6 Trends in Business Cloud Communications
Things are moving quickly. Cloud communications is taking off, businesses are embracing Hosted VoIP solutions and every forecast is pointing up. It’s an exciting time to be involved in cloud communications, whether you’ve been in it for a few years or you’re just getting involved. But there’s also pressure to stay up to speed on all of the news, issues and trends – things are moving so fast that if you aren’t paying attention you’re in danger of falling behind.
Here is a quick guide to the hottest trends in the space right now, six trends that everyone will be talking about in the months ahead:
- Unified Communications. Exactly what different organizations and people mean by unified communications can be hard to pin down; virtually everyone means something different. But really, we’re just talking about the degree of unification at this point. Bringing voice, data, email and applications together is increasingly possible – how far and how quickly it progresses is a matter of organizations opening up their APIs to enable UC, and to create a seamless information flow across devices and apps.
- Enabling social collaboration. The social web is not just for personal use; it has infiltrated the workplace as well. Creating social sharing tools in the workplace increases usability, and that’s a positive for employers. The ability to link social tools into other information streams can be a significant advance for your customers, providing them with the opportunity to work ahead of their competition.
- Tighter security. When the discussion turns to security, people generally think of data protection. But when we’re talking about communications – and voice in particular – we’re talking about security against fraud and the like. If your system is hijacked, availability suffers, and it can drive up expenses and impact business.
- Mobility. According to Forrester Research, 66 percent of employees now use two or more mobile devices for work. This is a blessing and a curse for businesses, who can envision significant upside to always-connected employees but who also know that they need to make their systems user-friendly AND secure; companies must accommodate and prioritize this new demand for efficiency and productivity.
- BYOD. The Bring Your Own Device movement is tied to the rise in mobility and is another piece of the equation that your business needs to look at to remain competitive.
- The Rise of SIP Trunking. New research shows that many organizations are embracing SIP Trunking as a way to plug into the cloud and gain the many advantages the cloud brings with it. According to Infonetics, 38 percent of companies say they are now using SIP Trunking, and 58 percent say they plan to deploy SIPTrunking by the end of 2015. In short, if you haven’t looked into SIP trunking you need to.
Are there other trends that you’re seeing? Let us know in the comments below!