Three trends to dominate UC market in 2015

BANGALORE, INDIA: According to Kapil Manchanda, managing director, India and SAARC, Jabra, three mega trends in shaping the Unified Communications market for the year 2015 are:

The democratization of technology

With both hardware and software better designed and available at lower costs, small and medium sized businesses can now access technology once restricted to those with large budgets, allowing them to compete with organizations of any size, located anywhere.

Factoring in BYOD adds to the demand of employees – they are only too aware of the benefits technology brings to their lives and they demand their employers provide them the tools to make them more productive.

Decline of location

At the same time as technology is getting more affordable for the masses, and organizations are being required to do more with less resources – and less staff, organizations are increasingly making use of technology to facilitate employee collaboration.

35 percent of the workers today are mobile and this percentage is expected to shoot up to 75 percent by 2017. The rise of working from home has resulted in an increasingly mobile workforce, which means the traditional office has been replaced with a laptop, internet connection and headset, enabling the employee to work wherever they can get online.

Knowledge workers are increasingly having to work across borders, and this means they have more conference calls to attend to at any time of the day. By ensuring that the last 3 feet of communication is of top quality, knowledge workers can be assured that they can take their office anywhere they go, with the tools that they need.

War for talent

The insatiable appetite for the best and brightest employees has ‘kicked off an arms race of sorts’. Organizations are investing more in key real estate such as headquarters and technology as they fight to be seen as a great place to work.

More people are making lifestyle choices to stay in a geography that’s more desirable to them that may be different from where they work. Employers have to provide a more flexible work environment for them so they can be productive no matter what zone they’re in – and these includes productivity tools to ensure that they have the best working environment, no matter where they are.