Executives Must Understand the Direction of Calling

The world of calling is changing in a fundamental way.

At first it was cordless phones, then it was cellular phones. After that came smartphones, but the biggest change is still in the works. Soon we won’t be using phones at all—we will just be talking, with voice communication integrated into our Internet connection no matter what device we are using.

This is the future, and it is already starting to appear in the form of the new unified communications standard known as WebRTC. WebRTC enables calling from any modern Web browser, and that means that calling has already started to become about clicking a link instead of dialing a number.

Yet, according to research firm Gartner, a surprising number of executives still are pretty ignorant about voice-over-IP (VoIP) and the future of calling.

“They need to become aware of the way that voice is becoming embedded into their mainstream business applications such as email, ERP and voice-escorted Web browsing to aid customer transactions,” noted Gartner vice president Geoff Johnson.

Not understanding the direction of calling has both short-term and long-term implications for business.

On the short-term, failing to understand VoIP is money left on the table. VoIP costs less than traditional landline-based business phone systems because it uses the Internet to make calls instead of dedicated phone lines that are much more costly. It also delivers many more features at far lower costs, and international calls are much less.

There’s also lost efficiency in the short-term, because VoIP saves man hours that otherwise would be spent on maintaining business phone systems. VoIP also enables employees to become more mobile because they can take their office phones with them, essentially. Traditional business phone networks are just a losing proposition against the more modern VoIP technology.

But there are also long-term implications.

As any good executive knows, reading the news each morning is all about staying current with the business climate and the direction of things. It helps an executive craft strategy and understand the market and the consumer, and how business will be changing on a macro level.

By not understanding VoIP and where calling is going, executives are missing a crucial piece of the future of things. There are both many opportunities and many pitfalls for businesses as a result of this shift in calling, and the executive who doesn’t understand VoIP is currently not paying close enough attention to the important trends that will shape business in the future.

With that in mind, the Gartner findings are worrisome. The telephony revolution could be a major disruption to firms who are not ready, and an opportunity for those that are prepared.

Edited by Alisen Downey