Organizations are increasingly adopting cloud-based tools for unified communication and collaboration. As vendors offer more practical UCC solutions available via cloud computing, demand for these technologies will continue to grow.

According to a new Heavy Reading Insider report,  more companies are showing an interest in UCCaaS. The study also found that UCCaaS tools are being employed twice as often as on-premises UC solutions. As a result of these increased adoption rates, industry revenues have been boosted as well.

“According to some estimates, the annual revenue for service providers from cloud UC has grown to more than $2 billion,” said Heavy Reading Insider research analyst Denise Culver.

Culver also said more businesses are looking to UCCaaS to support enterprise mobility and bring-your-own-device solutions. Organizations are now viewing these technologies as a business enabler that can eliminate tradition PBX and lower communication costs. The study found that UCCaaS allows users to replace aging communication technologies while enhancing customer service support.

“Mature markets and economies already understand that UCaaS provides an opportunity to move to mature IP-based telephony to avoid traditional capex and high opex costs,” Culver said.

According to the study, many organizations have limited capital, and administrators would rather use that funding for core business offerings.

The study also predicted the most UCCaaS growth will occur in North America, as businesses seek solutions to provide best-in-class customer service and maximize their use of available resources.

Vendors offer more practical UC tools
No Jitter contributor Marty Parker stated that the UC industry has matured quickly, as just five years ago many businesses were just beginning to scratch the service of unified communications services.

Today, Parker said vendors are offering increasingly practical services that can help an organization boost its productivity and collaboration efforts. One such tool is instant messaging and presence. Many vendors now offer service federation with other product users, as well as gateways to other platforms.

Another practical UC tool is user-device video to conference room video meetings, which allow remote employees to connect to meetings via their mobile device. Previously, users needed several applications through which to connect to different conference rooms, however, vendors now offer services to integrate these systems in one unified form. As vendors offer more practical services, adoption of UCCaaS will only increase in the near future.

Businesses looking to implement unified communications tools can turn to FlexITy, a leading provider of UCCaaS and other managed services.

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