Blog

Written by: Larry Foster, Head of Product Strategy

I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to observe the most recent changes to this industry over the last few years, which have dramatically changed the entire landscape of enterprise communications. The new “digital world” has increased the frequency of product innovations. What’s current today, won’t necessarily be obsolete next year, however, we are constantly (as a provider and end user) in need of continuous improvements and modifications to existing technologies and tools to support the ever-changing virtual workforce that is enabled by unified communications. It surprises me to find that some organizations are still managing millions of telecom spend manually or with very little support, automation and analytics, but the majority of organizations have implemented some form of communication lifecycle management over the years are heading in the right direction.

The key to success, however, is continual, incremental improvements to support processes and enabling technologies that we make within our organizations. We can’t implement a solution, strategy or tool without reviewing the outcomes and alignment with our organizations’ business strategy. There’s no real “set it and forget it” option, as they all require iterations to support the ever-evolving organization’s needs. So how can you continue to improve and stay in tune with the telecom evolution?

Keeping current with the latest trends and best practices is no easy task and many IT and telecom managers don’t have the time to review the latest and greatest support tools, best practice techniques, and industry evolutions. As someone who is actively involved in the space, from conferences, speaking engagements and industry association participation, it’s my pleasure to share with you some emerging trends of which you should consider. This “top 10” list includes a broad mix of both existing and more forward thinking scenarios.

The volume of information is too great to share in just one post, so we will address the first half of this two-part series today with the second portion to be shared later next week. The list includes a broad mix of both existing and more forward thinking scenarios.

1. Voice has become the least popular form of enterprise communications

• The world of communications has been continually changing ever since Alexander Graham Bell made his first voice call on March 10^th, 1876.
• The following table summarizes the top five UCC applications deployed in the cloud*. Another dimension to these statistics is that the remote workforce experienced a 102.1% growth rate from 2005 through 2014**. Lower cost and ease of use have virtually eliminated barriers of remote collaboration by even the smallest of teams and obviated reasons to relocate or travel for work. The ever-growing suite of always-on business applications that integrate the full spectrum of communication and collaboration technologies to support a specific business requirement are eliminating the distinctions between remote workers and the in-office experience.

Communication Method	Statistic
Email ***	~ 188 billion per day
Instant Messaging ****	~ 4.1 billion per day
Voice *****	~ 3 billion per day USA ~ 10 billion globally Each mobile worker places ~ 8 calls/day
Conferencing *	~ $3.3billion year market by 2018
Collaboration ******	~ $20.8 billion annual market by 2016

 

• * Infonetics Research
• ** Global Workforce Analytics
• *** com
• **** Answers Corporation
• ***** Department of Labor Statistics

****** COMMfusion LLC

2. Video is emerging as the most popular form of communications

• Wainhouse Research reported that in 2015, nearly 200 million people collaborated via video conferencing
• Large modern companies like Google conduct between 6,500-to-10,000 video group conference per day. Individual video calls are an additional statistic.
• Businesses using video conferencing see a 30% reduction in travel costs. By skipping the cost of travel (think gas, rental cars, flights, etc.) companies can save a significant amount of money and still meet face-to-face.
• Average attention spans: video call= 35 minutes, regular call= 23 minutes. With visual accountability, video conferencing can help keep your team engaged better than a traditional conference call.
• 75% of senior management agree it will replace conference calls. For companies interested in video conferencing, technology improvements have reduced the barrier to entry. With low costs and no extra equipment, more businesses are enhancing their traditional conference call systems.

3. Telecommunications is enabling the world’s fastest growth companies

• The innovations of the following companies are all enabled by modern communication technologies:
• Largest taxi companies (Uber – Lift)
• Largest accommodation provider (Airbnb)
• Most valuable retailers (Amazon & Alibaba)
• Most popular media owner (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat)
• Fastest growing banks are in FinTECH
• Largest movie distributors no cinemas (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu)
• Largest software vendors don’t write the apps (Apple & Google)

4. Peak hours of traffic have been replaced with “always-on anywhere/anytime/any mode” of communication

• International Data Corporation (IDC) expects mobile workers will account for nearly three quarters (72.3%) of the total U.S. workforce by 2020.
• The mobile workforce is empowered by a variety of unified communication technologies including mobile applications to cloud services which provide ubiquitous access to users anywhere, anytime and from any device
• 3.7 million employees (2.8% of the workforce) now work from home at least half the time

5. Proprietary and expensive PBX hardware is being replaced by virtualization in the cloud

• Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networks (SDN) are providing low-cost highly flexible and scalable means to expand network capabilities without the need for dedicated hardware
• Organizations are replacing expensive multi-year hardware procurements and installations with on-demand access to unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

This compilation is only a fraction of the growth and development we are seeing in unified communications today. As the mobile workforce, popularity of wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to push forward, so must our efforts to provide and leverage opportunities for support and improved strategies for success. Continue to investigate your current structures, find wins and areas for improvements and act on them.

To understand further how you can implement a more holistic approach to your efforts to improve visibility and efficiency, view our on-demand session How to Leverage Communications Lifecycle in Your Long Term Strategy.

Stay tuned for part two of this series to go live next week!