6 Business Messenger Trends 2022

Direct voice communication via push-to-talk, which was previously only possible via digital radio, is now becoming feasible with the support of a business messenger. Other devices such as walkie-talkies are complemented by business smartphones.

Push-to-talk allows direct voice exchange, which not only makes communication more efficient, but also makes it immensely easier to interpret. At the same time, this new ease of use simplifies receiving and sending audio messages. Operational teams in particular – for example in the areas of public safety, rescue services, construction, logistics, delivery services and tourism – benefit from a push-to-talk function in a messenger. In addition to audio recordings, images and documents can also be exchanged in the same communication channel, for example in an emergency group chat about an observation.

All communications relating to an incident can be stored in the organization’s archive and retrieved at any time, which significantly simplifies the creation of reports and evaluations, among other things.

Messengers accelerate information dissemination and take feedback cycles to a new level. Attention messages are used to exchange corporate messages, both for 1:1 chats and for group chats and broadcasts. Color-coded messages are visible to all users of a chat. An additional overview makes it possible to filter chat histories by message type, and thus also by attention messages, and to quickly find the information they are looking for. At the same time, employees can interact with the content by "commenting" on it with emoticons. The aim is to activate and drive collaboration within the team - from mobile workers to office employees, but also from trainees to C-level managers - and ensure the best possible interaction.

Not only the messenger itself is becoming increasingly sophisticated, but also the end devices. In addition to smartphones, tablets etc., which have long since established themselves as the standard for messaging apps, smart devices with new user interfaces will conquer the market. Smartwatches, for example, have undergone rapid technical development in recent years and are widely used. They are lightweight, robust and particularly well suited to mobile forces such as police officers and rescue workers. But data glasses, so-called smartglasses, are also already in the starting blocks. In combination with messenger apps, they can offer remarkable advantages. For example, doctors can easily view patient records and communicate with colleagues at the same time during an examination - while keeping both hands free. Smartglasses also help logistics companies locate stored goods and exchange information about transport. It is conceivable that the position of the goods to be loaded - and, in the case of a larger warehouse, the route description - can be called up and colleagues called in for support while the employee is on the move with the forklift truck. In this way, new intelligent devices make it easier and faster to implement use cases.

Sending documents, photos and videos, sharing locations and making VoIP and video calls – all this is part of the standard repertoire of a good business messenger. Yet the peak in terms of innovative features is far from reached. Messaging apps are integrating more and more functionalities to cover all use cases across industries and make information sharing even easier:

• #1 Alerts to ensure fast emergency communication and coordination using acknowledgement options and alert reports;
  
  
• #2 Surveys to simply create polls and quick scheduling;
  
  
• #3 Image modification to anonymize data and make faces unrecognizable.

In 2022, the range of functions will increase even further and individual functions will become more sophisticated – and this will be tailored to industries such as emergency services, healthcare, logistics, retail, manufacturing and construction.

Not only mobile workers like to share their  and arranging meeting points. However, in everyday business, there are often use cases where users’ locations change dynamically and knowing real-time or live locations can be of great importance to colleagues and business partners. Typical scenarios include operations by public order officers, police and emergency services, production workers, transportation and delivery service rides. Here, there will be next levels of innovation to further improve geo-referenced coordination. Advanced map applications through to the provision of mission-relevant location information by artificial intelligence are conceivable.

Data sovereignty and security are two important issues for businesses. In sync with the continuously evolving messenger functionalities and technical possibilities, the threat of cyberattacks is also growing. Federated servers increase resilience to hacker attacks – after all, in the worst case, only the attacked server fails. Federation is also a significant step into the future to improve data sovereignty. In addition to secure containers on the end device, functions for holistic data and access management are becoming increasingly relevant for security. Further strengthening encryption algorithms for communications and establishing additional security functions are also among the key developments in business messaging. Compliance and audit-proof archiving will become a significant issue for all companies and industries in 2022. This is because it is now clear that messaging is part of business communication and, as such, is covered by the documentation requirements under trade, professional and data protection law. Companies can easily implement their compliance and data protection requirements with leading business messengers – a key advantage over American cloud solutions.

Professional communication will continue to change. New technologies are accompanying this change and driving it forward. These days, business messengers already enable device-, time-, and location-independent collaboration within teams and between multiple teams - even from other organizations. But their potential is far from exhausted, as the expected trends make clear. Business messaging is fot for the future.
 
We support you!

Would you like to receive more information about Teamwire? Then contact our sales team and arrange a meeting.