survey results: unified communications as a service

Earlier this year, and in conjunction with Cisco, we surveyed decision-makers from multinationals throughout Europe to learn more about what is driving decisions around Unified Communications as a Services (UCaas). These companies were from various industry sectors and ranged from financial services, manufacturing and retail to transportation and health care.

I found the following results to be worth sharing:

• flexible ramping up & down and user profile changing was one of the most compelling element of UCaaS (59%), closely followed by OpEx, pay-as-you-grow pricing (55%)
• IP telephony, web conferencing, video conferencing and audio conferencing were selected to be the top four most interesting functionalities in a UCaaS offer (with each chosen by more than 60% of respondents). Instant messaging was next, in fifth place, at 51%.
• existing instant messaging platforms were the most frequently cited UC service (57%) for integration into a UCaaS offer. Close behind was centralized SIP trunking for PSTN access (55%)
• in terms of business benefits, 73% of respondents expect improved overall productivity as a business benefit from UCaaS. Cost savings was close behind, at 67%
• regarding challenges to adoption, nearly half of respondents (49%) identified the financial business case as being a challenge; in second place was proving the business value of a cloud model (16%); in third place was security (12%)
• 61% of respondents are in the evaluation phase for a UCaaS solution; surprisingly, 22% of respondents stated they were not interested in UCaaS

You can download the white paper with complete results here.

Once you've reviewed the white paper, let us know in the comments below your thoughts on the results, whether you’re experiencing many of the same challenges as the companies surveyed, and how you're addressing those challenges.

Katie

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