Unified Communications Archives

2018 Predictions: The Future is Visual, Flexible & Collaborative

Remote work is here to stay. From third-party research to analyst reports to our own study, it’s clear that the ways in which people work today extends beyond the confines of the desk. But what does that mean going forward, particularly when many would venture to say the future of work – at least as it pertains to the four walls of an office – has already arrived?

The last mile of digital transformation

While technology has advanced rapidly over the last decade, the nature of the workplace hasn’t quite kept the same pace. As companies continue to usher in new processes and tools to help achieve their digital transformation goals, the role of the CIO has changed drastically. CIOs today are responsible for all areas of a company, not just decision making on IT systems, but also managing financials, developing policy and strategy, and in some cases, recruiting. According to our CIO Outlook report released at the beginning of 2017, 96 percent of CIOs at the time predicted having a formal cloud strategy in place by the end of this year. As CIOs continue to work with IT departments and executives on refining broader business processes, strategy and execution moving into 2018, we’ll see them rise to the occasion to champion larger operational changes over what many enterprises are experiencing as the last mile of digital transformation.

No longer a work day, but a work week

As employees and their companies embrace remote work, the work day will continue to be more fluid in 2018. The fact that employees can be productive using collaboration tools wherever they may be means they can be available when it’s most convenient for them. Need to pick up the kids from daycare? Have to schedule a last-minute doctor’s appointment? This fluidity creates greater flexibility for the employee and shifts how we think about work: from a place we go to something we do. As part of this shift, we will expect to see employees and businesses starting to set clearer boundaries. It’s important for individuals to know their limits, and for companies to trust that they are being productive. We’ll see more businesses looking to data and analytics as a quantitative measure of this increased productivity.

Virtual reality is coming

Over the next three years, we’ll see VR become more evident in the workplace. Leveraging VR, even by a simple image overlay, can help people understand and engage with ideas. For example, think of an apartment layout where you can see the space in 3D and place appropriately sized furniture. Enterprises will begin to use VR for sales and customer enablement training. Rather than flying a group to an offsite location to review training materials – and, as we all know, all day meetings with documents and presentations can be boring – corporations can leverage VR to train individuals wherever they may be in an engaging, real-time way.

Consolidate communications

Analysts have predicted greater migration of business communications to the cloud over the next five years. In 2017, IDG reported that nearly 20 percent of organizations were planning to migrate their collaboration and conferencing solutions to the cloud. What does this mean for the enterprise? In short, they must double-down on consolidating their communications platforms to streamline support, achieve greater adoption and simplify their communications stack. We’ll see this take greater shape in 2018 as businesses look for proven, all-in-one solutions that help improve business continuity while reducing cost. The next phase of the “future of work” is coming, and the changes we’ll start to see in 2018 will be just the tip of the iceberg. As technology continues to evolve and become more personalized, the way employees go about their daily lives, both personally and professionally, will also shift. The next 12 months will bring about great change, but we’re primed to see more growth in 2019 and beyond. What do you think the future of work holds in 2018? Tweet your thoughts to @Fuze. Want more predictions? Check out this piece from our CIO Chris Conry on what’s top of mind for CIOs in 2018.

