Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

Who says Unified Communications is slow to take off? In an analysis of the North American hosted IP telephony and UC&C services market, Frost & Sullivan reports that 2014 saw 8 million installed users, with a projection of 41.9 million users installed by 2021. That number will be mostly small and medium businesses (SMBs). Next in line will be large, distributed organizations looking to streamline their communications infrastructure and IT operations, while managing a remote workforce.

As it transitions from the early-adopter to mass-adoption stage, the North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) services market is seeing growth rates accelerating. This is mainly due to an increase in customer awareness of cloud communications benefits. Providers are now compelled to differentiate their products through innovative features as scrutiny of service quality and reliability has increased. Vendors’ focus is gradually switching to refining their UC offerings, after successfully convincing SMBs to adopt the technology.

With the features and functionality already consolidated at this point, Frost & Sullivan Unified Communications & Collaboration Program Manager Robert Arnold advises service providers to follow suit and offer strong customer onboarding, automated sales and consultation, efficient service provisioning and upgrades, and consistent support.

“With entrants vying for market share and many participants joining forces through mergers and acquisitions, vendors must align their growth objectives with market needs, portfolio capabilities, and marketing approaches to carve their place in the still-untapped North American market,” according to Arnold.

Rapid penetration of hosted services among larger businesses will reportedly help boost profitability in the IP telephony and UC&C sector as big companies generally engage for the long run and also require more advanced features. Vendors with a differentiated value proposition will further propel the market forward, the consulting firm says, as their main target will be new customer segments.