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In August, Infonetics Research released portions of its report, “Business Cloud VoIP and UC Services,” including forecasts that cloud PBX and unified communications services will be a $12 billion market by 2018, and that revenue for hosted PBX and UC is poised to grow 13% this year. Also of note in the report is growing interest among large enterprises for hosted VoIP services.
This last point is one that should not be overlooked by service providers and UC vendors tracking the extent to which large enterprises are warming to hosted services. To date, the typical hosted UC market entry strategy for service providers and vendors has been to focus on the lower end of the market (i.e. businesses with less than 10 employees). This segment is attractive because selling hosted voice and UC is a very different type of product offer, and smaller businesses seek a more simplified offering than would be the case with large enterprises that have complex requirements. From there, service providers would follow a plodding “bottom-up” strategy to the mid-market category, and only after that would they have the confidence to launch a large enterprise offering suitable for thousands of users.
What we are seeing today is that service providers are aggressively moving their UC offerings up-market, as advancements in underlying telephony application servers and cloud infrastructure availability make it possible to deliver hosted, mobile UC services capable of meeting the needs of large enterprises. As a result of the ability to leverage the cloud, an increasing number of these large organizations have started to deploy cloud-based unified communications services such as voice, video, instant messaging and presence, conferencing and collaboration to thousands of users enterprise-wide.
Accelerating large enterprise adoption of cloud-based mobile UC services requires that service providers and vendors address the challenges and currents of change sweeping through this customer category, and effectively communicating to large enterprise IT managers and corporate decision makers how cloud UC can address them. For those offering or developing cloud UC solutions, it is critical to address four key enterprise needs:
Meets complex requirements of the always-mobile workforce
Fueling large enterprise demand for cloud UC services, among other factors, is evolving workforce dynamics. By 2020, nearly 50% of the U.S. workforce will be composed of “millennials,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – and just five years after that the figure jumps to 75%. Millennial workers do not expect to be tethered to a desk from 9-to-5, or even to a laptop computer and single office location. Instead, this always-connected mobile user is bringing his or her dynamic and diverse communications expectations to the large enterprise – putting the onus on corporate CXOs and IT decision makers to manage the growing “bring-your-own-device” workforce and deliver mobile access to a range of hosted unified communications services. Cloud-based unified communications is best suited to enable users to communicate and collaborate at any time, from any location and using any device.
Meets enterprise demand for fixed-mobile convergence
As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, enterprises are constantly evaluating the communications needs of each employee – and the costs required to meet them. It is not uncommon for businesses to be saddled with multiple communications service contracts for mobile voice, mobile data, fixed-line voice and fixed-line data – each with its own billing, management and support costs.
Demand for fixed-mobile convergence reflects the fact that enterprises no longer want one business phone number and subscription for their employees’ desk phone and fixed-line services – and a separate, distinct phone number and subscription for an employee’s mobile device. Instead, enterprises want to disassociate an employee’s communication services from the device, with a single phone number and subscription for all of an employee’s communication services, and they want these services to be fully mobile so that employees have the freedom to work from anywhere.
Due to the budding enterprise shift away from premise-based communications services and towards cloud-enabled mobile UC, enterprises can leverage FMC to drive down telecommunications costs and management complexity.
Enables dual persona capabilities for worker communications
As BYOD adoption continues to permeate the workforce, it will require dual persona support for advanced communications services on personal or enterprise-provided devices. Enterprises must strike the proper balance between empowering employees with the freedom to use a single mobile device for personal and work communications needs, while also preserving the ability of enterprises to secure and manage the data and activities that flow across these devices.
Through dual persona, employers are able to separate business and personal voice and unified communications services, while maintaining a secure environment on the device for business applications with data that is fully controllable by the enterprise. Dual persona enables enterprises to meet user demands for a single interface for all communication services, as employees will have more freedom to access their services from the device of their choice.
More recently, we’ve seen the emergence of “dual persona for UC” solutions that provide users with secure access to all of their unified communications services via the cloud, including voice and video calling, text messaging, instant messaging and presence, and corporate directories. Dual persona for UC enables users to seamlessly switch between their business and personal communication services on a single mobile device, with privacy and security.
Balances worker productivity with travel costs
A key capability sought by enterprises adopting UC is the ability to empower people to work together efficiently and effectively, wherever they may be. Enterprises are looking to strike a balance between allowing workers to be productive while away from the office, with a need to eliminate unnecessary travel costs that eat away at the bottom line.
A cloud-based UC offering must seamlessly integrate video and Web conferencing so that enterprises can immediately shift time-consuming and costly employee travel to dynamic video experiences available at any time, on any device and from any location. The integration of video and conferencing reduces upfront and ongoing costs via the cloud model; delivers a high-quality communications experience to users; and enables a seamless user experience for video – even if a user shifts from device to device (i.e. – desktop to smartphone or tablet) during a video call or Web conference.
While large enterprises are taking a more serious look at cloud UC, adoption remains a work in progress. For cloud-based UC to continue its move up-market, vendors and service providers must effectively communicate to enterprise IT decision makers why the benefits of cloud-based UC justify the costs of deploying this type of solution. Evidence suggests enterprises are ready for cloud-based UC; now it is up to service providers to deliver compelling solutions that meet the needs of the large enterprise.
