3 IT Topics Taking Shape for Enterprise Connect 20233 IT Topics Taking Shape for Enterprise Connect 2023

The Enterprise Connect program committee has been busy over the summer, and with Labor Day now behind us, our Orlando, Fla., 2023 conference program is pretty well developed. Breakout sessions and other program elements are sketched out, and I’m excited about what we’ll be able to deliver when the event takes place the week of March 27, 2023.

Throughout Enterprise Connect’s history, we’ve always tried to strike a balance between insights about the future and solid, practical programming to help enterprise decision-makers deal with the issues in front of them. We believe that over the next year, this balance will be more important than ever. Many enterprises, if not most, find themselves in the middle of migrations to the cloud for their unified-communications (UC) and contact-center capabilities. These critical functions present a plethora of challenges and choices, and as always, we’ll have sessions that go into the weeds to help you make the right decisions throughout the process.

At the same time, IT/communications must serve an end user base — and business plans — whose exact needs, demands, and even composition remain in flux. Labor Day was widely touted as the milestone for return-to-office, with some business leaders casting this as a now-or-never moment. In the real world, things are rarely this tidy, so it’s likely the debate over ways of working will extend through this fall at a minimum. That means IT/communications decision-makers may go into 2023 with a somewhat better idea of their enterprises’ long-term plans for the office and who will work there — but the situation will likely still require a fair amount of flexibility and a healthy dose of trial-and-error.

Given these concurrent trends — technology migration and business uncertainty — I’m not surprised that our EC2023 program is shaping up to have a heavy emphasis on three tracks: Contact Centers/Customer Experience; Unified Communications & UCaaS; and Workplace Strategies.

Contact centers are simply a hot area — besides the migration issues, the whole challenge around customer experience is at the center of what so many enterprises must address as they transform the ways they do business and stay competitive. UC and UCaaS has a strong focus on migrating the installed base, but it also encompasses newer challenges like E911, where we’re adding a case study session that I’m really pleased about. And finally, our Workplace Strategies track will address the ways-of-working challenges from multiple angles — from technology supporting employee experience to the communications technology needs of the modern office. To learn how IT, HR, and facilities management are coming together to enable the future of work, consider visiting our sister site WorkSpace Connect.

I’m excited to share news about the many other new elements and features that you’ll see at Enterprise Connect 2023. The changes that lie ahead for our industry will bring tremendous opportunities as well as challenges, and we’re here to help you with both. Watch this space.