2016 Business Communications: Changing the Way We Work
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Productive Utilization of Data
According to Gartner, 25 percent of enterprises in 2016 will have a chief data officer in place. As the amount of accessible data constantly increases, so does the need to understand it. The availability of data becomes less important if you aren't able to easily extract it, interpret it, and utilize it for decision-making. For example, drive-time analytics allow trucking companies to predict traffic patterns and adjust their routes accordingly. Analysis of call center data enables managers to identify peak call volume times and to staff agents accordingly.
While call analytics is certainly not new, the availability and ease of access to data is what continues to improve for companies of all sizes. And it is the real-time or near real-time access to data and the way in which companies can immediately use that information to improve processes "in the moment" that will play an increasingly important role in business-critical decisions going forward. In particular, the improved ease of access to data is much more simple for SMBs and offers them more business intelligence and operational guidance than they've had previously – giving them more equal footing with enterprises in that regard.
For 2015, Danny Windham, CEO at Digium, predicted that it would be the year of mobility, integration of communications and user experience. In reviewing last year's predictions, versus what actually happened, some were dead on while others were slower to develop. Many of the same trends of 2015 are shaping up to be continued influencers on business communications and work styles in 2016, while additional trends emerge.
Mobility certainly took a giant leap forward over the past year – and shows no signs of slowing down. The prediction of the ”integration of communications into every aspect of how we run our businesses,” while still one of his core predictions, will be a multi-year evolution. It only began to develop some momentum during the past year, but the desire for integration of communications into and across core business functions continues to drive conversations within organizations of all sizes. Businesses are adopting cloud solutions at a rapid pace, as anticipated, and the use of SIP trunks is still growing. In fact, a recent Infonetics survey found that over three-fourths of North American businesses plan to use SIP trunking by 2016. These previously predicted trends are still big players in the business communications world, but for the purpose of this slideshow, Windham would like to focus on some concepts that are gaining real momentum.
The responsibilities of IT are shifting, workforces are distributing, and exciting things are on the way in the area of communications, enabling business processes through the use of innovations such as Application Program Interface (APIs) and Web Real Time Communications (WebRTC). The way we work is changing and the way we interact with our customers is changing, as 2016 is set to bring another wave of innovation.
Related Topics : Vulnerabilities and Patches, Resellers, Broadcom, Broadband Services, Supercomputing
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