2020 was a year that will be remembered and memorialized in history books.  Not only for the tragedies but also for the tenacity of the human spirit.  When faced with insurmountable challenges, such as the sudden shut down of our entire economy, forcing businesses like yours to develop new ways of doing work overnight.  The same could be said about unified communications.  At the height of the disruption, many businesses like yours turned to unified communications to meet the changing communications demands.  We gathered these 19 Unified Communications Statistics to show why UC was the defacto choice the communicate when the normal way of work was disrupted.

Remote Work is the Key Driver to UC Adoption   

It’s not a surprise to those who have already moved to cloud-based unified communications why the technology had a strong uptick in usage when the stay-at-home orders first went into effect.  If you aren’t already using unified communications for your business (or even if you are) here are some unified communications statistics you won’t want to miss.

1. The global unified communication market size was valued at $32,879 million in 2016 and is projected to reach $74,244 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 12.60% from 2017 to 2023. Allied Market Research
2. Driving the demand for unified communications solutions is expected to be BYOD. Allied Market Research
3. Telepresence accounted for 40% of the global video conferencing market share In 2019 Global Market Insights
4. As of April 2020, 34% of workers that were previously commuting now work from home. MIT
5. As of March 2020, 42% of companies have increased their cloud application and unified communication adoption. Nemertes Research
6. 67% of organizations are moving their unified communications solutions to the cloud. Nemertes Research
7. 61% of businesses with traditional phone systems plan to adopt VoIP phone systems at the end of their contract. Blueface Business Communications
8. Trendsetting organizations were found to be 150% more likely to use mobile communications solutions.  Aberdeen
9. 70% of internal teams will rely on team collaboration tools by 2022. Gartner
10. Institutions that use mobile video in unified communications are 2x more likely to improve the customer service experience. Aberdeen
11. Coming in just behind in-person meetings, video conferencing is the second most preferred method of communication. Owl Labs
12. 34.3% of businesses have reduced IT spending by an average of $161k a year by shifting to cloud-based unified communications as a service. Nemertes Research
13. Businesses have reduced their need to hold in-person meetings by 30%, thanks to the adoption of collaboration tools.  Nemertes Research
14. Over 70% of the global workforce is working remotely for a day a week or more. CNBC
15. 75% of employees who use video conferencing for collaboration while working remotely have reported an enhanced work-life balance. Lifesize
16. 70% of all online conferencing meetings by the year 2022 will be huddle-room meetings. Frost and Sullivan
17. Communications will account for 36% of IT budgets in 2020. 2020 Cloud Communication Trends 
18. In a recent poll, 41% of workers stated they were experimenting with distance working, which in turn was driving the demand for more cloud communications solutions. Source: Mitel cloud adoption white paper.
19. 33% of companies have already moved to the cloud, according to Frost and Sullivan and 38% say they’re planning on doing so in the next two years. Frost and Sullivan 

Communications in the New Abnormal

Irwin Lazar, an analyst with Nemertes Research recently said in his article on TechTarget that “There is little momentum behind the idea of eventually returning to the way things were before the pandemic, where most employees commuted full time to traditional offices. Now, the expectation is the workforce will consist of full-time office work, full-time remote work and those who split their time between home and office.”

The reality is there is no truly going back to “normal” as we were used to it.  Especially when it comes to how, when, and where your employees work.  The new abnormal will consist of a hybrid workforce as Lazar described above, with a combination of full-time office workers, full-time remote workers, and those who do both.  Success in managing this new way of working will fall on technology – especially communications.   You need to ask yourself how well will your current solution handle such a diverse communications strategy and if the answer is not very well, then how do you plan to update it to meet your business needs going forward?

We hope you gained some insights into the changing business communications world with these 19 Unified Communications Statistics.  Here are some more you should consider:

• 45 Statistics on How Video Calling Brings Us Closer
• Remote Work Statistics You Don’t Want to Miss