8 Trends That Will Drive the UCaaS Market in 2021

2021 will be an important year for the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) as the industry matures. What lies ahead for UCaaS customers and vendors this year? We find out in conversation with Farzin Shahidi from NextPlane, Venkat Kandhari from Infosys, and Joseph Walsh from LogMeIn.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) leverages the cloud to unify all the disparate communication channels active at your organization. It brings together enterprise telephony, meeting systems (audio, video, web), instant messaging, and presence technology to create a single pane of glass. 

In 2020, the pandemic led to a massive surge in UCaaS demand, with interest in the technology spiking by 86%Opens a new window . It is estimated that UCaaS could soon occupy 50% of the worlds’ PBX telephony marketOpens a new window . So, whether you are a customer-facing organization relying on contact center software or a growing product development company using collaboration tools, UCaaS should be on your radar. 

Learn More: 5 Key Drivers for Moving Your Business Communications to the Cloud 

Toolbox spoke to three industry experts to unravel the top trends that lie ahead in 2021. 

1. The UCaaS Market Will Consolidate Further

In 2020, a few large players like Zoom and Microsoft Teams dominated the conversation, despite there being several competing players. Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack marked a massive step in the UCaaS markets’ consolidation, and this will be a key trend for 2021. “Further consolidation of the UCaaS market is only to be expected,” Farzin Shahidi, Founder and CEO at NextPlaneOpens a new window told Toolbox. “I believe Microsoft Teams will become the dominant platform and go beyond its already incredible 150+ million DAU.”

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in UCaaS Will Boost Employee Productivity

AI could transform nearly every aspect of enterprise communication, from improving call quality to intelligent auto-routing in contact centers. ResearchOpens a new window suggests that 4 in 10 organizations plan on incorporating AI capabilities in UC applications, making this a vital trend for 2021. 

AI was particularly useful in alleviating the pressures caused by the pandemic and will add significantly to employee productivity this year. “The pandemic accelerated UCaaS adoption – but thanks to AI innovations like noise cancellation and virtual backgrounds in meetings, it created office-like environments for WFH users. 2021 will see more AI innovations in UCaaS like live language translations and predictive collaboration analytics that amplify employee productivity and bring in operational efficiencies,” said Venkat Kandhari, Senior Engineering Manager for Unified Communications Manager (UCM) product, Infosys.

3. You Will Need Interoperability to Cut Across Collaboration ‘Islands’

The rapid rush toward online collaboration led to the fragmented adoption of collaboration apps. As a result, there is a chronic lack of cross-platform visibility, that is counter-intuitive to the user experience. Fragmented applications also mean more pressure on IT to keep the systems running without central visibility into system health.

Interoperability will be essential to solving this challenge in 2021, helping UCaaS systems to become more mature and drive sustained ROI. 

“For new investments in UCaaS, enterprises will look for vendors that can interwork seamlessly with its existing on-premise UC. 2020 saw big players like Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, Slack partnering to create interoperable solutions. 2021 will continue to see UC vendors coming together to create an open world of collaboration,” added Infosys’s Kandhari.  

Learn More: 5 Non-Negotiable Features to Expect From Any UCC/CCaaS Solution 

4. UCaaS Will Drive the Rise of the Remote Working BAU

If there was any doubt that remote work is here to stay, the increasingly sophisticated nature of UCaaS technology would make WFH part of the new normal and integral to business as usual (BAU) operations.  

“If we consider ourselves currently in an ‘interim-normal’, amidst the pandemic, we should enter our ‘new-normal’ towards the end of 2021. As we emerge from COVID-19, organizations will formalize the new ways of working, offices will reopen, but we will see a considerable increase in the number of people regularly working away from the office,” said Joseph Walsh, Senior Manager, Global Product Marketing at LogMeIn. 

He added that up to 30% of the workforce could adopt remote working BAU – a 500% uptick on pre-COVID-19 levels. “UCaaS will become the preferred approach for connecting these employees and facilitating collaboration regardless of location.”

5. IT Will Have to Invest in UCaaS Maintenance and Security

A major driver for UCaaS adoption is its ease of access from any location, on any device, thanks to the cloud. But this has its own risks and long-term implications for IT. 

“Most IT teams have had to implement UCaaS solutions with almost zero notice in 2020. In what was originally needed as an interim solution to the pandemic, these solutions will remain in the post-pandemic era,” said LogMeIn’s Walsh, highlighting the lack of preparedness that IT could face in 2021. 

“IT will increase focus on supporting, securing, and authenticating end-users, who will increasingly access UCaaS solutions through their own personal devices (BYOD) rather than corporate devices,” he added. Not only does this mean extending the security parameter, but it also calls for additional capabilities for remote troubleshooting, user support, and IT help desks on the cloud. 

6. Guest Account Sprawl from 2020 Will Need Remediation 

Increasing use of UCaaS isn’t limited to internal collaboration. Users are likely to add external stakeholders, customers, partners, vendors, prospects, etc., as “guests” to replace legacy channels like email. But this causes guest account sprawl over time, which has its own downsides. For example, RackSpace users have created nearly 46,000Opens a new window Slack guest accounts since January 2020, costing over $550,000 per quarter. “In 2021, companies will increasingly begin examining their guest account sprawl – in terms of hidden costs, security, compliance, governance, and administrative burden,” said NextPlane’s Shahidi. 

7. Platform Solutions Will Grow in Demand vs. Point Tools

Growing reliance on UCC apps implies a corresponding rise in SLA complexity, billing processes, interoperability challenges, usage analytics, and ROI extraction – particularly due to UCaaS’ subscription-based nature. “Typically, IT departments predominantly work with multiple vendors across telephony, meetings, messaging, and contact center solutions,” said Walsh. 

In 2021, IT decision-makers will make it a point to seek out platform solutions to consolidate telephony, meetings, messaging, and presence instead of trying to find the industry-best in each segment. 

“Companies will consolidate their communication tools, sourcing platforms rather than point software. Expect UCaaS customers to begin to procure most of, if not all modalities, from one vendor. This unifies procurement, management, and end-user experience, offering an array of benefits to the buying company,” he added. 

8. Presence Technology Will Emerge as a Focus Area

Presence is an essential but commonly overlooked element of UCaaS. Without presence aggregation, a user would appear as available on one platform because they are busy attending to a call on another. This causes miscommunication, delay in information exchange, and poor transparency. That’s why the rise of UCaaS in 2021 will be accompanied by the demand for presence aggregation technology that offers a consolidated, reliable view of user availability across channels. 

“As remote work becomes the new norm, Unified Presence – users’ actual availability and reachability on islands of collaboration – will become critical to employee and organizational productivity,” said Shahidi. 

These eight trends mark the upcoming quarters for the UcaaS industry, projected to reach $24.3 billion by 2026Opens a new window . Indeed, the future of enterprise communication is built on the cloud, and the last three quarters have been instrumental in pushing this natural progression to a tipping point. 

2021 will introduce a much-needed maturity to this space, aided by consolidation and a keen focus on security by enterprise IT teams and vendor companies. Alongside, there will be increasing expectations from end-users, for whom UCaaS will be no less than a productivity staple. 

What are your thoughts on UCaaS adoption in 2021? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!