out for in the year to come –
1. Remote work is not so remote anymore –
As of now, what most businesses have done is simply re-model video conferencing tools into probable collaboration platforms. However, this is a misfit and will never provide the kind of tools and technology that are needed to enable productive collaboration between teams and individuals within an organisation.
For example, it is standard practice now for teams to make use of features such as screen sharing, collaborative documents, file sharing tools, and so on. As per UCaaS trends, these features will become the new standard as remote, collaborative work becomes the new default for businesses and organisations in the years to come.
Similarly, artificial reality and virtual reality hold an important role here. This is owing to their capacity to transform surroundings for people virtually to a space resembling their workspace, for example, and open up new vistas of collaborating.
2. Artificial intelligence ties in with UCaaS Technology –
Artificial intelligence is expected to have far-reaching impacts on a number of technologies and UCaaS platforms are no exception either. For example, AI-powered bots and chatbots are automating a number of routine and redundant communication chores.
Similarly, AI is empowering a large number of data analysis tools which offer features like mood and sentiment analysis, for instance. This vastly enhances business efficiency and unlocks newer forms of predictive analytics as well, especially for consumer-facing verticals of the organisation!
3. The rise of open interface standards –
This steadily builds upon the point of flexibility and powerful customisation that was mentioned earlier as well. UCaaS technology allows for an unprecedented amount of integration as well as flexibility.
The concept of Open Platform Development is fast gaining ground wherein businesses can now quite literally choose the exact feature set that they need and include it in their UCaaS platform offering like a stack.
Similarly, software-like APIs i.e. Application Programming Interface capabilities on these open platforms allow for even greater room in terms of collaboration as well as flexibly maximising efficiency gains for a business.
4. The complete integration of UCaaS Platforms –
This is one of the most important UCaaS trends as we head into the future of business communication platforms. UCaaS platforms have very steadily begun the permanent phasing out of legacy, premise-based telephony systems.
For example,hosted PBX systems are now being used widely instead of traditional hardware setups of yesteryears. Similarly, instead of cable-based telephony setups, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is what organisations are quickly moving to given its sheer reliability and efficiency.
As a result, UCaaS platforms have become mainstream and are fast becoming the ultimate business communications technology of choice. This allows developers to add in even more capability into the platform, facilitating its growth along with that of businesses. Expect more of the same going ahead.
Conclusion –
It is abundantly clear by now that the adoption of UCaaS platforms, especially in a post-pandemic era, is a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ for most businesses globally.
This inevitability of adoption is what makes it all the more important for organisations to take cognizance of UCaaS trends, adapt upcoming features in the broader cloud-based unified communication platforms space, and leverage efficiency improvements to build more resilient businesses going forward.
Given the various flexibilities and features that come with the technology, there is something to gain for businesses of all sizes and scopes. Make the shift today, well in time to support business growth and organisational efficiency for the years to come!
Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK’s leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.
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