3 IT Questions to Ask at Enterprise Connect 20223 IT Questions to Ask at Enterprise Connect 2022

For as long as I’ve been working on Enterprise Connect, I've tried to take the opportunity to pause a couple of weeks out from the event to survey the landscape and consider: What are the major players doing, what does the event program look like, and what are people saying about the issues that are likely to dominate the conversation in Orlando?

Here’s a few questions I’ll be trying to answer, or at least learn more about, when we’re all together in less than two weeks:

1. What are IT teams doing to build flexibility into their plans for supporting hybrid work? When we talk about hybrid work, we often have a pretty simple concept in mind: Employees can work either remotely, in the office, or in some combination of the two arrangements. And the assumption is that their communications tools and facilities will function as an enabler to make the most of those two environments.

However, nobody really knows how hybrid work will evolve and exactly what will be required. It’s going to be a massive experiment with lots of trial and error. So how does IT stay nimble and flexible, and how does it work with the rest of the business to support a hybrid work plan that likely will constantly be a work in progress?

2. How can enterprises best address the big video challenges? As workers return to the office, enterprises will face the issue of interoperability in room video — what is it like to try and make a call from vendor A’s room system to vendor B’s room system? We’ve got a pair of sessions on this topic: The first is an in-depth report from Jim Kelly of Recon Research, detailing his findings on this topic. Immediately afterwards, Jim Burton of C-T Link will lead a panel discussion, featuring platform vendors offering their perspectives on where this issue is heading.

Then, video equality or equity is another issue — how do you make sure video call participants have an equally good experience whether they’re in a conference room or on a desktop system? Everyone wants this problem to be solved. But what I’m still curious about is whether enterprises will be investing the time, effort, and money to ensure this level of equality.

3. What directions will contact center/CX technology take? One of the most interesting developments of the past year or so has been the notion that communications platform as a service (CPaaS) is likely to play a major role in, and possibly even converge with, contact center technology. At the same time, contact centers have been one of the major success stories for AI, more to enable functions for agents, as opposed to replacing agents. And yet, large contact centers are hard to migrate, and they tend to have accumulated years' worth of customization. It’s a complex technology and business challenge — just the kind that smart companies and IT organizations excel at tackling.

So, those are the three biggest, high-level questions I have going into Enterprise Connect.

It’s going to be amazing to be back in person, seeing old friends and meeting new ones, taking the time to sit down with people and hear what’s on their mind, in a setting designed for just that. I hope you can join us in Orlando — and if you can’t, please register for the virtual portion of this hybrid event. Either way, I hope we’ll see you the week of March 21!