Future trends driving unified communications in 2021

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While 2021 is full of uncertainty for many organizations, there are four developments in the unified communications industry that will drive purchasing decisions in 2021 as IT leaders prepare for the future of work.

As the coronavirus pandemic has greatly impacted the way organizations conduct business, the unified communications and collaboration market has seen unprecedented changes. According to a survey of 525 companies worldwide by Nemertes Research, nearly half of companies have adopted new video conferencing platforms to support employees working from home.

Additionally, more than 60% of organizations have accelerated their adoption of cloud-based unified communications platforms. In many cases, organizations have adopted a variety of applications to enable team members to work remotely, but with little time to conduct a thorough assessment or plan a cohesive strategy.

Looking ahead to 2021, despite many uncertainties regarding the evolution of the pandemic and vaccine availability, some trends will emerge in the unified communications industry to depict how IT leaders can better plan for the year ahead.

1. Reimagine the workplace

Before the outbreak, employees usually worked in the office, and there was little motivation for remote work from home. But now, some employees work in the office, some work remotely from home, and some work in a hybrid office mode.

This means that IT leaders must reimagine the workplace. Video conferencing is ubiquitous, as members of online meetings are dispersed across the country, their office locations may be hotels or homes. Organizations must also continue to focus on improving the usability of collaborative applications and workflow integration to eliminate productivity barriers.

2. Integrate suppliers

The unified communications market is likely to continue to consolidate, and in order to become the best in class, unified communications vendors will either expand their product range to include fully integrated voice, video and team collaboration products; or be acquired by other vendors. In the past year, we have seen a lot of acquisitions and consolidation in the unified communications market, including Salesforce's recent $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack.

Acquirers will also move more aggressively toward replacing monolithic applications with integrated suites to save money, reduce management complexity, and simplify the user environment.

3. Remote Management

Managing remote workers was a major challenge for organizations in 2020 and is likely to remain a major pain point in 2021. A study by Nemertes shows that many organizations are struggling to ensure productivity, manage security and application performance, and measure engagement while working remotely from home. Expect continued development and adoption of analytics, security, and management platforms that enable organizational managers to gain insight into employee performance and implement consistent policies.

4. Optimize the remote working environment

Organizations are likely to take a more proactive approach to optimizing remote work environments. This means investing more in audio and video equipment and management tools to ensure a high-quality experience. It also means that organizations will focus on better implementing rapidly emerging features such as virtual backgrounds, alternative video formats, virtual cameras, and other features designed to make meetings more interactive and interesting.

2020 has been an unusual year in terms of the changes that have taken place around the world. Hopefully, work and life will return to normal by 2021. But in this new normal, unified communications leaders must continue to focus on how to better support remote work to optimize the employee experience. These unified communications trends can provide purchasing decisions and strategic information for organizational leaders.