As we exited 2024 and entered 2025, previously established remote and hybrid work models and increasingly common return-to-office strategies all remained in a remarkable state of fluctuation. There are no strong indicators of this changing anytime soon. Each of these employee deployment strategies has its pros and cons. We’ve seen many well-known organizations publicly announce their stance, with untold numbers of lesser-known organizations likewise making their choices. Each must do what’s best for their business, customers, culture, and employees. Discussions with customers and collaboration industry participants at the ISE AV tradeshow in Barcelona last week further validated this position.

In recognition of these dynamics Cisco has, for almost two years, championed the concept of Distance Zero—a vision where technology, thoughtfully applied, can dissolve the boundaries of space and time. The idea is to help teams feel closer, collaborate seamlessly, and celebrate successes together, regardless of where they are.

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The Distance Zero perspective extends beyond technology as a tool: it’s about technology’s role as a human enabler. How do organizations transform the rituals of work—meetings, brainstorming sessions, even year-end reflections—into moments that strengthen culture and spark creativity? What does it take to create a sense of “here-ness” when teams are dispersed across cities, countries, or even continents?

The Distance Zero concept is not at all about company leaders choosing workstyles for their workforces. Rather, it’s about empowering employees to be present, included, and productive for their individual, their team’s and the organization’s success. This ubiquitous presence, or “here-ness”, is underpinned by connectedness with others and to information, regardless of location.

These constructs align precisely with the intent of unified communications, which aims to equip users with anywhere, anytime access to a rich suite of integrated communications tools used to effectively collaborate and share information. Over the past decade, rapidly evolving communications technologies have furnished business users with an expanding array of software applications (soft clients, presence management, one-on-one and team chat, SMS, email, voicemail/unified messaging, voice and video calling and conferencing, content sharing, and document collaboration) and user interfaces (desktop and mobile soft clients, business phones, headsets, video conferencing and collaboration endpoints) from which these applications are accessed.

More recently, the concept of Distance Zero has gained even greater relevance to organizations looking to tighten the bonds among their employees. Shifting workforce demographics, evolving workstyles, and the digitization of business make it clear that advanced communications tools are necessary for employees to be meaningfully present and connected. Today’s employees expect employers to provide better or equivalent technology for their jobs compared to what they use in their personal lives. Frost & Sullivan survey data show that IT and telecom decision makers (ITDMs) are addressing elevated employee requirements when purchasing communications and collaboration solutions. Among surveyed organizations, 82% select solutions and providers that offer the best end-user features and functionality, and achieve wide user buy-in. Furthermore, productivity best practices established over time have engrained a wide range of applications and devices into the fabric of modern work, with chat and video conferencing being recent prominent examples.

To realize the vision of Distance Zero, organizations must provide employees the flexibility to choose the tools that best serve the purpose of each moment. The context of relationships also steers when and why certain tools are used. As in their personal lives, employees gravitate toward certain modalities and devices that best address the who, what, where, and when of the information at hand.

• Voice calling remains mission-critical for most organizations, with its use underscoring the importance of personally delivering information or collaborating in real time.
• In many environments, voicemail has become a mechanism for both the calling and receiving parties to share information yet avoid having a real-time voice conversation.
• An often-expected informality in internal chat interactions allows users to connect with less friction and more personally.
• Chats are often short discussions and are also commonly escalated to voice, video or content sharing interactions to more efficiently convey complex information.
• Email provides a forum to share information more formally and to easily add/delete participants, including external parties, included in the conversation.
• Video calling and conferencing provides the benefits of eye contact and body language that enrich interactions through personalization and visual cues.

Frost & Sullivan data show that, by the end of 2026, 95% of organizations will have adopted video conferencing and 94% will have adopted team spaces/group chat. In the same timeframe, 94% of organizations will increase or maintain their investments in voice calling and private branch exchange (PBX) functionality.

The fundamental value propositions of unified communications have not changed: an integrated set of multimodal communications capabilities reduces app switching, enables more seamless interactions, and increases productivity. Frost & Sullivan ITDM surveys find that the vast majority, 83%, of organizations prefer to buy a fully integrated unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solution that includes meetings, messaging, and calling.

With UCC adoption now widespread and still growing, the urgency to implement the right tools in the intensely competitive and rapidly evolving landscape has significantly increased. Forward-thinking organizations see greater potential impact from their communications investments and demand next-level value for their business and workforce. Among ITDMs who participated in Frost & Sullivan’s survey, 78% invest in UCC to boost team collaboration and 76% invest to improve the customer experience, attract the best talent, and improve employee engagement and satisfaction.

With its AI-powered portfolio spanning platforms, devices and workspaces, Cisco is uniquely positioned in the business communications market to execute on its Distance Zero vision. By committing resources, prioritizing powerful partnerships and listening to customer input, Cisco consistently delivers innovations that allow unified communications to unleash greater value across customer environments and their workforces.

Frost & Sullivan research validates numerous other industry sources that indicate employee net promoter scores (eNPS) are key drivers of both elevated customer satisfaction and significant revenue growth. Therefore, business leaders should embrace the concept of Distance Zero, the tools that facilitate it, and the resulting employee connectedness that can instill a culture of helpfulness, inclusion, collaboration, and productivity to empower individuals, teams, and the entire organizations to maximize their performance.

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