The Future is Now: The State of Business Communications in 2025

The communication landscape is changing rapidly.

In recent years, we’ve seen the delivery of everything from advanced collaboration strategies to virtual assistants and artificial intelligence. Now, some companies are beginning to look forward and predict what the future of our conversations will look like in the years to come.

Already, emerging trends and technology offer an insight into the way that our business communication will evolve. Everything from a demand for greater mobility, to the need for better user experiences, is sure to impact the environment. Here’s what we see for the future of the corporate conversation.

1. The Office Environment Will Change

It’s not hard to imagine an office environment that’s vastly different from the one we used to know. Already, brick-and-mortar businesses are getting smaller, as more employees choose to work from home. In fact, by 2020, half of the UK workforce is set to work remotely.

Although many predictions suggest the changing office environment will mean the end of the desk phone, that may not be the case for some businesses. Instead, it’s likely that the endpoints you use for communication will be more advanced and more mobile than ever before.

There’s also a good chance that smartphones will begin to play more of a role in communication as BYOD becomes more popular. More than 80% of employees feel that smartphones will be a part of the future workplace according to IBM.

2. 5G Drives Transformation

Speaking of the demand for mobility, greater connections on the go should be easier to achieve in the years ahead. Already, we’re beginning to explore the possibilities of better-unified telecommunications through 5G connectivity. According to Juniper research, by the time we reach 2025, there will be more than 1.4 billion 5G connections in the world.

As enterprise mobility continues to drive transformations in the business environment, we may also see smartphones and wearable technology getting smarter. We’re already looking at bendable phones, augmented reality apps and facial recognition in the consumer landscape. Who knows what the business space could be capable of by 2025?

3. Data Plays a Bigger Role

Data continues to be one of the most buzz-worthy topics in the world of business communications. Thanks to an increased number of mobile workers, embedded devices and network protocols, we’re all generating increased amounts of data each day. Going forward, companies will need to find a way to manage and analyse that data, without going against privacy protocols.

The rise of new regulations like GDPR has changed the way that we handle data for good. In the years ahead, organisations investing in unified telecommunications will need to choose a vendor that can maintain their security and privacy compliance standards.

4. Unified Communication and Collaboration as Standard

Finally, the question “What is unified communication” will become less common in 2025, as more people embrace the power of an end-to-end communications system. As the ISDN and PSTN network ends in 2025, companies will move to VoIP systems more aggressively, and discover the flexibility and features that come with them.

Already, unified communications is becoming an increasingly popular and crucial part of the business space, driven by the increasing demands and expectations of customers. With unified communication and collaboration, companies can achieve a more cohesive and productive workforce.

Author’s Bio:

Irina Kirnos is a Product Marketing Manager at RingCentral in EMEA. With experience in the cloud software and communication industry spanning Silicon Valley, Research Triangle Park and now London, she enjoys working collaboratively with global teams to develop product messaging and positioning, sales enablement and competitive differentiation. Irina grew up in San Francisco, California and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Check out one of her articles: The Best & Worst Productivity Apps: 2019 Edition.