We present some of the panel's findings on the future of unified communications in the aftermath of the pandemic. The future looks hybrid.
AVI LATIN AMERICA
On October 29, the first version of the Unified Communications Summit was held virtually, an event organized by AVI Latin America and the TecnoMultimedia Latin America fairs. Within the framework of the conference, the Unified Communications and Collaboration panel was developed, which analyzed the role of this sector during the pandemic and its expectations for the future.
Moderated by Richard Santa, editor of AVI Latin America, the panel was attended by integrators from Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, who presented an interesting panorama of the sector. Here are some conclusions:
UC contribution in an atypical year
Unified communications, as explained by Andrés Plata, operations manager of AVD de Colombia, is a term that groups different technologies. It is not a technology, but an effort to integrate solutions that facilitate communication. That is why due to the distancing measures to face the pandemic, unified communications was the only means of communication that allowed companies and organizations to continue working and fulfilling their usual tasks, maintaining productivity levels.
Martín Saúl, CEO of Icap Global of Argentina, stressed that "if we go back 10 more years I do not know what would have happened. We were lucky that this pandemic would grab us with a bunch of cloud platforms and tools that we all had and possibly didn't use."
In the same sense, Eli Sitt, VP of sales and marketing of C3ntro Telecom de México, pointed out that unified communications helped to go to the home office, have business communication at another level, and born from the need of companies and users of different sizes to solve three basic points: satisfaction of their customers; efficiency in operating costs; and increased productivity for people.
"Adoption on a personal level generated a wave at the enterprise level. Today people who with work managed to use a cell phone, use real-time videoconferencing systems and webinar platforms. That accelerated adoption that we had from people, accelerated adoption in companies," he added.
For his part, Gustavo Lozano, Key Account Manager of DB Systems of Colombia, commented that "we are living an unprecedented situation, with very high uncertainty. The development of the technologies is there and the approach that has been given is from a laboratory to see how these technologies are here to stay and are advancing. We had all the elements within our work ecosystem, they were available, and it was an exit to what we had to work and continue within productivity and in life in general, the relationship with others for labor issues, social issues, health, education. This laboratory allows us to set the guidelines for what the future will look like. You have to understand that nothing is going to be the same again."
New UC users
Undoubtedly, 2020 leaves as a consequence an accelerated adoption of unified communications and collaboration solutions, even for sectors and people who traditionally did not know the benefits of these technologies. Among other sectors known as education and corporate, the guests of the panel highlighted:
Retail: with the massification of e-commerce platforms, retail sees the need to be closer to its customers and the easiest way has been through unified communications.
Politics: Right now corporations are doing their job through unified communications. It's a thing that didn't happen before, they just didn't go.
Medicine: they can arrive at each person's home, diagnose and allow them to feel accompanied in something as personal and as face-to-face as health.
Justice: Courtrooms have implemented videoconferencing despite the fact that a few years ago the same judges resisted.
Live events: Today all events are virtual and in many cases require interaction and collaboration.
Between the virtual and the physical
One of the topics on which the panel on unified communications agreed is that the future trend in offices will be hybrid spaces, with a healthy relationship between the virtual and the physical, without one or the other affecting operational development and to achieve this collaboration is a key element.
Martín Saúl stressed that today traditional unified communications platforms have reached a point and are rethinking all their meaning and value. Until now it was a lifeboat and now they are a massive unified communications platform that have another type of user, another type of public and begin to generate new solutions. Some examples he mentioned are Cisco with solutions for congresses, Zoom launches rooms, different options for different applications, Microsoft with productivity tools on Teams.
"Today the world is hybrid, physical and digital spaces are one, they have to be a single collaborative space. This is the most important trend regarding unified communications. Offices will not be closed or work from home definitively. You have to look for a balance because digital collaboration is not the same as face-to-face and there you have to see a concept that is called empathy. Innovation and high creativity groups only work optimally in person. Physical workspaces are essential, contact with others is part of our essence of human beings," he said.
Trending
On the trends that we will see in the future in terms of unified communications, Andrés Plata mentioned that one of the most complicated points is the user interface. Moving from the screen, from the factory fixed interface and meet customer expectations to voice control, simple interfaces based on solutions that users already know as phones, computers.
"Today interacting with unified communications solutions is becoming easier and easier. Voice control so far is starting but that's going to totally revolutionize the issue. Artificial intelligence is in its infancy but it will be a fundamental point within unified communications solutions. Technology is useless if you don't create a big effort for adoption. There are many tools and integrations, the important thing is that the real trend is that this is changing the way we work," he added.
Eli Sitt stressed that one trend is the integration of collaboration systems with unified communications systems. "We have to have as a company a single, integrated system where we collaborate, with telephony, communications systems. And so go the big players, Cisco comes from voice to collaboration. Microsoft in reverse, collaboration integrating audio."
Audio management is crucial. In that sense, Martín Saúl stressed that "the experiences we had in this first moment of use and mass adoption were very frustrating, very bad, it is heard badly, there is noise, people passing by, the poor quality of echo cancellation, using anything as if a phone were a tool just like a room with dsp or with sound treatment and they should listen to me the same. Everything is leading to continuous improvement in audio, the most popular collaboration platforms are including novelties. It's a trend that starts very strong in this digital transformation that involves a hybrid space."
For Gustavo Lozano, "unified communications as a service are those that will allow democratization and that technology and a user and multimedia experience that can meet these needs reach all people. People need to see and hear each other, messages have to come."
Future of UC
Weighing on the future of unified communications after the boom experienced during the pandemic, Gustavo Lozano stressed that "the world is not going to be like before. Soon we will have a vaccine or we will learn to live with Covid 19. But with this experience we have realized that we can continue to operate without having to be tied to such a traditional physical infrastructure. Many people have realized that they have lower operating costs, that people can have a work performance not based on attendance. Companies based their performance because they came to work every day, or because a crowded office was a productive office. Now our productivity rates are being seen in results and how those results can be delivered from anywhere, untethered."
Finally, Martín Saúl stressed that all the benefit of unified communications we are seeing in the growth of companies and the evolution of solutions. "All technologies are going to be more personalized. Personalization is a concept that came and will evolve a lot, your device, what you have must work. In addition, the migration of 4G networks to 5G, which will finish massifying unified communications, with greater speed, lower latency, with broadcast quality with lower cost devices. The growth of the industry is going to be promising."
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