It is safe to say that the Coronavirus pandemic has completely upended the way we work on a global scale. With little to no time to prepare for this unprecedented event, almost overnight organisations have had to transition entire teams to working from home. Unified Communications have been at the fore of this transition to remote working, ensuring business continuity through transparency and collaboration.
What are Unified Communications?
Unified communications refer to a single, cloud-based solution that integrated multiple communications channels such as instant messaging, audio and video conferencing, email, file sharing and cloud based file storage.
How will Unified Communications be different after Coronavirus?
With many European leaders already outlining plans for life after lockdown, what will this mean for the way businesses communicate? The ‘new normal’ has been an oft-used phrase in recent weeks, but just how many of our current working habits will still be considered normal after lockdown?
A greater number of team members working from home
In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, working from home, or in a remote office, will never be the same. While 70% of the global workforce were already working remotely once a week, this figure is expected to rise post-lockdown since more organisations have remote systems and applications access set up. With more and more firms cloud based systems in these times, Unified Communications solutions are being set up and configured remotely to ensure monitoring, collaboration and transparency.
More flexibility throughout the workforce
As well as an increasingly high percentage of the workforce working from home post-lockdown, we expect to see the continued rise of Digital Nomadism. Digital Nomads are members of the workforce who are defined by their flexibility and passion for exploration. They typically do jobs such as website design and building, content writing and editing, virtual teaching and tutoring and software development; however flexible working is increasing across a wide spectrum of sectors and roles. As with working from home, this trend is set to increase due to more and more organisations now having the infrastructure to allow for this kind of dynamic working. Cloud based Unified Communications solutions will be increasingly vital to allow for conferencing, collaboration tools, file sharing and cloud storage.
Video conferencing as an efficient replacement for face to face meetings
Even before the ‘new normal’ took hold, video conferencing was moving to the front and centre of business communications. For example, 80% executives agreed that video conferencing is taking over from audio conferencing as the most popular choice internal communications and 84% reported video conferences as the most effective method for communicating with external stakeholders. Now almost all of us are using video conferencing as our primary form of business communication while in lockdown. Using a solution such as 3CX WebRTC Conferencing allows participants to feel as though they are all in the same space with features such as:
- Electronic whiteboard
- Annotation functions on shared content
- Touchscreen interopability
- Multi-screen interaction
The cost efficiency of video conferencing versus travelling for face to face meetings with clients and stakeholders makes it particularly appealing for firms. The demonstrable success of secure video conferencing in these times means that the uptake of WebRTC solutions will no doubt be accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
