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The New Power Couple By Martin Vilaboy U CaaS and CCaaS have never been hot- ter. As greater reli- ance on at-home and mobile workforces become part of the “new normal,” cloud services such as these enable businesses to deliver modern, collaborative communications environ- ments that can be rapidly scaled, easily expanded to new sites and flexibly deployed – all without large capital investment. As of the end of 2019, about a third of organizations (31.3 percent) surveyed by Nemertes Research were using UCaaS for their calling, messaging and meeting application needs, while 45 percent were leveraging CCaaS for customer engagement. A further 33.2 percent of those with on-premises UC platforms stated plans to move to UCaaS. What’s more, cloud com- munications isn’t just for small compa- nies anymore as 30 percent of large enterprises (with more than 2,500 employees) and 31.7 percent of mid- sized organizations (with between 250 and 2,500 employees) having plans to adopt communications-as-a-service platforms, show Nemertes surveys. “Those who fail to take advantage of emerging capabilities like AI, en- hanced collaboration features, reduced costs and more flexible deployment models risk falling behind their com- petitors,” analysts at Nemertes Re- search warned. If there is a primary reason why organizations are not moving toward cloud communications, or harbor some doubts, it is likely due to a lack of confidence in their networks. “Suc- cessful deployments require address- ing network architecture and service quality,” said Nemertes analysts. Indeed, separate surveys by IDG suggest a plurality of business are challenged by network performance and service consistency as they transi- tion to cloud communica- tions across increasingly sprawling networks. Data security is the chief con- cern, named by seven of 10 respondents to IDG surveys on the matter. Perhaps that’s not surprising consider- ing the sensitive internal and customer data be- ing generated, collected and stored in home offices and on workers’ laptops. Not far behind, however, were concerns over delivering consistent services globally (63 percent) and managing network performance (57 percent). Likewise, when asked to consider their number one criterion for making UCaaS and CCaaS strategy deci- sions, network performance and reli- ability was second only to security, which was named number one by a whopping 44 percent. SD-WAN, say its proponents, di- rectly and cost-effectively addresses these top concerns over switching to cloud-based communications. And increasingly, SD-WAN’s agile software- based networking environment, argue researchers at Nemertes, is seen by providers and buyers as a founda- tion for communications-based digital AT YOUR SERVICE: XaaS UCaaS, SD-WAN working hand and hand 34 CHANNEL VISION | July - August, 2020