The overall research objective is to measure the current use and future decision-making behavior toward unified communications and other workforce technologies around the globe, specifically: desktop, room-based and huddle room video conferencing; audio conferencing; web conferencing; IP telephony; team collaboration tools (e.g., Slack); unified communications (UC) clients; consumer messaging and calling services (e.g., Skype, Google, WhatsApp, WeChat); headsets; and unified messaging.

We aim to:
  • Understand the IT-related challenges organizations face today
  • Assess the current and future use of business communications technologies
  • Evaluate factors that drive investments in communications technologies
  • Gauge IT and communications trends
  • Appraise available IT budgets

The data were collected using an online survey of 1,067 global IT/telecom decision makers and influencers during the July-August 2019 period.

Key Features
  •     IT staff, C-level leaders and department heads are most commonly involved in enterprise digital solution purchase decisions.
  •     Those same roles are also most consistently involved in driving solutions adoption within their organizations.
  •     A consumer-like experience is deemed “very influential” in communications and collaboration solution purchase decisions.
  •     Half of decision-maker respondents “often” consider diverse workforce demographics, compared to 27 percent that “always” consider workforce demographics, in purchase decisions.
  •     Only 15 percent of respondents view their organizations as part of the late majority or laggards with respect to adoption of new enterprise digital technologies.
  •     A majority of organizations expect the number of private offices, huddle rooms and mid-to-large  conference rooms to increase in the next three years.
  •     Desktop communications and collaboration tools, wireless enterprise voice devices, video endpoints, and collaboration-equipped huddle spaces rank among the top investments aimed at increasing office productivity.
  •     The top drivers for investing in communications and collaboration solutions in the next two years include improving teamwork, information management and customer experiences.
  •     Top investment restraints across most technologies include: cost, lack of perceived value and integration complexity.
  •     Organizations are almost equally split on whether they have deployed single-vendor vs multi-vendor solutions. Hybrid (cloud and premises-based) architectures will continue to account for a considerable share of customer communications environments.
  •     Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance communications is a very relevant or somewhat relevant topic for nearly 80 percent of organizations.
  •     Security concerns and job displacement are top concerns associated with leveraging AI to enhance communications.
  •     The top four decision-making factors across numerous technologies include: security, ease of use, reliability, and features.
  •     The top four investments for enterprise digital solutions in 2020 include: big data analytics, web and video conferencing, group video conferencing, and marketing automation.