fi refi ghters, law enforcement, or those responding to accidents.
Those not yet at the scene can start preparing for the situation
they will arrive at.
New commercial models
These evolving technologies are leading to change across all
aspects of UC, from how the solution is deployed through to the
services’ commercial models. Alex Connors, head of portfolio
strategy, unifi ed communications and connectivity at Vodafone
Business, says: “We’ve seen a real evolution in the way the UC
service is delivered, going from being on-premise to largely
cloud-based. Then there’s also been a change in the commercial
models that the service is delivered by. The upfront charges that
you would have had in building a huge complex collaboration
platform disappear and everything becomes usage-based.”
Those factors are making UC appealing to a
broader group of organisations. Connors
adds that many customers are fi nding
UC has a lower barrier to entry,
particularly fi nancially, as
organisations no longer need
to build a large on-premise
solution that’s got a high
amount of capex in
advance. What’s more,
moving to a servicebased
solution means
the technology does
not depreciate over
the life of the contract.
Of course, there
are some new factors
to consider. Connors
explains: “The thing that
customers could be wary
of is things like ‘bill shock’
and controlling costs within
the organisation. As a service
provider, we can deliver ways
of managing costs and making sure
that any bill shock is minimised. We give
customers awareness of how many people are
using the UC services and what capabilities they’re using.”
There are softer reasons why organisations are taking UC
seriously. Nimans’ Wilkinson points to younger generations
entering the workforce with the expectation that workplace
technologies will be as seamless as the devices and apps they use
in their personal lives. He says: “Everywhere you look in the UC
marketplace, it’s about collaboration, interoperability, content
sharing, easy access, remote access and modern working. You’ve
got the infl uence of the millennials coming in, who will take an
organisation’s technology capability as one of the big considering
factors when choosing a role.
“The tables have completely turned in that candidates used
to be lucky to get o ered a role, but now businesses need to
make themselves attractive both from a social responsibility
Unifi ed communications
point of view, but also from an onboarding
technologycapability.”
The future of unifi ed comms
Cellular will take up an increasing proportion of
the UC puzzle in the coming years as LTE coverage
expands and we step into the 5G era. Ensuring
cellular networks are designed and confi gured in the
right way will be vital. Motorola Solutions’ Gonzalez
says: “5G brings more data capacity, which is good
for users that want video. The challenge comes from
situations when you have a high density of users in
one area. Through network slicing, 5G can create
networks that behave di erently according to user
demands. From my point of view, LTE is great, it
already allows a lot of functionalities, but 5G will
bring lots of other advantages for UC.”
The UC solutions themselves are
also set to evolve. Vodafone’s
Connors expects to see AIdriven
UC services becoming
the norm. Bringing artifi cial
intelligence into unifi ed
communications and
collaborations, he says,
can make the user
experience far richer
and far more valuable.
He gives automatic
transcription or
real-time translation
services as some
examples of AIenhanced
UC services.
To put that into
context, he recalls
situations when working
in an international business
where colleagues wanted to
switch to their fi rst language for a
portion of a meeting, especially if the
topic was complex. “Bringing simultaneous
translation into the UC mix could make conversations
between colleagues far more e cient.”
The face of UC looks set to continue shifting in
the years ahead, with the solutions on o er being
transformed by new capabilities. New players might
also emerge with new ideas about what truly unifi ed
communications should look like – even technology
giants like Google are reportedly experimenting with
their own UC apps – so we might see additional
communication mediums being brought into the
mix. The UC solutions that will be embraced by
organisations will be those that bring the right
functionalities together and provide a seamless
experience for users.
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