Communication is a collaboration want and technology need. The decade has been evolutionary in terms of communication experience, the search for simpler ways that can make communication an experience rather than the device, software, and network whirlwind. No user wants a dispersed technology stack wherein each function would require jump from one application to other, between voice and video calls anymore. Instead, enterprises want a complete unified communication experience to make communication a solution for a remote workforce. As the technology grows more and more complex each day, customers are becoming more demanding, and the need for a single environment is proliferating that can manage everything from video conferencing to instant messaging. So enterprises are fast changing the track with innovation and technology to make solution offering more channelized. Private Branch Exchange (PBX) that has seen a greater rise in offering with the cloud that is equal to any private telephone network used within the company or organization. PBX phone system can assist the company in communicating both internally and externally using different communication channels. Many UC providers have changed their offering from cloud PBX to cloud PBX and Video. The rising demand for communication that is beyond voice and messaging has made providers make web-based conferencing and calling a solution.
The question many enterprises are asking is: What can providers provide for Unified communications? Can companies build the best offering by putting the video-based meetings first?
Making the video and conferencing space a complete channel for communication
The rising trend is noticeable in the video conferencing space, with meetings following the same trend. All the Unified Communication (UC) vendors are trying to push the UCaaS in the same package. So if a user is using zoom for video communication, they can also use the same communication channel to make the web-based call with the PBX capabilities. When it comes to rising capability of cloud and demand for communication, we are bound to bring them together. The video providers also need to be more flexible when providing the users with choice and integration solutions, changing from a simple video conferencing provider to user delivering the complete end to end channel presents few challenges for the users. Providers such as PGI, Cisco, Zoom, Webex, and GoTo are suddenly looking to completely change their entire brand and perception about the consumers that they have about the company. However, if you see the current buying cycle from the users, there is a major change, an enterprise doesn’t go online and searches for video conferencing specialist. UC buyers don’t start their journey in the meeting room, for most of them, the phone systems or contact center environment are more imperative. The journey for UC buyer begins from phone systems or contact center environment; video conferencing is just not at the forefront of the buyer’s journey.
Making customers change their perceptions
The need for change in perception needs to be solution oriented, video vendors that are now experimenting with the UCaaS offerings have a large scale consumer base. The organizations trust them to deliver high-quality video solutions for meeting and conferencing. However, it doesn’t mean that consumers have developed a complete understanding and trust them to provide cloud calling services. The leading conferencing video providers have a greater challenge in hand or even if they want to convince the enterprises that they are not just focusing on the video as the offering. Video Conferencing solution offers companies with an idea to reimage their companies with a completely different focus in mind. They need to rethink on their position as the brand and their marketing efforts if they want to move beyond as Video provider for meetings.
Building on current requirements
There has been a growing need for the video conferencing brands to upgrade the phone services that are offered. Many of the providers only provide basic cloud telephony for the users; they are just starting out in terms of features and capabilities. Business telephony is one of the most imperative requirements when a business looks for in any UC solution. If the business needs to view you as a complete solution, they have to move from making a basic version of everything. As the Unified Communication space keeps evolving, the future customers will look beyond the tools that perform functions they will look for a complete technology. According to the Aragon Research by 2025, the team style applications will be tools that will be used by the companies to collaborate and communicate. A team application gives the user a simple, single pane of glass environment where the users can answer the complete communication from calling, video conferencing, and all the messaging needs. It brings collaboration in communication. Microsoft has been one of the prime examples that brands today are making way through applications that are a complete solution, Microsoft Teams central hub offering communication and collaboration that is completely inbuilt. The collaboration app is completely covering all the other offerings like building functionalities calling, meeting/ video conferencing, and messaging features.
Conclusion
There is currently no doubt that the world is moving towards video as a communication medium. To cater to the rising demands of remote workers for improved collaboration tools, the video has emerged as one of the excellent ways to create more meaningful conversations when dealing with different team members. Video conferencing is all set to make the meeting more than just a communication channel but also a collaboration method with extensive team tools. Video conferencing/ meeting is still being viewed as a secondary requirement when dealing with UC technology, but the rising Calling and contact center demands can be combined with Video conferencing technology to make a complete UC technology.
To know more, you can download the latest whitepapers on Unified Communication (UC) technology.
