Taking Transformation Step-by-StepTaking Transformation Step-by-Step
As we look to the future of work, enterprise communications and collaboration isn't standing still.
January 14, 2022
The start of a new year can be a time for looking at the big picture. My colleague Ryan Daily does just that in a recent No Jitter post.
Daily’s article, Comms & Collaboration 2022: 5 IT Trends to Watch, summarizes some of the great year-end posts that our contributors offered at the close of 2021. Daily boils it down into five key trends to watch in 2022:
Meeting equity will be key to hybrid work productivity
Video platforms will inform employee experience strategies
Omnichannel customer engagement becomes even more important
CCaaS becomes an AI hub for augmenting CX
Enterprises that still have on-prem infrastructure will feel the pinch
Read the whole article for a synopsis of the expert opinions that Daily drew from in making her list of trends.
This list makes it clear that after two years of pandemic-driven remote work — punctuated by continuing uncertainty about when hybrid work will really take hold — enterprise communications and collaboration won't stand still and wait for the elusive new normal. The trends that Daily writes about largely represent ways that enterprises will struggle with the uncertainty of the next year or two, rather than ways of forging a definitive long-term path.
Meeting equity, for example, is a problem whose actual scope and severity remains to be seen. No one doubts that the old-school conference room video view seems next to useless compared to the desktop videoconference experience. With the latter, you get to see people’s faces clearly, with names and active-speaker views, versus looking at a gathering of small figures in a poorly lit room with spotty audio. But what will it cost to bring true meeting equity to the videoconferences of the future, and how will we measure the benefit? That’s yet to be determined.
Likewise, whether it’s omnichannel engagement or AI in CCaaS, the path forward is much more likely to be trial-and-error and piecemeal. AI is likely to transform the contact center one application at a time, and customer behavior and preferences — just like those of employees — will likely evolve at a pace dictated by trends that are not just technology-based but economic and social as well.
So, the key is to be flexible, to gather as much information and insight as possible, and to have a clear and current understanding of what tools and innovations IT/communications teams can bring to these complicated business scenarios in the coming year or two. And of course, that’s where Enterprise Connect comes in.
We built the program for Enterprise Connect 2022 to make sure all the most important technology trends are covered, from video to contact centers/customer experience, from collaboration platforms to UC and UCaaS, and more. It seems likely that the next couple of years will reward those who deeply understand what technology can do to help the enterprise stay abreast of a world that’s changing more rapidly than ever. I hope you can join us in Orlando or in our virtual environment, March 21 – 24, for what I know will be a rewarding and enriching experience.
