While we’ve been accustomed to picking up the phone to make and receive calls for decades now, the underlying technology has changed enormously over more recent years. In the case of business communications, there’s been a particularly enormous transformation as organizations become more reliant on their internet connection for keeping in touch with their customers, suppliers, and partners.
Keeping up with current industry trends has never been so important. As technology continues to move forward at an exponential rate, businesses need to think well in advance about budgeting, prototyping, and testing so they can stay relevant and maintain their competitive edge. With that in mind, let’s explore some of the most important communications trends expected to make a major impact in 2018:
1. Increased Adoption of Hosted VoIP
There are already close to one billion VoIP users around the world. On top of that is the fact that landline connections are disappearing by hundreds of thousands every month. In other words, the landline is rapidly going the way of the telegraph, which was discontinued in the US in 2006.
VoIP introduces many advantages to business, such as greater flexibility, control, and scalability. By digitizing your telecommunications, you can have their infrastructure hosted in the cloud. Offering greater cost savings and reduced maintenance needs, it’s fair to say that hosted VoIP will become even more popular in 2018.
2. Further Shift towards Mobile
The workforce is more mobile than ever, and employees are becoming increasingly demanding when it comes to having flexible working conditions. From a business’s perspective, workforce mobility is also a major enabler of productivity, and it allows companies to seek out the best talent without being limited by geography.
Some studies suggest that mobile employees will make up almost 75% of the US workforce by 2020, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mobile VoIP is becoming very much entrenched in the modern world's digital culture. With smartphones now playing a central role in modern communications, businesses need to make sure their employees can work using any device.
3. Need for Seamless Communication
The rise of cloud computing has become one of the key drivers in communications. With web-based applications being the new norm in enterprise computing, staff are better able to collaborate by working together on the same projects at the same time, no matter where they’re physically located.
The need for seamless communication experiences is growing, and that’s why VoIP and related tools are becoming increasingly integrated with key business processes. For example, Office 365 for Business already provides complete integration with the Skype service. No doubt, many more business apps will follow suit.
4. Greater Adoption of Visual Communication
People do business with their eyes, and business leaders are fast starting to realize that visual communication is one of the most powerful tools for success, especially when it comes to closing a deal, overcoming geographic boundaries, and holding conferences with team members.
More and more businesses are using video to recreate the conference rooms of old without the need for long travel times and high expenses. Throughout 2018 and beyond, we can expect to see a rapid growth in videoconferencing endpoints in conference rooms all over the world.
5. Enhanced VoIP Security
Security continues to be a major issue, especially now that digital data has overtaken just about everything else in becoming the most sought-after commodity of all. Like any system, the shift toward VoIP also presents a unique set of security challenges, especially among businesses operating in heavily regulated industries.
Since internet-based communications are much easier to breach than those carried out using traditional landlines, organizations will find themselves under ever greater pressure to take some additional security measures. These include data encryption and round-the-clock monitoring, both of which are provided by hosted VoIP vendors.
Every successful business is defined by its ability to communicate reliably. That’s why Fluid Networks exists to help implement cutting-edge solutions that prepare your organization for a cloud-enabled future. Call us today to learn more.