Driving Channel Growth with Adele Knox-Roberts

Happy Holidays and welcome back to the #FuzeLife blog series! As the year draws to a close we, like many professionals, are laser-focused on 2018 and the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead of us. Part of that opportunity is how we approach our growth strategy. To give you a better idea of how this will take shape, we sat down with UK Channel Director Adele Knox-Roberts, one of the latest additions to the Fuze team, for her perspective. Find the full interview below. Can you tell us about yourself and what brought you to Fuze? I’ve been working in IT for roughly 25 years, and I have to say, the experience over the last few months has been unlike anything I could have imagined. The bulk of my time has been spent within the enterprise channel – working with Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec. To say the move to a startup like Fuze was a bit of a culture shock would be an understatement. It’s such a fast-paced environment, especially considering the old-school world where I built my career. The platform itself has been a tremendous help in the transition, between the UI and really simple mobile integration. Things might be moving a lot faster than I’m historically used to, but I feel more productive than I’ve ever been. But as to what initially intrigued me about Fuze – I’d say there are two answers to that question. The first comes back to my experience in the channel. One of the great passions of my career has been working in partner programs and building these relationships across the UK and Ireland. What I’ve seen, especially in the last few years, has been a widespread transition to the cloud. A disproportionate amount of businesses has either already made the jump, or they’re in the process of building that cloud strategy. Fuze drew my eye quickly, in that it’s a company that was built on a cloud foundation well ahead of the curve. With channel growth top of mind, I saw a really exciting opportunity to help shape its next phase of growth. The second was the industry itself. When I posted on LinkedIn about the new role, I had so many colleagues reach out commenting on how UCaaS just keeps growing as a market. Overall, seemed like a perfect match. You touched on the next phase of Fuze’s growth – what role will the channel play in that? Over the last few years Fuze’s has really ramped up its channel strategy. I know earlier this year you connected with my colleague Max Errigo, Fuze’s EMEA Channel Director. He’s been laying a very strong foundation that we intend to build upon. Where the channel initially accounted for less than 10 percent of our overall revenue, it’s jumped to nearly 50 percent. With Chris Doggett at the helm of our sales organization and his strong channel background, we’re aiming towards growing that even more. The good news for us, is that the landscape is ripe for a channel-first strategy. As more businesses embrace digital transformation, the way businesses make purchasing decisions has changed right along with it. Partner programs and the indirect sales model have become a significant driver of the more sustained, strategic growth Fuze is looking to embrace. Between a product that (from my own personal experience) enables the modern employee and a leadership team that is in it for the long haul, I’m really excited about where the next few years are headed. In the short term, I really do believe that 2018 is going to be the year of the channel. Want to catch up on the #FuzeLife blog series? Find your reading list here:

A Year of Fuze: Top Blogs of 2017

An expanded executive team, $134M in funding, industry recognition and a new Boston HQ, – you could say that 2017 was a busy year for us at Fuze! With the New Year rapidly approaching, not only do we find ourselves gearing up for 2018 and all of the exciting opportunities in store, but we can’t help but take a step back and appreciate all that’s been accomplished. For a company like Fuze, which was built on a foundation of preparing the enterprise for the Future of Work, it is especially important to reflect upon the past year. The lessons learned and the challenges overcome inform so much of how we prepare for the next stage of growth. In this spirit, we wanted to share the top blogs from 2017, including highlights from our recent move, stats from our Breaking Barriers 2020 survey, and insight from our in-house experts on what it means to be an innovative CIO in an age of digital transformation.

Why 2017 Must be the Year of the Bold CIO, by Keith Johnson, Chief Technology Officer: Our research found that IT departments currently spend 83 percent of their time managing IT and communications platforms as well as resolving user issues – leaving little time to be the drivers of innovation. Keith dives into the challenges faced by the modern CIO and the tremendous opportunity they have in championing wider value for IT.

Why Support is at the Heart of Technology Innovation, by David Johnson, SVP Worldwide Services and Support: From the get-go, Fuze has always placed the customer at the center of everything we do. From designing a product that meets the real-world needs of the modern employee to building an outstanding customer support network – we are only as successful as our customers. In this blog, David discusses the pillars behind our support organization, and Fuze’s commitment to exceptional customer service.

A Day in the #FuzeLife: Creating Work-Life Balance Without Sacrificing Career Goals, by Laurie Harrison, General Counsel: Over the last year, we spoke much of the benefits of remote work, but few captured it quite as well as our own General Counsel Laurie Harrison, who splits her time between our Boston hub and her home in Pennsylvania so she can help raise her twins. She offers four tips on how to make remote work, work.

We moved! A new company hub, right in the Hub, by Mary Good, Chief People Officer: Speaking of our Boston hub, that was another significant upgrade for Fuzers this year. Moving from our Cambridge MA, offices to a decked-out hub in Boston’s historic Copley Place, Mary shares how collaboration itself was woven into the design of the office, and digs deeper into our Work From Anywhere policy.

The Vision to Bring People Together in Tomorrow’s Digital Workplace, by Eric Hanson, VP of Product Marketing: In case you missed it, earlier this year Fuze was recognized as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS. In this blog post Eric expands upon some of the factors that led to that recognition, and how Fuze is partnering with IT leaders to prepare for a cloud-first economy.

Thank you to our entire blog community, we hope you enjoyed following our journey this past year just as much as we enjoyed living it. Have any suggestions for the blog or topics you’d like to see explored further in 2018? We’re just a tweet away, @Fuze.

Workplace of the Future: Trends for 2018

Last month at our inaugural UK Breaking Barriers roundtable, 15 IT and business leaders came together to discuss and debate the key themes related to digital transformation and their main business priorities for the year ahead. So, as 2017 draws to a close, here are the key trends shaping the 2018 global business landscape.

