What does 2023 have in store for the VoIP and cloud tech landscapes?
With the new year upon us, we're continuing our tradition of gazing into the crystal ball to examine the year’s top focuses and sticky trends. A couple of entries are perennial favorites, showing up in our 2022 cloud VoIP trends and 2021 cloud phone system trends blogs, while others fit in nicely with patterns in our society at-large. There’s also another –aaS term to add to the mix! Brush up on topics and themes that you can expect to see more of in ‘23.
1) Security as a Service
Cybersecurity continues to make a recurring appearance every year, as hackers, malware, and social engineering pose an ongoing threat to corporations. This time, we’re spotlighting an –aaS software model that is another tool companies can utilize to safeguard their data.
Security as a Service (SECaaS) provides cybersecurity features to businesses through a third-party, cloud-based provider. Like other –aaS software, companies pay a subscription fee to SECaaS providers in order to use their services.
The benefits of using this type of service are similar to those delivered by other SaaS solutions: Ongoing costs that fit your business needs, access to and use of top-of-the-line services hosted by the provider, and regular tech and software updates (also handled by the provider).
This is an intriguing cybersecurity entry on our 2023 list. Let’s see how SECaaS unfolds throughout the next few months.
2) Cloud Resilient Business Practices
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic—and the subsequent en-masse adoption of remote working—continue to reach us here in 2023. Companies had to quickly implement ways of doing business with a dispersed workforce, and that’s where cloud resiliency comes into play.
Moving your business to cloud-based services, having a plan for coming back up from outages or other related downtime, developing resilient software architecture—these are all practical examples of a cloud resilient business. Expect to see these cloud technology trends developed into other business practices and applications throughout the year.
3) AI and Hosted VoIP
This was on the 2022 list, and it's being included again as AI continues to work its way into hosted VoIP platforms. The well-known example here is website chatbots that can interact with site visitors. However, there are other ways that AI is being built into VoIP features. Think of IVR menus that listen to callers’ spoken responses and route them to the appropriate departments or employees.
Another standout example is sentiment analysis software, mostly found within contact center and UC platforms. This AI-based software can ‘listen’ to a caller’s tone of voice and display on a dashboard if the caller is happy (some form of green icon), indifferent (a gray icon), or angry (a red/yellow icon). These icons will change over the course of the conversation as a caller’s tone changes as well. Supervisors can instantly see which calls may be going badly and take immediate action to improve the situation. They can also use these visual summaries of calls to help train and coach their call agents.
Keep on the lookout for exciting new features at the intersection of VoIP, AI, and customer experience!
4) A Multicloud Approach
Honestly, your business may already be taking advantage of the multicloud but you just didn’t know there’s a term for it!
At its simplest, it’s a strategy that harnesses the services of various cloud-based providers. If you’re using different cloud products for your CRM platform, helpdesk, website hosting, and VoIP service, congratulations! You’re already in the multicloud.
At its most complex, the multicloud approach involves the use of separate providers for your infrastructure, platform, and software needs, and the integration needed to get them working harmoniously.
It looks like in 2023, more and more companies will have their heads in the multicloud. Look for business practices to be refined to accommodate this approach.
5) Green Computing in Cloud Tech
While electric vehicles and solar panels have gotten most of the buzz lately, the ‘going green’ initiative is also taking hold in IT and technology. Green computing is a practice that is applicable throughout the entire lifecycle of electronics and technologies, from their design and use to their disposal at end-of-life.
Some applications of green computing include:
- Designing and manufacturing electronics to be energy efficient and/or composed of sustainably sourced parts
- Arranging the tech in your office or data center with a focus on reducing its overall energy consumption
- Taking advantage of auto turn off abilities when devices are not in use
- Repurposing or recycling old phone system equipment and other electronics
We’ve previously explored how VoIP reduces your business carbon footprint, so using a VoIP service absolutely factors in here, too! We’re excited to list this practice as one of our top cloud technology trends of this new year.