Unified Communications in Russia Overview TAdviser 2023

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The Russian market for Unified Communications (UC) until February 24, 2022 was not empty. For many years several quite strong companies have been working on it and developing communication platforms at once - developers of solutions and audio and video conferencing services, virtual PBXs and corporate messengers.

True, at that time their development was limited by competition with leading global players. Nevertheless, they successfully mastered their niches and sought to expand them, including outside our country.

The start of a special military operation, which entailed the departure of global players from the Russian unified communications market, influenced the balance of power and brought its participants to the operational space. How did they take advantage of this situation? What technological and business trends have relied on the last year and a half? And what is expected from the future? Read about this in the new TAdviser review "Unified Communications in Russia 2023."

According to the to data IDC volume of the global UC market in 2022 was about $59 billion. Slightly less than half - $21.2 billion fell on the UCaaS segment, (Unified Communications as a Service), that is, cloud services. IDC analysts estimated the growth rate of the global unified communications market at almost 10% in 2022.

In, Russia where all global vendors left in early spring 2022, announcing the termination of support for solutions already installed among customers, the growth rate of the unified communications market turned out to be higher than world ones. This can be confirmed by its segment of virtual PBXs, the volume of which, according to TMT-Consulting, in 2022 increased by 15.2% − from 17.7 billion rubles to 21.1 billion. True, the increase was lower than in 2021: then virtual the ATC market warmed up by the pandemic grew by more than 30%. And such a slowdown in growth - up to 9%, on average, per year, the company's analysts predict until 2027.

But another segment of the Russian unified communications market - video conferencing by the end of the year will grow, as expected, by 15-20%. This assessment was given by Roman Romanov, head of the software development center of SATEL.

Stanislav Iodkovsky, CEO of IVA Technologies (IVKS), gives bolder forecasts, expecting that the entire Russian unified communications market, which includes virtual telephony, VKS and messenger segments, will increase 1.5-2 times by the end of 2023.

The basis for such expectations is the growth in the demand of companies for Russian UC solutions, which was felt by all the leading players. So, the Nadezhda Alyabyeva director of, to marketing VideoMost cites the company's estimates, according to which the demand for Russian UC systems and solutions has grown several times. She also named two more drivers of growth in the unified communications market by the end of 2022 - an increase in the number of players in the market and an aggravation of competition.

Compared to the beginning of 2022, their number has increased 2-3 times, − says the Artem Cheprak general director of JSC Informtechnika and Communication"." − Among the players there are representatives of the classic, telecommunication industries whose roots come from telephony, instant messengers, there are newcomers, there are companies from related IT industries - developers,, CRM BPM Task trackers.

The pace is so significant that in two years, I think, I will have to try very hard to find in Russia a foreign solution put into mass operation, and not some isolated cases of using terminal devices, "says Stanislav Iodkovsky, General Director of IVA Technologies.

The new TAdviser rating, prepared on the basis of revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia, includes 12 companies. The leader once again was MTS, the indicators of which are given taking into account the data of MTT. The top three also included Informtechnika and Svyaz, a developer of hardware and software solutions for unified communications, and the system integrator Sitronics Group.

The total revenue of the rating participants in 2022 amounted to 21.8 billion rubles.

Largest Unified Communications Solution and Service Providers *

№	Company	Specialization in UC	Revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia for 2022, million rubles. Including VAT	Revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia for 2021, million rubles. Including VAT	Dynamics	What UC solutions are being implemented (developed) by the company	The largest projects in Russia
1	MTS + MTT	Own software products and services	5,994,5	5,119,4	n/a	n/a
2	Informtechnika and Communications	Proprietary hardware and software products	3 626	3 022	20.0	IP PBX Minik MKh-1000, corporate messenger ROSCHAT, VKS [[Gazprom	Gazprom]], Rosseti, QUADRA, T Plus, Rosatom
3	Sitronics Group	System Integration	2,825,1	384.7	634.4	n/a	MTS, Okhotoved, MGTS, Transneft, Medvezhiy Stream
4	SATEL	System Integration, Proprietary Software Products	1 895	940	101.6	RTU Unified Communications Platform; Contact center ATMOSPHERE; Dialogue platform of chatbots and voice assistants ZIAX; RTU-Connect videoconferencing platform	PFR, Federal Tax Service of Russia, Ministry of Construction of Russia, Svyaztransneft JSC, Alfastrakhovanie
5	Hi-Tech GC (IVA Technologies)	System Integration, Proprietary Hardware and Software Products	1 581.4	578.5	IVA MCU (Unified Communications System), IVA Connect (Corporate Messenger), IVA IP GW (VoIP Telephony Gateway), IVA IP Phones, IVA Communication Server (Corporate Communication Platform)	n/a
6	I-Teco	System Integration	1 423.5	1250.4	13.8	CommuniGate Pro, eXpress, Vinteo, Eltex	n/a
7	Unitsolutions	System Integration	1393.8	n/a	n/a	TrueConf, CleverCam, CleverMic	n/a
8	Trukonf	Proprietary Software Products and Services	1190.4	796	49.5	Trueconf	n/a
9	Webinar Group	Proprietary Software Products and Services	1,029	932	10.4	[[Post Bank	Post Bank]], Innopolis University, Peter the Great SPBPU, Worldskills, Russian Railways-Medicine
10	WONE IT	System Integration	457.8	693	-33.9	R7, MyOffice, Yandex 360, Express, CommuniGate, VK WorkMail , Microsoft 365|[[Rosbank AKB	Rosbank]], Mosgiprotrans, Gazprom Transportation Nadym, Packaging Systems
11	K2Tech	System Integration	202.1	n/a	n/a	Solutions for Building and Upgrading Contact Centers, VKS Systems, Telephony	VTB Bank, Credit Bank of Moscow, Otkritie FC
12	X-Com GC	System Integration	134	112	19.6	IP Telephony, Audio Video Conferencing, Telepresence, Instant Messaging, Document Collaboration Systems	n/a
		Sum	21 752.6