1. Remote working policies will become essential

The expectations of workers have changed dramatically in the last decade. 10 years ago, work-life balance was often a ‘nice to have’ with salary and benefits topping the list of employee requirements. Fast forward to 2018 and work-life balance has become essential. New comers to the office environment, especially 20-somethings, have a completely different outlook, and requirements which differ dramatically to those of older workers. For many organizations remote working is often viewed with scepticism, fuelled by predictions of the “death of the office”, usually by companies with a vested interested in its demise. But remote working isn’t about getting rid of offices, it’s about offering people flexibility. Introducing a remote working policy and embracing mobility doesn’t mean that your staff will instantly decamp to the nearest coffee shop, but it does mean that you’ll attract and retain them, because you’ll be enabling them to work on their terms.

2. Technology and real estate will come together

Advancement in technology is shifting the role of the physical office-space, changing where and how we work. According to recent analyst reports the combination of a changing workforce and greater connectivity, means that up to 30% of corporate real estate portfolios will incorporate flexible workspaces by 2030, with offices more likely to be built around core hubs and comprising fewer locations. Alongside this, the Internet of Things and smart buildings will create new ways of managing productivity, sustainability and the user experience. In 2018 the continued migration to cloud will also allow businesses to become more flexible, ensuring companies can scale up or down as their requirements change

3. Consolidation will continue

Businesses are built on communication, whether it’s interacting with customers and partners, or sharing ideas and meeting with colleagues. If not physically present, it becomes vital that employees can talk, share and interact as productively and effectively as if they were there in person. As Fuze research shows employees are regularly using the likes of WhatsApp, social media, photo sharing sites and FaceTime alongside approved workplace tools. The result is a desktop of applications that varies by employee and department, with little standardization and management. At last, we are at a point where everyone agrees what UC should incorporate from a functional perspective — video, voice and team messaging. In 2018, the emphasis will shift to UC becoming unified collaboration, rather than unified communication. The tricky task for CIOs will be to unify and streamline their business tools into a single application that covers multiple interaction modes.

4. People and culture will define the workplace

During our roundtable discussion, the majority of IT and business leaders agreed that they now have access to the technologies needed to meet their employee’s expectations. Implementation and cost are no longer issues. However, the holy grail is how to encourage employees to engage with this technology and use it to support personal relationships. Creating a people-centric culture comes from fostering a collaborative environment, and communications technology clearly has a big role to play. As we’ve discovered from our own research, 73% of the app generation expect to use the very latest technologies at work, those that aren’t provided with the latest tech are more than happy to circumvent company processes to use their own. For IT leaders 2018 will be about driving the adoption of tools that bring workforces together, no matter how dispersed, under one unified culture.

5. Automation will help employees to add value

One factor that will encourage employees to focus on the human aspects of their jobs will be the continued growth of automation in the workplace. With less effort from humans to complete mundane tasks, it is no surprise that intelligent automation is quickly becoming the preferred method of operation. Nevertheless, although automation is already having a positive impact in many areas of business, driving adoption will be key for CIOs in 2018. By freeing employees from repetitive tasks that can be automated, workers have the opportunity and develop new skills, be more creative and deepen workplace relationships all of which can add real value to the business and provide a competitive edge in a noisy market.

What Star Wars Tells Us About the Future of Work

This Friday, December 15th, marks the long-awaited premiere of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. While millions will be rushing to see the latest installment, what many people don’t realize is how much of the technology we see on the Millennium Falcon or Starkiller Base is taking shape in a galaxy not all that far away. The science fiction of Star Wars is a natural extension of the tools many of us use in the workplace today. Droids? Holograms? You might know them better as bots or video chat. The roots of Star Wars are found in the core components of unified communications (UC).

Before you hit the theaters, we wanted to highlight how Star Wars is foreshadowing the future of communication and collaboration. Check out a few examples below:

