At the beginning of 2020, an estimated 62 percent of full-time employees in the United States worked remotely at least to some degree, according to Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work survey. That number steeply increased in the wake of COVID-19. This escalation in working offsite requires the use of virtual communication tools to keep teams on the same page, despite shifts in workflow and location.

While switching to digital forms of communication makes it quick and simple to exchange information on various platforms, a survey from Clarizen indicates that too many different sources can lead to communication overload. In fact, 81 percent of respondents cite this as a hindrance to their productivity.

Virtual communication vs. the pandemic

So, the question becomes, how can teams harness the benefits of information technology and not be slowed down by all those applications buzzing for their attention? This is where you, as a B2B solutions provider, come in.

When you offer companies Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) with the virtual communication and collaboration component, you enable them to streamline their entire work flow. As a result, efficiency and agility both improve, which 90 percent of employees say can boost their work environment morale, according to the 2019 State of Employee Communication and Engagement Study.

Lets take a look at the three main ways how virtual communication simplifies the IT stack for your B2B customers. In the midst of all these worldwide fluctuations, connection is what companies need more of right now.    

UCaaS centralizes all communication flows

There are many virtual communication streams to choose from, including phone, chat, video, email, social media and file sharing. Using all of these as separate tools, however, is often a waste of time, causing employees to switch back-and-forth between channels and break their focus. UCaaS platforms consolidate different methods of communication onto a single cloud-based network that users can access from anywhere. All they need is a reliable internet connection and an account with you 🙂

In fact, the adopters of UCaaS are 62 percent more productive, 45 percent more efficient and 32 percent collaborative. This also reduces the amount of time that IT staff would otherwise have to spend monitoring, securing and troubleshooting the back-end of various applications.   

UCaaS allows for the integration of other software

Streamlined communication is a valuable asset, but it’s not the only benefit UCaaS has to offer to B2B customers. With its open APIs, it also allows for the integration of software, including customer relationship management (CRM), resource planning, project management and cloud storage.

UCaaS integration creates an IT ecosystem where team members can work on projects together, share any type of files, join conference calls, store data securely and perform other business-critical operations.     

UCaaS makes it easy to collect analytics

Data is a valuable resource for companies across all industries and sectors and the right metrics position your business to build a measurable, actionable strategy.

While the tracking and reporting of data analytics is not new, UCaaS reveals “deeper insight by combining location data with other information from the CRM [customer relationship management] like age, gender and income to identify the different demographics of their audience. From there, the company can form a more focused strategy that aims for market penetration,” explains Louis Andre, B2B and SaaS analyst for Finances Online.

This real-time access to data makes it simple to meet customer needs and enables IT staff to work on other functions that require optimization. That may be why the global UCaaS market size is projected to surge from $15.8 billion as of 2019 to $24.8 billion in 2024, estimates the Unified Communications as a Service Market Report. This is a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 percent, and its steady uptick indicates that, in all likelihood, UCaaS is more than a trend, but a long-term business solution.

Help your customers help themselves

Companies will need to adapt more than ever to virtual communication and UCaaS is a critical tool for managing and simplifying their IT stack.

This frees them to better serve customers, refine systems and processes, collaborate as a team, and ultimately grow. All because you helped them become more efficient.