The unified communications and collaboration (UCC) space has evolved in a significant way over the past year. Vendors, industry pundits, and influencers weighing in on the direction of the industry seem to agree on one point—the promise of UCC is finally here.
The promise of UCC needs to go beyond multi-modal communications in one place. Rather, it should be about what the cloud can do to transform the way people work. I’ve said before , that it’s about unified experiences, not just unified communications. Our vision of this is coming to fruition by combining best-in-class UCaaS, team messaging and collaboration, video and web conferencing, cloud contact center—all served on an open platform, at global scale.
As a company built in the cloud, RingCentral’s mission is to deliver on the promise of a truly unified business communications and collaboration experience. As we continue to increase the robustness and functionality of our services, our approach is one that puts our customers at the center of everything we do, and allows them to communicate and work the way they want to, on any device. We’re always raising the bar on the user experience we deliver and framing our efforts to best align with the success of our stakeholder community.
Trends in digital business transformation are reshaping the future of the workplace and creating tailwinds, which is reflected in our 2016 results. We had many notable highlights in Q4, ending a strong 2016, including 38% YOY growth in Annual Recurring Revenue for RingCentral Office, and a 400% increase in our enterprise sales pipeline. Other key accomplishments include:
- We integrated Glip messaging and collaboration into our core RingCentral Office product. At this point, we offer the industry’s first full UCaaS and collaboration solution.
- We deployed Global Office in 30 countries, and it is now used by more than 600 customers.
- We expanded our open platform and ISV partner ecosystem to more than 50 ISV partner integrations and nearly 500 custom workflow integrations.
- We added more advanced tools, reporting, and support capabilities to our contact center solution.
- We launched RingCentral Rooms™ and Room Connector™, our room video conferencing solution, to remove the complexity and high costs associated with traditional telepresence systems.
The UC market has reached an inflection point where the debate between on-premise and cloud is over, presenting RingCentral with a huge growth opportunity. I see three key trends influencing the enterprise agenda in 2017, including:
- Rising workforce demand for collaborative communication tools that boost productivity and enable greater flexibility for anytime, anywhere communications
- Increased interest in today’s “app economy” with open APIs shaping cloud ecosystems
- Shift from legacy, on-premise communications systems to the cloud to support today’s mobile and distributed workforce
Here’s why RingCentral continues to be the largest and fastest-growing vendor in this space:
Hyper focus: We are and always have been focused on building the best cloud infrastructure to support enterprise-grade communications so businesses can get work done, anytime, anywhere.
Innovation: Our rapid pace of innovation continues to outpace other cloud competitors. Both Gartner and Frost & Sullivan cited product innovation as a key factor in their recognition of RingCentral as a leader in UCaaS.
Customer commitment: Since the company’s inception, we have been extremely focused on the customer journey and how we can improve it. We’ve continued to develop our Global Customer Care and Professional Services teams to deliver an unprecedented experience.
Growth: There were many key milestones in our corporate growth for 2016, and I’m very proud of our teams around the globe for their contributions to making RingCentral a nearly $400 million run-rate business.
I’m extremely grateful for our customers, both existing and new, who believe in our product and our mission to revolutionize business communications and collaboration. Without their support, we would not be the workplace communications leader that we are today. Overall, 2016 was a busy and exciting year, and I’m more optimistic than ever about the opportunities ahead.
Originally published Feb 22, 2017, updated Sep 12, 2024
