Top 5 Digital Workplace Trend in 2021 [Statistics Included]

Top 5 Digital Workplace Trend in 2021 [Statistics Included]

“We’ve seen two years of digital transformation in two months.”

The year before, no one could expect where 2020 would take us: the global, long-term pandemic has uprooted us from the work lives we’ve had for decades, and virtually overnight, most of the workforce began working remotely. It wasn’t exactly easy. Businesses rushed to adopt new technologies to survive; and the last six months alone have produced more digital transformation than the past decade.Digital Transformation Spending Worldwide 2017-2023

Source: Statistia, Digital transformation spending worldwide 2017-2023).

But what was changed beneath the large landscape? After all, it’s not the first predicament businesses have faced. Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) organizations have experienced at least one crisis in the last 5 years, and 95% are convinced it won’t be their last.

Cloud Pbx Singapore - Pwc Global Crisis Survey

It’s all about business resilience and digital networking. To move from the survive to the stive mode in 2021, IT agility and digital workplace resilience will become the new emphasis for business to cope with the future uncertainties and the increasingly set of dynamic and distributed set of users, devices, applications, and workloads.

From cloud, mobility, virtual collaboration to smart office, many digital workplace technologies will be elevated from the nice-to-have to must-have status. To get a sense of where these opportunities may lie, here are 5 important digital workplace trends that you should be aware of.

1. Hybrid Cloud is Gaining Momentum

From UCaaS applications and on-prem solutions to a mix of on-prem infrastructure, public and private cloud, hybrid cloud strategies help organizations strike the right balance for their unique infrastructure needs. Over the past years, we have seen a major growth of tools that enable simpler connectivity between on-premises infrastructure and cloud service. These investments are all about meeting the customer where they are at the moment.

According to 2020 IDG research about business IT environments, only 9% of organizations’ environment is all cloud, while 54% said theirs are mostly on-premised with some cloud and 29% said mostly on the cloud with some on-premises. And in the wake of global pandemic, IT leaders are increasingly adopting hybrid cloud to reduce costs, increase flexibility, and improve business resilience.

21% of organizations are moving additional workloads to the public cloud due to the pandemic-related CapEX issues.” 

Source: IDC, “COVID-19 Impact Survey, Wave 5”, 2020

The hybrid cloud model not only addresses the technological barriers to remote business connectivity and collaborations, but also being proactive on issues like business investment, privacy, security, and compliance.

2. Work from Home Outlasts COVID-19

Workers have been clamoring for increased work flexibility for a long time and the global pandemic has greatly accelerated that process. According to a Gartner survey of 129 business leaders worldwide, over 80% of respondents plan to permit remote work after the pandemic. And in a PwC survey of 6669 CEOs, 78% agree that remote collaboration is here to stay for the long-term.

Part of what made this possible is the availability of cutting-edge remote unified communications and collaboration tools. Last year, we have seen the explosive growth of WFH-enabled services like Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams, and at Yeastar ourselves, the Linkus Cloud Service and Cloud PBX. And we will see a remnant of this for the next few years at least, and maybe beyond as this trend already had momentum before 2020.

The long-lasting global work-from-home movement will continue to drive the demand for UC&C applications and improve business productivity despite physical distance.

3. Video Conferencing Continues to Boom

Now more than ever before, companies are using video conferencing to connect with employees, customers, and partners. In fact, a Forbes study shows that video conferencing is becoming the new norm (as the consensus of 80% of business executives worldwide). And a market share analysis by Global Market Insights also predicts that the global video conferencing market will grow at over 19% CAGR between 2020 and 2026.Video Conferening Market Insight. Source: Global Market Insights

Source: Global Market Insights, Video Conferencing Market Size by Component

The reasons for the boom are obvious: video is more dynamic and now more a necessity. Experiencing the short chaos moving from physical face-to-face communications to online meetings, businesses now become to realize how effective and productive video conferencing is. It shortens the business turnaround time with eliminated traveling, strengthens relationships, and makes sharing easier with a variety of communications tools including live streaming, screen sharing, digital whiteboard, and integrated chat. With increasing market acceptance and demand, video conferencing will only continue to boom as a critical part of digital workplace collaboration.

