A recent industry report forecasted that the unified communication and collaboration as-a-service market will greatly increase within the next few years. The MarketsandMarkets report investigated the major market motivating factors, obstacles and opportunities in North America and worldwide. According to the study, the UCCaaS market will grow from its current $2.52 billion market to a $7.62 billion industry by 2018. Furthermore, the global growth is expected to increase at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 24.8 percent in the next five years.

Telephony and collaboration applications
The study also showed that the global telephony market in particular will expand at a CAGR of 23.3 percent until 2018, growing from a $870 million sector in 2013 to $2.48 billion by 2018. The report also stated that telephony as part of a unified communications infrastructure design will be a main driving factor of overall market growth.

Additionally, significant expansion is also expected in association with collaboration-focused applications and solutions. According to the report, revenues within the UCCaaS application sector will increase to $1.75 billion by 2018. Current incomes for 2013 put the market at $540.74 million.

“Companies across all sectors are using UCaaS, cloud based unified communication which integrates web conferencing, video conferencing, messaging, VoIP and presence over cloud that helps to decrease front load capacity cost as they are offered on a per seat basis, enabling businesses to scale communications easily and effectively, thereby reducing travel time and leaner business processes,” the report stated.

Implementation within the current infrastructure design
The study also showed that organizations are seeking ways to implement UCCaaS within their existing technology infrastructures. This method is creating hybrid technology systems for communication and collaboration, with solutions from both cloud and UCCaaS service providers. A main driving factor for this kind of adoption has been an increased shift from on-premise solutions to cloud-based systems, which allow for increased flexibility and mobility.

Businesses in all industry sectors are looking to deploy such solutions, including healthcare providers. For example, Cisco recently outfitted Italian hospitals with unified communications systems to connect the facilities. The network needed to connect the 18 hospitals and 171 associated clinics and offices serving patients in the area.

The company deployed a redundant high-speed IP architecture to connect the multiple hospital systems. The healthcare network also adopted a circuit-switched voice infrastructure design that separates the network based on traffic, including data, voice and video.

With the new voice infrastructure, the healthcare provider was able to save a significant amount on their communication costs. Organization representatives stated that they will save more than $4 million within five years after installing the system.

Now, hospital employees across the network are no longer struggling to connect, communicate and collaborate with one another.

“Now they can access network resources; retrieve email, voicemail, and fax messages from one convenient location; and make and receive phone calls over secure VPN connections from anywhere,” the study stated.

Organizations looking to implement a unified communication and collaboration system within their existing infrastructure design should utilize the services of FlexITy. The company, one of the largest managed IT service providers in Canada, ensures all new technologies function optimally with one another and are thoroughly integrated.

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