A confluence of technological advancements, changing work styles, new business models, shifting regulatory requirements, and evolving customer expectations are spurring a seismic shift in the global unified communications and collaboration (UCC) landscape. At the heart of this transformation lies the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), the proliferation of hybrid and remote work, and the increasing demand for enhanced efficiency, productivity and agility.
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Today, as businesses strive to modernize workplaces, providers have an urgency to sharpen their focus on UCC flexibility, automation, real-time analytics, security, and integrations to help improve enterprise operations and outcomes through enhanced employee collaboration. Moreover, as UCC applications mature, there is an increasing demand for advanced features that support intelligent and contextual interactions for different user personas. This is unearthing a host of opportunities such as AI-enabled communications platforms, robust mobility, sustainability, and vertical-specific solutions. Let’s break down the top 10 strategic imperatives that providers must focus on while navigating these waves of change:
- Disruptive Technologies
Injecting AI into Communications Platforms for Value and Growth: Enhancing foundational UCC technologies (email, voice, and web conferencing) with AI-driven innovations such as advanced security and threat detection, workflow automation, virtual assistants, and contextual access to information, thereby boosting employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) and reducing response times.
- Transformative Megatrends
Harmonizing Virtual and Physical Workspaces: Supporting evolving work styles requires the integration of virtual workspaces, modern workplaces, and mobile UCC, that promotes employee inclusivity, engagement, and equity leveraging robust, cloud-based communications platforms, intelligent endpoint devices, reliable fixed and 5G connectivity, and edge environments.
- Industry Convergence
Prioritizing Mobile Communications and Collaboration: The pervasive adoption of mobile devices in professional settings has fundamentally transformed communications and collaboration applications. Customer organizations are prioritizing mobile-first strategies to meet the evolving expectations of their workforce and vendors must deliver. Mobile device use for both work and personal purposes necessitates adaptable, user-centric, yet also secure and compliant UCC solutions.
- Industry Convergence
Joining the Dots between CX and EX: Integrating EX with unified communications and CX solutions creates new opportunities to empower enterprise employees and address the many whitespaces that siloed solutions cannot satisfy. Bridging the gaps between siloed CX and EX initiatives requires converged, microservices-based platforms.
- Internal Challenges
Identifying Opportunities and Challenges through Customer Feedback Loops: The pace of innovation in the UCC landscape is relentless. New solutions are quickly replicated, making it increasingly challenging for vendors to differentiate their offerings and command premium pricing. Still, UCC vendors must accelerate their responses to industry demands. Co-innovation with customers is helping developers incorporate customer input into development roadmaps, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Which UCC best practices will help your teams mitigate the negative impact of these imperatives on your organization’s growth goals?
- Internal Challenges
Streamlining Legacy Systems Integrations with UCC Solutions: Developing advanced strategies to address compatibility challenges between legacy systems and new UCC technologies, ensuring smooth transitions and seamless cross-platform orchestration. In addition, managing customer resistance towards adopting emerging UCC technologies amid the shortage of skilled employees that can develop, manage, and handle advanced communication systems.
- Innovative Business Models
UCC Integration into Vertical Workflows to Drive Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) Growth: The ability to integrate UCC into customer-facing channels and back-office workflows has led to increasing interest in application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) that similarly allow for simpler integration into software toolsets for workers in specific industries. Integrating UCC into vertical applications can significantly boost productivity by streamlining workflows and enabling seamless collaboration that can optimize operations and reduce costs.
- Industry Convergence
Leveraging Authentication and Access Controls for Enhanced UC Endpoint Security: The issues of data sovereignty, governance, compliance, and reliability are becoming more complex as interactions between customers and employees take place across an increasing number of channels (voice, video, messaging) and locations. Vendors must work with authorities to help shape regulations and guidance, thereby ensuring a security-first approach as data sovereignty rules evolve.
- Disruptive Technologies
Reducing Latency through Edge Services: By decentralizing workloads and reducing latency, edge services can offer a wealth of advantages over traditional cloud-based communications and collaboration solutions, potentially disrupting the UCC landscape. Further, by distributing data processing across multiple edge nodes, organizations can mitigate the risk of a single point of failure and improve data resilience, residency, and security.
- Innovative Business Models
Vendors Seek Sustainable Value Chains: The convergence of environmental responsibility and business strategy has highlighted the need for sustainable value chain management within the UCC industry. Vendors are exploring how circular/sustainable value chains can be integrated into business planning to lower the consumption of materials, improve manufacturing bases, reduce hardware refresh cycles, and decrease power consumption to meet their own goals and those of their customers.
As UCC providers navigate these transformative shifts, focusing on disruptive technologies, innovative business models, and industry convergence will be critical to not only remaining competitive, but gaining growth advantages. This implies that prioritizing where customers want to be on their roadmaps tomorrow will better position providers to achieve long-term growth.
Has your team identified lucrative UCC growth opportunities emerging from these strategic imperatives?
If not, Frost & Sullivan’s team of growth experts is here to coach you in addressing and mitigating the negative impact of the strategic imperatives listed above, while identifying new growth opportunities for your organization.
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