4. IoT for Intelligent Digital Workplace

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a “system of systems” in which electronic devices, apps, and platform services are interconnected together to create new modes of collaboration and business efficiency. It has been changing the way people work for a while now, but with the influx of remote workers, the technology has a greater chance to shine.

Forrester Research predicts that at least 80% of companies will adopt new office safety and resource efficiency strategies in the post-pandemic era and IoT plays a critical role. Smart IoT applications like sensor-enabled space utilization, remote equipment management, and inter-platform collaboration will increasingly be the main empower to fuel workflow automation and employee productivity.

For leaders in the VoIP industry, there are opportunities to spot beneath the large trend as well. According to the Microsoft IoT Signals report (Oct. 2020), nearly one in three (33%) of decision-makers state that their organizations will increase investment in IoT due to the pandemic. And part of that might be contributed by the smart interactions between digital communications and the physical environment. And business-critical desktop and mobile applications, video conferencing endpoints, meeting controllers, and sensors might play a vital role to support safe and digital working environments.

Related: VoIP + IoT? Synergy Drives the Future of Smart Solution

5. The Rise of All-in-one Communications Ecosystem

With a new focus on being always connected, businesses today want communications solutions that are media-richer, opener, more connected than before. Instead of having a standalone system, users are increasingly interested in the ones that are versatile and can interconnect various 3rd-party business services to streamline data processing and facilitate team collaboration.

The increasing need to reduce enterprise overhead costs and the need to eliminate the purchase of standalone systems have propelled the market over the past few years.”

Source: Grand View Research, Unified Communications Market Size, Industry Report, 2019-2020

Systems that featuring Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) – incorporating multimedia-capacity such as voice, video, text, and BYOD applications in one tech stack – will become the mainstream. And those who have ready integrations for popular CRM platforms and collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams will outperform.

Worldwide unified communications & collaboration (UC&C) revenue grew 25.1% year over year and 12.4% quarter over quarter to $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2020.”Source: IDC, Worldwide Quarterly Unified Communications & Collaboration QView.

What This Means for the Workplace of Tomorrow

Digital workplace is all about the employees’ ability to do their job by collaborating, communicating, and connecting with others. The proliferated technologies such as Hybrid Cloud, Unified Communications, and IoT are poised to take monumental enhancement to how businesses will work in the near and far future.

Considering the long-lasting “work-from-home” movement and the growing “hybrid” way of working today, most businesses will need unified communications solutions like Yeastar P-Series that drive boundless team communications & collaborations, regardless of devices, platform and distance.

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User Login

Instantaneously receive user login credentials via email once the extension has been deployed by the adminstrator.

Log in conveniently via any web browser for access to the user portal.

Integrations

Integrate various CRM software for better customer service and satisfaction.

Enable transcription of audio messages into text with integration of third-party transcription service.

Enable API for integration with various third-party integrations for advanced performance such as call center and hotel reception services.

System

Provision email SMTP and template settings for event notifications to be sent out.

Manage storage allocation and duration of various types of data being stored on the PBX.

Determine the types of event notifications to be sent out, and the parties receiving them.

IVR

Add various audio voice prompts to be played according to different call scenarios.

Add voice prompts on multiple levels for more effecient and precise inbound call routing.

Voicemail

Customize default voicemail settings for each user extension.

Add various voicemail messages for allocation to different call scenarios and users.

Provision specific rules to how voicemail messages are played over the PBX system for better caller experience.

Reports and CDR

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Use intuitive visual call reports, to check various call statistics over extensions, trunks, queues, ring groups, and more.

Call reports can be viewed and downloaded directly from the PBX, or scheduled to be sent via email to respective parties.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Limit the number of otbound calls users are allowed to make within a time period to protect against toll fraud.

Restrict certain country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

User Login

Determine extension ranges for different functions.

Define use of different voice prompts depending on call scenarios or intended function.