Video conferencing upends communication dynamics. One of the earliest examples of video enabling team collaboration in the franchise is simultaneously one of the most iconic moments: Princess Leia’s hologram message to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode IV: A New Hope. This video message not only sets up the film’s arc, but demonstrates the power of leveraging video to effectively engage your audience – which in the workplace, is your co-workers. Furthermore, video conferencing allows remote workers to participate and maximize productivity – making it an important part of any communication stack. It is critical, however, that these video capabilities are reliable, well integrated and user-friendly. This is something that even Leia’s message could have benefited from. A seamless user experience may have caused a lot less strife and saved R2D2 the time-consuming task of transferring the hologram across the galaxy. Geographical location will become less of a team-building constraint. From the desert planet of Tatooine to the swamps of Dagobah, the characters in Star Wars literally connect from lightyears away. This creates incredibly diverse and dynamic teams but also quite an intense commute. The technology support seen in Star Wars demonstrates a shift towards a mobile workforce – geographical location becomes less and less of a constraint. Regardless of how an employee commutes, organizations that follow this lead and offer flexible, remote work policies will continue to foster an engaged and happy workforce. About 70 percent of workers between the ages of 16 and 44 would “like to be more mobile at work.” – indicating a shift away from the traditional workplace. Furthermore, according to our Breaking Barriers 2020 report, 83 percent of workers believe they don’t need to be in an office to be productive. Remote work policies not only allow companies to hire and retain the best talent from anywhere, but they also allow employees to cut down on commuting and to produce their best work in the environment that suits them as individuals. Artificial intelligence will revolutionize the enterprise. AI and virtual assistance tools have quickly found a place in the personal lives of consumers, and they will soon find their way into the workplace, as well. Remember R2D2 helping Luke Skywalker pilot an X-Wing fighter or C3PO’s continued translation assistance between human and machine? These droids demonstrate the role artificial intelligence will play in the Future of Work. With Amazon’s recent announcement of Alexa for Business, AI’s role to increase efficiency by automatizing management and administration tasks in the enterprise environment is becoming a growing reality. As AI continues to find a home in the digital workplace, we will see the real-world droids take on the indispensable sidekick role in supporting communication and enabling personalized workflows for the next generation of employees. Unified communications allow for better informed decision making, more efficient operations, and increased engagement. These tools should be optimized for the mobile workforce – both in user interface and functionality. Like the force for the Jedi, UC unifies and brings balance to the enterprise. May the Fuze be with you!

2018 Predictions: AI Will Drive Personalized Productivity

Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear from several Fuzers, including CEO Colin Doherty and Chairman Steve Kokinos, on the key trends that will not only shape unified communications, but the workplace at large, as we look ahead to 2018. Our first post comes from Chief Technology Officer Keith Johnson, on his predictions for the role of advanced technology in driving productivity in 2018. Find his thoughts, below: Historically, the consumer technology market has always been a sort of forerunner to the enterprise. In the early 2000s, instant message platforms skyrocketed in popularity. It was only a short while later that they became ingrained as a core necessity in the business world. In today’s environment, this paradigm remains the same. What has changed as a result of rapid digital transformation, however, is the lead time from consumer enthusiasm to enterprise adoption. One of the lasting trends of 2017 is the consumerization of technology in the workplace. As older generations grow more comfortable, advances in technology flourish, and digital natives flood the workforce, employees expect near-identical enterprise and consumer experiences. In fact, Amazon recently announced an enterprise-friendly version of their popular in-home assistant Alexa, just three roughly years after the consumer launch. Another good example of this is time management and productivity tools. As the line between personal and professional lives continues to blur, individuals crave the intuitive, easy-to-use approach of consumer apps to power their organization and productivity in the business setting. In 2018, this is only going to accelerate and create lasting consequences on legacy tech infrastructure. Enterprises who are still relying on legacy tools will be replacing them with the most consumer-friendly platforms over time. The tools that enable productivity in the workplace will be enabling productivity at home, and vice versa. Powered by AI Once the adoption of this consumer-driven technology reaches critical mass, we’ll see a change in the way the tools are powered. Namely, the integration of AI capabilities to further streamline processes and enable productivity will change. In some cases, businesses are already leveraging AI-enabled bots to automate a number of business tasks, including scheduling. 2018, however, will see the first wide-spread practical uses for the technology, as it offers consumers more personalized ways to enhance their workflow and improve efficiency. What’s interesting about this stage of AI’s development is how it will mirror what we already know about enabling productivity in the workplace. Just as today’s unified communications platforms offer a range of tools to cater to the different ways we work as individuals, we’re going to see an explosion of smaller scale AI-powered productivity tools that cater to a specific function of your day – sorting emails, scheduling meetings, and so on. We each have our own individual strengths and weaknesses that AI has the capability to support, and you’ll see employees picking and choosing to meet those needs on a person-by-person basis. That being said, AI won’t necessarily take the exact route of unified communications in 2018. Where UC offers a single suite, these productivity bots are going to fragmented. Rather than a single assistant which covers all functions, the most successful organizations are going to be leveraging a host of smaller point solutions, giving the employees to choose the right mix for themselves. How do you think technology is going to fuel personal productivity in 2018? Tweet @Fuze and let us know!

Category: Unified Communications