LONDON, February 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The economic downturn has had a significant impact on the enterprise communications market in Europe. Companies have limited capital available for investment but are, at the same time, considering unified communications (UC) deployment as they look for ways to cut costs and increase productivity. Recession has generated strong interest in alternative delivery methods.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081117/FSLOGO)
New analysis from Frost Sullivan (http://www.conferencing.frost.com), European Cloud-based Unified Communications Services Market, finds that the market earned revenues of euro 46.9 million in 2009 and estimates this to reach euro 1.6 billion in 2014, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79.3 per cent.
Down economy favouring OPEX-based solutions coupled with market's need for flexibility and focus on core competencies, all boost cloud-based UC services adoption, notes Frost Sullivan Research Analyst Dorota Oviedo. Both small businesses and large enterprises are interested in communications delivered as a service.
In the case of small businesses, the lack of internal IT skills is a major factor spurring uptake. The elimination of complexities resulting from managing and integrating multiple applications and vendors, as well as testing various UC applications is attracting enterprises.
The concept of hosted enterprise communications services was first introduced over a decade ago. However, it has only started to gain mainstream acceptance in recent years as modern communications have become increasingly more sophisticated. Additionally, during the economic downturn, rising costs and a fall in the availability of capital is favouring OPEX-based solutions.
Cloud-based services also offer businesses great level of flexibility. Organisations can rapidly enhance or expand their ICT capacity by adding new services without investing in the development of new skills or deploying new hardware and software. Businesses can decide on the number of seats they need at a given moment and the locations to which they want the capacity to be delivered. They can scale up or down in real time. It enables them to rapidly adapt to the sudden changes in business volumes or business strategies.
Despite the positive outlook for cloud-based UC services in Europe, the market has several challenges to battle. These include the general preference for customer premise equipment, low market awareness of cloud communications services, market fragmentation and negative perceptions of security and reliability.
Cloud-based UC market participants claim that customer mindset is one of the major barriers to adoption, explains Oviedo. Reliability and security issues are among the main customer concerns.
Service provider brand name, service level agreements (SLAs), coupled with successful deployment references are helping win over customers.
Eventually, the cost-effective approach of cloud services' in terms of 'pay-as-you-go' functionality should dominate the argument, especially in the small- and medium-size business sector, concludes Oviedo.
If you are interested in more information on this study, please send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country.
European Cloud-based Unified Communications Services Market is part of the Conferencing Collaboration Growth Partnership Services programme, which also includes research in the following markets: conferencing and collaboration, unified communications applications, business telephony, unified messaging, mobile enterprise, and telephony endpoints. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
About Frost Sullivan
Frost Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.
European Cloud-based Unified Communications Services Market M4E4-64 Contact: Joanna Lewandowska Corporate Communications - Europe P: +48-22-390-41-46 E: joanna.lewandowska@frost.com
SOURCE: Frost SOURCE: Sullivan
CONTACT: Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications - Europe, Frost Sullivan, +48-22-390-41-46, joanna.lewandowska@frost.com
Comments