It’s no surprise that as we look at unified communication and collaboration (UC&C) trends for 2025, rapidly advancing technologies are set to re-shape communication strategies and the future of enterprise communication.

In a recent IR webinar featuring a host of UC&C industry veterans including Mark Zerbe, Chuck Geisler, Dave Murphy, Adolfo Ochoa, and Kerry Gregg, we take a look at what’s next in the UC&C industry.

Watch the full webinar here.

Trend 1: Return to Office (RTO) – bridging the gap between in-person and digital engagement

As many organizations are mandating a full return to the office in 2025, employees are having a mixed reaction, with nearly half considering leaving their job, rather than returning to full time in-office work.

Amongst other concerns, fully and mostly remote employees are worried about whether their current working setup and network resources, devices and applications will continue to function from an in-office location as well as in a remote setting.

The key to ensuring always-on connectability and incident-free, seamless communication is having the tools in place to monitor and manage network infrastructure. Full observability is non-negotiable in a remote, hybrid and in-office setting. Meeting and conferencing applications like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, or any other communication platform needs to have full connectivity. Employees need access to file sharing, web browsing, messaging applications and all of the tools within the network infrastructure that helps them do their jobs efficiently.

Trend 2: Healthcare spotlight – an industry in flux

Audio Visual (AV) communication, like telemedicine, has increased 78% since 2000 and continues to have a high rate of adoption in the post-pandemic healthcare landscape, with people continuing to opt for online consultations over commuting to an in-person appointment.

With healthcare organizations leaning more and more on cutting-edge UC&C technology, we are seeing a significant increase in demand for tools to effectively monitor and manage these technology environments. The need to ensure 100% uptime is critical to delivering quality patient care, and is becoming a differentiator for leading healthcare organizations.

By ensuring that every communication, between staff, practitioners and patients, connects reliably and maintains adequate bandwidth and stability, healthcare providers can safeguard their reputation, ensure efficient use of valuable time and resources, and deliver a superior quality of care for patients.

Trend 3: The ongoing evolution of MSPs

The future of managed service providers (MSPs) is being driven by rapid technological innovations and shifts in business needs.

With the MSP market growing by 13% in 2024 to a value of US$475 billion, it’s clear that MSPs play a crucial role in helping organizations leverage technology to best ensure continued growth – both for themselves and their clients. However, there are several challenges along the road ahead.

The growing complexity of IT infrastructure, the rise of cloud adoption and UCaaS, ever-multiplying security threats, rapidly evolving technologies, like AI, and new regulation requirements are increasing the demands on MSPs. To meet these demands, MSPs must prioritize strategies for visibility, scalability, and operational efficiency.

By adopting comprehensive monitoring solutions and leveraging tools that offer cross-platform insights, MSPs can enhance their ability to manage diverse environments, including on-premises, hybrid, and remote infrastructures. This proactive approach is essential to ensuring seamless service delivery and maintaining trust in today’s interconnected, fast-paced business environment.

Trend 4: Cloud migrations – a hot topic (again)

Many organizations are still grappling with cloud migration. For many companies, the cloud provides ease of management and operation. But for other larger enterprise organizations, particularly in heavily regulated industries like government and healthcare, the complexity associated with compliance and data management can act as a significant barrier.

With the rise of GenAI, the pressure will be on businesses to be better and faster at what they do, making cloud migration an increasingly critical priority in 2025.

Success on this journey will be reliant on having a solid, well thought out cloud migration plan that ensures a smooth, timely and effective transition that addresses key objectives across the business and includes ongoing testing and monitoring.

If your IT environment is multi-faceted, spanning public and private clouds, on-premises systems and hybrid infrastructures, having full visibility and control of your ecosystem is essential to ensure you realise the full potential of your cloud migration.

Trend 5: Collaboration for the Intelligent Age

As highlighted at this year’s annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the theme of ‘Collaboration for the Intelligent Age’, emphasizes how organizations can benefit from improving the way they collaborate across business units.

Achieving seamless communication continues to be a struggle for many global enterprises, where technology needs to be fast, reliable and accessible for both external and internal users.

Technology is now the primary driver of change – the difference between organizations that thrive, and those that struggle, is how they leverage critical data.

One of the top priorities for any organization should be having access to real-time data, which can provide actionable insights on everything from user behavior and customer interactions to business intelligence and trend analysis. This has become especially vital in a hybrid cloud, multi-vendor, remote/hybrid workforce world, where clear insights enhance our ability to collaborate in an intelligent way.

Critical applications underpin essential operations. When they fail (usually at the worst possible time) the ability to predict, respond to, and prevent these failures from happening again is essential.

Real-time visibility and observability tools, like IR Collaborate, are increasingly necessary to ensure organizations can collaborate effectively, adapt to change, and maintain resilience in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Want to learn more? Watch the full webinar.