Any business offered the opportunity to make a change that improves processes, streamlines communications and reduces costs would be silly to not take action. While a number of organizations have adopted VoIP technology to enjoy all of these benefits, still a majority are on the fence.
Whether it’s a lack of knowledge, being too invested in on-premises infrastructure or simply not having enough time to investigate a decision, too many businesses are missing the benefits associated with VoIP. If call recording is a necessity, they’re also missing out on the benefits associated with VoIP call recording, which can provide protection in dispute resolution and auditing for compliance purposes.
The benefits afforded with VoIP, however, have been mainly felt on the residential side. According to Infonetics (News - Alert) Research, the bulk of the revenue in this space has been driven by residential adoption. A 3 percent hike was measured in the first half of 2013, increasing value to $33 billion. Growth is expected to continue on a strong path, but much of that will be led by adoption in the enterprise sector.
The compounded annual growth rate projected for this industry by Infonetics Research is 7 percent between 2012 and 2017. Hosted PBX (News - Alert)/UC continues to experience the strongest growth as businesses are increasingly leaving premises-based systems behind. The biggest adopter in this space is North America, showing a 23 percent spike in SIP trunking in the first half of the year.
Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research (News - Alert), said in a press release: "The VoIP services market is on track with our expectations for 2013. Residential VoIP services make up the majority of revenue, but growth is being fuelled by business services as SIP trunking and cloud unified communications continue to expand and find broader adoption with enterprises of all sizes."
Residential adopters of VoIP are still going strong as the number has topped 203 million. The bigger push, however, will be found in the enterprise sector, especially with the growing adoption of mobile VoIP. Corporate operations are consistently looking for effective methods for driving down the cost of communications, as well as shoring up quality and speed of the network. With the rollout of 4G networks, they’re getting access to the best of both worlds.
In the U.K., this is being delivered by EE, which claims it will have 98 percent coverage by the end of 2014. The provider allows the use of VoIP on its data network, which means significant benefits for U.K. users and great opportunity for those who offer VoIP call recording. Will other providers follow suit? Given this rate of adoption and market coverage, how could they not?
Edited by Alisen Downey