UC Today – May 16, 2025

UC Service Management – UC Round Table

What are the major trends impacting UC service management in 2025?

Mike Frayne, CEO, VOSS Solutions

Frayne observes that the transition from legacy systems to cloud providers, declining traditional voice services, and AI adoption are fundamentally reshaping UC service management priorities.

“The shift from legacy on-prem UC suppliers to modern cloud providers, the decline of traditional voice services, and the rise of AI are fundamentally transforming both what needs to be managed and how it’s managed. As a result, UC service management is being reshaped by several powerful, converging forces. AI is driving smarter operations, enabling predictive insights, automated resolution, and proactive service optimization.

“Hybrid work remains dominant, requiring more flexible, resilient, and user-centric communication tools. New, disruptive technologies are transforming user expectations and workflows. Meanwhile, macroeconomic pressures are forcing enterprises to scrutinize costs and prove ROI across all IT investments.

“This is driving demand for consolidated platforms that reduce complexity, improve visibility, and automate manual effort. Regulatory and security concerns are also intensifying, especially as UC environments expand across geographies and devices. Enterprises need service management strategies that are cloud centric, agile, cost-effective, and future-proof.”

What are the most common blind spots organizations face when managing UC services at scale?

Mike Frayne, CEO, VOSS Solutions

Frayne emphasizes that organizations often underestimate the complexity of UC management at scale, particularly regarding visibility across diverse environments and the limitations of manual processes.

“Organizations often underestimate the complexity of managing UC, at scale. A key blind spot is the lack of visibility across multi-vendor, multi-tenant, hybrid environments, which leads to delayed issue resolution, user frustration, productivity loss, and unnecessary spending.

“Many still rely on manual processes or simple vendor supplied admin tools, which can’t keep pace with growing complexity and the demands of dispersed teams. This creates bottlenecks, slows down response times, and contributes to spiraling operational costs.

“Another challenge is not capturing or analyzing data effectively, which limits the ability to identify trends or prevent incidents before they escalate. Without integrated automation, observability, and actionable analytics, enterprises struggle to manage UC services at scale.”

What role should automation and AI play in UC service assurance and incident management?

Mike Frayne, CEO, VOSS Solutions

Frayne positions automation as foundational for effective UC service assurance, with AI enhancing this foundation by adding intelligence, adaptability, and predictive capabilities to the process.

“Automation is foundational for effective UC service assurance. It replaces time-consuming, manual tasks with consistent, proven, rule-based processes – ensuring accuracy in provisioning, configuration, policy enforcement, and user lifecycle management. In incident management, automation enables rapid detection and remediation of known issues, reducing human error and improving mean time to resolution (MTTR).

“It also supports proactive monitoring and scheduled maintenance, helping IT teams maintain service quality at scale while focusing on strategic priorities. AI enhances automation by bringing intelligence and adaptability into the process. It analyzes large volumes of UC telemetry data in real time, detects anomalies, allows effective trend tracking, identifies root causes, and prioritizes incidents based on impact. AI adds predictive capabilities, helping prevent outages before they occur, and it also powers smart assistants, streamlining IT operations and improving user experience.

“Together, automation and AI transform UC service management from reactive firefighting into proactive, intelligent service assurance.”

Looking ahead, what do you see as the next frontier or biggest innovation area in UC service management?

Mike Frayne, CEO, VOSS Solutions

Frayne predicts that the future of UC service management will focus on delivering hyper-personalized, AI-driven experiences through real-time service optimization that prioritizes user outcomes over infrastructure management.

“I believe that the next stage for UC service management is all about delivering hyper-personalized, AI-driven experiences through predictive, real-time service optimization. As environments grow more complex, the focus is shifting from simply managing infrastructure to intelligently orchestrating user outcomes – experience, productivity, and business impact.

“We are working closely with our customers to support this evolution. By combining advanced automation, real-time observability, and AI-powered insights, we enable customers to move from reactive support to intelligent, predictive UC management that delivers real value.”