How the Pandemic Has Driven the Rise of Collaboration Through UCaas

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues in several countries, causing notable modifications to occur in workplaces; organizations are grabbing on to artificial intelligence, IoT services and as-a-service (aaS) models to conform to the fast-emerging realities. Therefore, only an alternative approach of collaboration can stimulate the clattered productivity and effectiveness of the global workforce in an enterprise, as these changes are sure to have a lasting influence on future workplace practices. Enterprises are looking for a method of transferring employee dependence on physical hardware and allocating increased investment into the software sphere, this is where UCaaS is implemented.

What Is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)?

UCaaS is an enterprise-focussed service dedicated to streamlining the transmission of communication through cloud-based services. Unified Communications as a Service offer organizations innovative features, integration potentialities and functionality that would not have been feasible with conventional communication systems. 

While “UC” stands for Unified Communications, the 'as a service' features of the technology implies that it can administer unified communications anywhere, at any time, over the cloud. 

UCaaS eradicates the necessity for expensive IT infrastructure and the support of a full IT team by implementing UC on the back-end which can be done by Cloud service providers.

Before the cloud-integrated technologies, telecom service providers offered IP Centrex and Hosted communications services. These were practically similar to the current UCaaS capability, except for the fact that “virtualization” has determined that the distribution of unified communication as a service is so much more compelling.

A few examples of prominent UCaaS providers include Twilio, Voxbone, 8x8 and Zoom Video Communications.

How The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Accelerating Cloud Adoption

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is proffering a unique possibility where business administrators, globally, have to promptly enable their workforces to operate remotely for an extensive period. Consequently, enterprises are including remote work practices, where collaboration holds the solution to meet the expectations among the administration and employees.

According to Future Market Insights, the Coronavirus pandemic is anticipated to expedite cloud adoption, not only as a technological adaptation but also as an operating model.

Several large and medium enterprises all across the globe are acknowledging the boundaries of their current environments and struggling with the effect of the pandemic on their businesses.

In response to the current scenario, UCaaS solution providers and companies are taking appropriate actions to satisfy consumer demand for cloud usage, due to the sudden shift to a remote-first workforce. Moreover, Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) market is expected to grow exponentially and witness an upsurge in demand citing the Coronavirus pandemic, as remote working has become the current norm.

The Benefit Of UCaaS Under The Current Scenario

By implementing unified communications through cloud-based services providers, an enterprise can minimize hardware expenses, improve work from home efficiencies, therefore enhancing employee productivity. 

As is oft-touted, UCaaS enables businesses the possibility to:

• Promptly achieve advanced features and functions with moderate CAPEX
• Integrated connection center and quicker customer management capabilities
• Diminish the hazard of technology obsolescence
• Gain access to proficient outsourcing organizations, bypassing ownership and operation
• Software development companies can enhance team collaboration and workstream collaboration specialities 
• Change IT staff responsibilities to more substantial projects
• Increase resource collaboration when working away from the office and keep them updated with business developments
• AI and machine learning with advanced features such as intelligent call routing
• Enterprises can remotely manage and administer systems, users, and employee work collaboration
• Workplace management with IoT services, multimedia messages and online messaging

How Different As-a-Service (aaS) Products Are Emerging Nowadays

The COVID-19 has thrust the “future of work” to the forefront of revolution with shocking speed, from the rise of robots and the trends in IoT services to machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. All these inclinations point to an innovative world that’s shaping up quite distinctively from anything we’ve ever seen, or worked in, before.

While Unified Communications evolves, its main objective currently is to integrate enterprise communication tools so that collaboration can be made simple. These tools combine real-time monitoring, video calling, instant messaging, desktop sharing, and web/mobile applications. With the use of UC, all these technologies can be combined into one neat little but major package. Here are the different As-a-Service (aaS) products that provide a consistent user experience.

United Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

Just like SaaS, UCaaS empowers enterprises to only spend on what they require and utilize. In essence, UCaaS presents both communication and collaboration by cloud integration, thereby experiencing instant connections across several devices.

Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS)

Along with UCaaS, enterprises are now considering CPaaS, the Communications Platform-as-a-Service technology. 

CPaaS provides several of the communicative tools as the UCaaS framework but grants them as objects that can be integrated via APIs into the core applications of an enterprise. 

Contact Center as-a-Service (CCaaS)

CCaaS, as the name indicates can develop enhanced customer service experience. As a result, some collaboration technologies featured in UCaaS and CPaaS typically overlap with the features by CCaaS. By using all three 'as-a-Service' models, enterprises can overcome the impact COVID-19 has on the interaction and collaboration between employees or businesses.

The Rise of Technology During Covid-19 Pandemic 

The intense competition and increasing consumer expectations are reconstructing the dynamics of Unified communication as a service (UCaaS) technology, encouraging solution providers to innovate and enhance their customer engagement. The prompt transition among consumers towards cloud communication is stressing for the necessity for improved customer productivity and network flexibility and is proposing possibilities for exceptional communication and collaboration tools.

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented challenge for humankind as various sectors, industries, and individuals attempts to mitigate the uncertainties associated with it. From a business perspective, it bodes for enterprises to switch to remote working, adopt the latest IoT services, and implement the different models of Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS).

The impact is felt everywhere, right from human interactions, workplace practices, remote working, and has also affected our leisure time. The circumstance has driven various sectors into a novel era whether it’s how to manage collaboration while working remotely, how to minimize interaction with trending IoT services and also how to minimize the spread of COVID while keeping the workforce engaged and operational in general.