Today we are excited to share the findings from a new global survey conducted by Ovum Research, a leading global technology research and advisory firm, on behalf of GoTo. The survey of 2,100 IT buyers and leaders* found that communications and collaboration tools were considered to be “business critical” to the success of organizations, and investments in these tools need to be made a priority in order to support a growing remote workforce and the rise of digital natives in the office.
"CIOs are right to consider UCC business critical, but they must also recognize the opportunity to take a close look at what they are paying for and providing to the enterprise,” said Mila D’Antonio, principal analyst from Ovum who spearheaded this research. “UCC in the workplace needs to transform to become more integrated across the enterprise to reflect changing business needs, as well as meet the requirements of digital natives. A more cohesive and collaborative approach to UCC will work to democratize data, create business agility, and ultimately create operational efficiencies."
As businesses plan for 2020 and beyond, unified communications and collaboration (UCC) deployments are a major focus for growth, with 76% of survey respondents expecting spending to increase. However, it’s not just about finding a collaboration platform, it’s about finding one that meets the needs of the modern workforce - one that is seeing an increase in the number of employees working remotely, and digital natives entering the workforce as full-time employees. In fact, the survey found that 93% of respondents agreed that digital natives have different needs and expectations in the workplace, and over half of CIOs (56%) are looking to grow their collaborative software offering to meet that demand.
More key highlights from the report:
Digital Natives Need to Be Front and Center of Planning
According to the survey, C-Suite IT leaders prioritized these items as steps they’re taking in anticipation of the growing digital native workforce:
- Increasing availability of collaboration software to employees (54%)
- Encouraging remote and flexible work options (49%)
- Ensuring UCC tools are up to date (48%)
IT Leaders Need to Provide for Today and Future Proof For What’s To Come
IT leaders play a more strategic role than ever before. They need to consider whether or not to adopt new technology, and accommodate and support a diverse and dispersed workforce, all while keeping costs down and showing ROI for their decisions. For example:
- 66% of CIOs consider communications and collaboration critical to business success.
- 75% of CIOs in the US call communications and collaboration critical to business success.
- IT execs cited the primary reasons for successful user adoption of comms & collaboration tools in their organization as:
- A clearly articulated digital transformation strategy (57%)
- The consolidation of the technologies / platform (49%)
- A move toward a more flexible way of working (45%)
- 39% of IT leaders surveyed report having more than four tools deployed for their comms and collab needs. 8% said they had seven or more tools.
- The top benefits expected from the consolidation to a single UCC tool included:
- Improved team productivity (49%)
- Lower costs (44%)
- Easier management and administration (42%)
- IT leaders are being tasked with driving strategic business goals such as:
- Driving operational efficiencies
- Improving the customer experience
- Reducing costs
AI Continues To Be Top of Mind
AI capabilities are continuously improving in ways that help employees. In the coming year, more and more IT leaders will adopt AI technology for smarter, more efficient collaboration:
- 32% of respondents are leveraging AI technology today, and 49% are evaluating AI technology and have identified use-cases and rollout plans.
- When evaluating AI, the top three places IT leaders are considering implementing AI for collaboration tools are:
- Personal digital assistants (59%)
- Improved analytics for informed decision making (59%)
- Intelligent, automated transcription services (54%)
*2019 Ovum UCC Survey of Over 2,200 global IT Leaders (Directors, Managers, CDO, CTO – IT software decision makers) in US, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil. Field from May-June 2019
Check out more data on our website and click below to get the full report!