Provision basic and advanced SIP settings to be used on the PBX.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified trunks, including inbound and outbound calls.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified extensions, conferences, or call queues.

Paging and Intercom

Create different types of paging and intercom broadcast groups for selected extensions.

Set a time schedule to automatically start your broadcast.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Conference

Pre-set conference settings and dial-in passwords for security, and allow internal users to send conference invites to external parties.

Speed Dial

Create multiple speed dial numbers to respective external numbers frequently used for outgoing calls.

Speed dial is activated when the set prefix (default or customized) is dialed.

Ring Group

Create multiple ring groups and determine custom ring strategies and failover settings for each.

Call Queue

Create different call queues with specific ring strategies and failover settings.

Static agents permanently answer calls in queue, while dynamic agents can log in and out. Allocate different extensions to each group.

Determine what actions are to be allowed for Mangers or Agents to manage on the Queue Panel.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions or destinations within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Organize company contacts into dedicated phonebooks and determine accessibility rights to extension groups for each.

Bulk import a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

Role and Client Permission

Pre-defined user roles within the PBX are conveniently available for allocation, or create your own set of permissions.

Restrict users from viewing specific extensions, departments, or extension groups with Extension Visibility.

Allow or resrict specific users from managing or viewing certain company contacts

Auto Provision

Pre-defined setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models are conveniently available for easy set-up.

IP Phones can be quickly provisioned to your Yeastar PBX with just the pre-defined template and device MAC address.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Different types of trunks can be created, Caller ID can be customized.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Configure default call and user settings for individual extensions.

Customize allocation of user extensions to specific ring groups.

Portal Login Page

Receive your administrator log-in credentials and set-up guide via email.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Installation Wizard will guide you through basic configurations.

User Login

Access all company contacts made available to you by the administrator.

Create your own personal contacts list for easy reference and dialing.

Bulk import contact details for convenient data entry.

User Login

Access and manage user settings for softphone application and voicemail.

Manage call routing and presence status for your individual extension.

Retrieve or download your personal call logs and recordings.

User Login

Receive your log-in credentials and set-up guide via email, sent by your admin.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Configure contacts and personal settings from the web portal.

Auto Provision

Add, remove, or modify IP phone settings from your web interface.

Upgrade IP phone firmware conveniently from your PBX.

Upload various default setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models for greater convenience during set-up.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Have detailed contact information for your vendors and clients conveniently stored .

Bulk add a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

PBX Monitor

Monitor the status extensions, whether they aren idle, in use, or unavailable.

Know whether your SIP Trunk running properly, or experiencing problems.

Monitor the number of call conferences currently running on your PBX, and their individual durations.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Call Detailed Report

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Filter by date, time, or extension number to retrieve specific call logs or recordings

Playback call recordings directly from the PBX or download to store externally.

Event Center

Determine what events and logs are to be recorded and/or have notifications sent.

Specify particular notifications to be sent to respective authorized personnel.

User Permission

Set up vaious groups of users for allocation to certain sets of access rules.

Determine what features a certain group of extensions can or cannot access.

Determine if users can access, play-back, or download call logs and recordings from the pbx.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Determine specific the range of SIP ports for connection between your PBX and endpoints.

Restrict country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

Voice Prompt

Upload and designate customised audio recordings at multiple levels of a call journey.

Upload recorded music to fill the silence that would be heard by callers on hold.

Upload customised voice prompts to create a professional call experience.

General

Customize general call preferences either company-wide or for individual extensions.

Set-up feature dial codes for convenient user navigation to specific call features.

Determine how voicemails are retrieved, and also upload custom voicemail recordings.

Call Features

Add multiple automated responses to be played at different phases of a call journey.

Designate specific extensions to ring concurrently based on an external caller's dial pattern.

Customize messages and waiting times to keep external callers engaged when put on hold.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Provision SIP trunk settings and dedicate them to particular extensions.

Bulk add DDIs on each SIP trunk, for allocation to an individual or groups of extensions.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Allocate and deploy specific extension numbers to respective users via email.

Set-up default ring and presence status settings for individual users.

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