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December 29, 2014

Unified Communications Have Unexpected Impact with SMB Market

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

The small and medium-sized business (SMB) market has, in the past, been regarded as several things. It's been a source of opportunity, a source of strife, a jobs creator and a market opportunity unparalleled in modern times. But SMBs aren't just valuable for what can be offered by same, but also for what said markets have to teach the rest of us. A new study considers the kind of value that SMBs are offering when it comes to the unified communications (UC) market, and it's a kind of value that needs to be considered.



The UC market, at last report, has seen its value rise fully 27 percent since 2013, and by 2018, the combination of UC services and cloud-based private branch exchange (PBX (News - Alert)) services is set to be a market with a combined value of $12 billion. The SMB part of that market, meanwhile, is expected to be substantial, and with so many parts of UC and PBX at hand, it's worth getting a handle on just what's driving this field.

Recent reports suggest that, when it comes to SMBs, respondents are most eager to get what's known as single-number identity capability, or the ability to use the same single business number across multiple devices for both inbound and outbound calling, a development which makes plenty of sense. With single-number identity, users need only promote one number—in advertisements and the like—to the wider community to have services reached. But there were some further issues; two out of three respondents reportedly noted that there was no way for said respondents to access presence information, and that the biggest benefit UC offered was that all normal communications tools were available in one place.

Naturally, that wasn't all the information to be had from this study. It also revealed that SMB staff of all stripes use personal devices for work as seemingly a matter of routine, with owners using devices only slightly more than the employees of same, with 77 percent for owners reporting such use and 76 percent of employees doing likewise. Moreover, a panoply of different devices get involved when it comes to SMB users; 22 percent uses both home and cell phone for work, while 10 percent have a work phone. Eight percent turn to a home phone exclusively for work, and six percent have no work phone at all.

This can in turn yield serious problems for the MSB user—missed calls, the need to maintain separate contact lists and issues of sheer professionalism can be a problem here—and in turn helps explain why single-number identity is so prized. Yet despite the clear acceptance of value, just nine percent of owners involve single-number identity in the operation, and only 11 percent of employees can say that the various devices have single-number identity.

So why the clear separation? Why do users know how valuable this tool is yet not have it? Perhaps it's not offered in an area, or perhaps it's unavailable for economic reasons. But it's clear that SMBs understand the kind of power that UC and similar tools can have in connecting businesses to the outside world, but also making connections within that inner-space of small business. Whether it's employees working remotely, or just allowing potential customers to better find the business, it's clear that UC has the kind of capability that SMBs need. UC firms looking for a great new opportunity, meanwhile, may do well to focus on SMBs, and delivering those tools best of use.

Edited by Maurice Nagle

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