It may seem hard to believe given the incredibly high profile of smart devices, but experts are suggesting that sales of smartphones and tablets are set to fall in the coming year. According to Gartner, growth levels may drop into single digits for the first time in recent memory.
Take a look around any city and you'll likely see dozens of billboards touting the newest releases from Apple or Samsung, but could the devices be losing the allure they once held? And does such a shift have implications for business phone systems around the world?
Saturation in the tablet market could be good news for your SME.A silver lining?
Should the experts be correct, that's bad news for the big smart device manufacturers. But once you understand what is actually driving these drops in sales growth, some compelling reasons for shifting to a unified communications (UC) system in your workplace emerge.
Analysis from ABI Research indicates that it's not failing desire for the technology that is contributing to lower sales, but the simple problem that most people who are interested in such devices already own one. Saturation of the market and slow replacement cycles are expected to see total tablet sales go from 207 million in 2015 to just 140 million by 2021.
There are compelling reasons to shift to a UC system.
An opportunity of abundance
So, what conclusions can be drawn from this research and how it relates to small business phone systems? What's immediately clear is that, at this point in time, so many people already own at least one smart device - be that a phone or a tablet - that the presence of this technology in the workplace is basically assured. In an office where every person already owns the equipment, why wouldn't your organisation look to take advantage of that?
Taking this initiative is something that many businesses have already done. The 2015 Unified Communications & Collaboration Study carried out by IDG Enterprise found that over half of respondents had already implemented a UC system into their workflow, while 61 per cent plan to upgrade to such a solution within the next three years.
When your employees and colleagues are already bringing the necessary technology to the office in their pockets every day, the question of whether to upgrade from a traditional office phone system has been all but answered. UC allows you to replicate the office communications experience from virtually any modern device, so speak to Fonality today about how your organisation can tap these valuable resources and move forward into the mobile future.
