07 February 2023

Louise Newbury-Smith, country manager, UK and Ireland, RingCentral

From train strikes to rising costs and distributed workforces, this year will have its challenges. What we have seen in the last few years is that effective collaboration, even amongst dispersed workforces is possible and unified communication platforms can support this. As hybrid working continues this year, unified communications (UC) technology will greatly support business operations, as we continue to navigate employee and customer needs.

This year, we’re likely to see an upward trend of businesses implementing Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) technology to simplify collaboration from anywhere, support voice as a primary communication channel and drive the future of mobility.

Collaboration from anywhere

UC providers will be relied upon over the coming year to provide connected experiences for organisations. In order to provide this, removing silos with add-ins and streamlining app integrations on UCaaS platforms will be key.

Businesses will focus on making collaboration simpler in 2023. It's therefore necessary that technology is serving organisations with the right means of collaboration. In the UC space, accessibility and ensuring a consistent experience for hybrid meetings will remain imperative. The same is also true of participation equity between employees that work both in the office and remotely.

Tools such as white board, collaborative notes, better guest experience from browsers, and artificial intelligence (AI) noise reduction will work together this year to remove friction and make hybrid collaboration simpler for all.

Applying zero-trust policies

A zero-trust approach to security will remain a focal point this year. For UC providers, zero-trust now extends to customers, allowing them to decide how much data and access they should extend to their UCaaS vendor of choice. This is also true with end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) technology that prevents any unauthorised third party (including the UCaaS platform) from accessing data. With E2EE technology, only IT administrators have access to the encryption keys, which means that the host provider can now simply distribute the encrypted keys to the endpoint devices. It’s vital that businesses search for a zero-trust model that provides flexibility when it comes to E2EE going forward.

There are a range of security benefits to using a UCaaS provider, including an IT department's risk surface being minimised as a result of using a unified vendor for all their communications needs. This removes the need for multiple applications, whether they are sanctioned or unsanctioned operating as shadow IT or operating under one organisation but with their data in multiple locations and tenants.

Furthermore, by utilising a UCaaS platform, it is easier for businesses to not only address vulnerabilities that arise from a security perspective, but also for them to implement the latest security technologies. The speed at which the latest software can be rolled out across the business is also a major benefit to UCaaS platforms, in comparison to legacy systems.

Making workplaces smarter with AI

AI is becoming more intelligent and will continue to proliferate the workforce in the future. We’re already seeing AI assist with employee brainstorms in a hybrid working environment, as well as helping gather insights or reduce meeting background noise.

This year, we’ll see AI support improving workplace productivity by transcribing meetings for users across working environments. AI technology will also provide meeting summaries for all participants - which supports global organisations across multiple time zones, and workers who are unable to attend all meetings. This will help cut down on fatigue that employees feel is caused by having too many meetings.

Speaking of improving user and customer experience, AI has the potential to transform customer services by making them more personal, efficient, and effective. AI-powered self-service technologies can reduce the number of costly human interactions. In addition, AI will help make customer service more proactive and predictive.

We will also see AI technology innovation in contact centres with a variety of use cases. Voice recognition software for example can handle routine inquiries, such as balance checks or flight status. Additionally, chatbots that can answer simple questions or provide a list of options for complex requests will also support contact centres.

Voice as a major communication channel

Our research indicated that 95% of business decision makers say that voice is still important for customer engagement and revenue generation. As organisations look to map out a hybrid working structure fit for today’s employee, voice communication will remain essential.

Employees want flexibility from their phone services, especially when it comes to phone features that are accessible through multiple devices. The ability to place and receive business SMS messages (30.1%) and business calls (33.8%) from a personal computer is the feature most survey respondents were interested in. What makes telephony different is that it powers both external and internal communications, both scheduled and unscheduled conversations equally.

For businesses, telephony will be more omnipresent in the workplace, and assist in more meaningful ways. Businesses should remain focused on telephony systems that are composable to build bespoke new business offerings that adapt to evolving customer needs. The coming year will test businesses from an economic standpoint, and an intelligent telephony system that evaluates conversations will be integral.