UC spending will continue to increase as firms drive their digital transformation strategies post-pandemic, according to the findings of European research commissioned by technology distributor Nuvias UC.
Nuvias UC's research was conducted among over 1,500 IT decision-makers at organisations across the UK, the Benelux region, Sweden, France, Spain and Italy.
It found that the pandemic forced businesses to “change and accelerate” their digital transformation strategies to cope with a world of remote work, with expenditure on UC technologies “rocketing” to meet demands.
In the past 18 months, 67 percent of UK IT decision-makers, for instance, said their spending on UC was “more than planned for”. This was higher than the European average of 63 percent.
But there is no sign of UC spending slowing down. In fact, almost half of UK respondents (47 percent) said their predicted spending in the next 12 months is “more than previously planned for”.
For some, this trend is due to businesses “regretting their lack of investment” in UC throughout the pandemic. A quarter of UK respondents (22 percent) said not investing enough in the first place is their “biggest regret” about their digital transformation during COVID-19. This was most significant in Spain (31 percent) and least significant in Sweden (19 percent).
Moving forward, UC spending likely remains a key priority for firms as they further embrace a hybrid way of working.
UK companies (98 percent) are “confident” in their readiness to support the hybrid workforce, with a further 89 percent saying their collaboration tools had a “positive impact” on how their employees coped with the transition to remote working.
But businesses still recognise the challenges that lie ahead when it comes to communication and integration in a post-pandemic era. The adoption of hybrid ways of working requires organisations to build a flexible UC infrastructure that can simultaneously accommodate remote and in-office operations.
