From the CEO: 2024 Year in Review
Wow, how the year flies by! As we finish 2024, lets look back at some of the trends we’ve observed from this past year and look forward to see what is coming in 2025.
Artificial intelligence
We saw a lot of people adding AI tools to their meetings in 2024. If you haven’t done this yet, then you definitely should. Most meeting platforms, including MS Teams and Webex, have native AI engines that will transcribe and summarize your meetings. This is a huge time saver and allows for easy tracking of agendas and action items. The best way to use it is to turn it on automatically for every meeting so you don’t have to think about it (don’t worry, you can always turn it off). Just remember, everything you say is being recorded!
Speaking of AI, we continue to see advancements with this technology, and we know that advancement will only continue. However, there is a lot of work to do to understand the best way to integrate AI into the daily workplace. Many younger users immediately gravitate to AI tools to help with daily tasks like summarizing data and writing reports. There is much more that AI can do, though, and many of us are still trying to figure out exactly how to integrate it into our workflow. This is an investment of time that will pay dividends. The sooner you make the jump to AI-powered work, the sooner you will jump ahead of your co-workers or your competition.
We expect security tools to integrate more AI functionality next year, as well. A hopeful use case would be receiving a security alert and having the choice for automated AI remediation. This will both speed up how quickly issues are resolved and reduce how often human interactions are needed to address security concerns
Cybersecurity
Security continues to be a major emphasis across all organizations. Like it or not, every organization is vulnerable. It’s not a question of if you will get breached, it is a question of when. We’ve seen some firms get breached multiple times mainly just because they do not implement enough security tools. While most of our clients have implemented major security layers such as multi-factor authentication, cloud DNS, and monthly end-user security training, many are still lacking when it comes to security monitoring. Thankfully, we are beginning to see new tools released that are less expensive, making comprehensive monitoring a more affordable option. If you haven’t looked at it recently, you should look again.
On the note of new security tools, we expect in 2025 to see some major movement with passwordless technology. We’ve been using this internally at Telcion for most of this past year and it’s both super convenient and very secure. The bottom line: no more passwords. Who doesn’t want that?
Collaboration and Networking
80% of Telcion’s voice projects are now cloud migrations, with the remainder being upgrades of existing systems. Few voice projects are on-premises, these days. The new collaboration systems being installed are 100% cloud based--this goes for both calling and contact center. We expect a few clients will continue to hold onto on-premises solutions for one more upgrade cycle before making the conversion to cloud, but cloud voice solutions are here and here to stay.
Microsoft announced a lot of new offerings this past year that will be picking up steam in 2025. One of my favorite Microsoft advancements coming next year is called Microsoft Arc. This will allow you to control both the cloud and your on-premises servers with a single dashboard, moving resources between them seamlessly.
Another new Microsoft product is Microsoft Windows Link. It’s a little box the size of an Apple TV that lets you run your Windows desktop in the Microsoft cloud. I can see how this could fit well with a lot of organizations. Managing PC’s takes work, but Microsoft Link makes it super easy.
Personnel
As we look at the hiring front this past year, we see most of the larger firms requiring employees to come back to the office at least 3-4 days per week, and even full-time in some cases. For smaller firms, especially with IT employees, it is harder to hire talent that is willing to make this move. We are finding that talent is available if you are willing to consider remote work options. Having a flexible working location is also a way to retain talented employees that may need to move away from the office.
Technology is moving fast, and the biggest driver of change right now is AI. 2025 should see a lot of super cool innovations as companies both learn how to use AI in their products more effectively and our users continue to embrace AI in their daily workflow. We are excited to see how the industry continues to progress, and we can’t wait to share these innovations with our clients.
From all your friends at Telcion, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
This post was contributed by Lance Reid, our CEO. Lance has worked in the technology industry for over 25 years. He became a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) in Collaboration in 2005 and has been serving on Cisco's SMB Advisory Board since 2013.