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Collaboration

5 predictions for public sector UC in 2016

Sally Bakhuizen
November 11, 2015

Posted on behalf of Kevin Renshaw

Kevin Renshaw is the Portfolio Director at Capita IT Enterprise Services – www.capita-ites.co.uk/UC

Unified Communications (UC) has changed considerably from the early days of instant messaging bolt-on services. We have arrived at a collaboration Utopia, where everything can be integrated into a single service and users can jump in and out of different applications seamlessly, using the very best tools for each job, location and situation.

So what does the future hold for UC in the public sector? How will they adopt this joined up approach to UC going forwards, and what will that mean for their employees? What trends can we expect to see within councils, government departments and hospitals alike?

Shift towards mobile UC

The way we work and the way we see the workplace has completely transformed over the last five years. The office isn’t a building with your desk in it anymore. Not only that, but people now expect to be able to work from anywhere, especially those who are regularly on-the-road, out of the office and conducting their jobs in the ‘real world’. People like social workers, housing association workers and community nurses.

As UC contracts come to an end and in-house solutions start to need replacing, public sector bodies will increasingly supplant them with mobile UC solutions. Mobile is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ – most organisations have come to recognise it as essential. This shift will support key field workers, and in many cases reduce the carbon footprint of entire teams. When people can collaborate on-the-go, they can crack on and get to their next appointment, holding meetings wherever they are, without the need to head back into the office in-between.

Facilitating a hot desking culture

Following on with our theme of mobility, we know that many key workers within healthcare, local and even central government spend a lot of time on the road. In situations like this, it makes sense to have a culture of hot desking, in order to better support the way people prefer and need to work, as well as making sure precious space doesn’t go to waste. This is possible only with true collaboration, when people can work as easily on-the-move as they do in the office.

As councils start to adopt the kind of UC that allows them to implement hot desks as the normal way of working, we will see a trend where they are able to release significant sums of money by consolidating their property portfolios, while enabling their people to work more effectively.

Shift from individual to enterprise productivity

UC of the past was all about enabling individual productivity, about giving people one or two different ways to get in touch with each other. But successful public sector organisations are starting to look at solutions that enable their whole enterprise to collaborate more effectively.

This trend is about a shift in focus from individual productivity, which has been pushed to its limits, to group productivity, which is only just starting to reach its potential. With virtual teams an increasingly common occurrence, collaboration technology will become the catalyst for reimagined models of teamwork.

Increase in cloud-based UC adoption

For public sector organisations with ageing in-house solutions, cloud-based UC will give them a chance to migrate to a more comprehensive platform without the large, upfront investments normally associated with that level of technology upgrade. Furthermore, the ability to access UC services from a secure, private cloud environment will enable public sector bodies with concerns over data security, to embrace the flexibility of the cloud in a risk free manner.

Councils, government departments and healthcare organisations will want to pay only for what they use, when they use it, without the pain of maintaining the infrastructure themselves. This follows a general global trend for businesses to move more and more key services into the cloud, to enjoy greater flexibility in terms of scale and cost.

The rise of video

As our networks get faster and we are able to transmit more data safely and cheaply, we will see the rise of video to become the primary tool within the UC portfolio.

With services like Cisco HCS able to make video tools available on any device, from laptops to smartphones and tablets, video conferencing is becoming the normal, everyday way to communicate for many colleagues and virtual teams. With mobility a key theme for 2016, this will transform the way people are able to use video tools – from anywhere and on any device – driving ever increasing adoption of video.

Kevin Renshaw is the Portfolio Director at Capita IT Enterprise Services, which provides a completely secure, UK-based, Unified Communications in the Cloud service, based on the Cisco HCS platform – www.capita-ites.co.uk/UC