* - the rating was prepared based on the results of the survey of companies

TAdviser 2023

Despite the demarche of foreign suppliers, unified communications in Russia have developed and are developing under the influence of global trends. Vasily Sazhko, Product Director of MTT (part of the MTS ecosystem), calls such of them as "an increase in the use of cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, as well as an increase in demand for UC solutions and services in the segments of small, medium and large businesses" and believes that all of them remain relevant for the market today.

There are almost no fundamentally new trends in the development of unified communications in the world, notes Andrei Vratsky and cites generative artificial intelligence as an exception. ChatGPT and similar neural networks capable of creating a variety of digital content aroused mass interest in 2022-2023. According to the expert, generative AI, which are now being actively tested in the West, can improve the quality of video conferencing by taking on the functions of logging the progress of the meeting.

{{quote 'There are certain limitations for such tools in Russia, − the expert notes. − Most companies and corporations are allergic to cloud solutions, and when placing AI models on-premium, they are much more difficult to train.}}

The growing interest in artificial intelligence technologies overlapped last year's trend of integrating chatbots and voice assistants with virtual PBXs and video conferencing systems. In 2022-2023, digital assistants built on the basis of AI began to be actively used for this, says Nikolai Babkin, head of product management at MANGO OFFICE. He also calls two more trends that manifested themselves during this period. The first of them is the strengthening of cybersecurity and security solutions amid leaks and attacks. And the second, taken into account by all customer-oriented companies, is the transition to omnichannel systems, in which the entire history of communication with the client is immediately visible, regardless of which channel he has now contacted.

Foreign vendors rely on ecosystems and app stores around their key products. The trend of team interaction is developing - project management, task managers, digital boards, voting machines - this is already an integral part of any large foreign UC system. We support and actively participate in integration processes so that our domestic integration platforms also develop along this path.

There is still a whole pool of small startups, but they are almost invisible in the market and we do not have direct competition, even taking into account the fact that IVA is very widely represented in almost all industries, − he states.

The research company TMT-Consulting called the leaders of the virtual PBX market, i.e. telephony, MTS Group of Companies, Mango Office and Rostelecom. The first two players outperform all others in revenue, while the third outperform corporate clients.

A year and a half after the beginning of tectonic changes in the Russian unified communications market, Russian players declare that they used the opened window of opportunity to withdraw new products and expand the functionality of existing ones, and ultimately to strengthen and expand their market positions.

Interest in the line of UC products "Infortechnics and Communications" has grown several times during this period. And, according to Artem Cheprak, by the end of 2023, the company expects an increase in the direction of unified communications by 100%.

Traditionally, we grow twice a year, − says its CEO Andrei Vratsky, − we expect a similar trend this year.

Other leading players are satisfied with their positions in the Russian unified communications market: VideoMost, MANGO Office, SATEL. The basis for optimism of the first of them, its marketing director, Nadezhda Alyabyeva, calls the company's leadership in the VKS and messenger segments. And Nikolai Babkin notes such a positive factor for the business of MANGO OFFICE as the presence in its product portfolio of offers that are most in demand today by clients of unified complex solutions that combine all the necessary tools to build the main business processes and thereby help speed up the process of switching to Russian software without investing in the purchase of equipment.

SATEL, according to Roman Romanov, head of its software development center, has also improved its market position by implementing many projects to integrate its UC solutions in recent years.

In early 2023, the MTS Exolve cloud platform, designed to automate interaction with users, was launched. This new generation omnichannel platform provides business interaction with customers both through classic channels and digital, including, in addition to voice and SMS, messengers. A single point for all MTC Exolve communications was created in accordance with modern technological trends, including robotization. Thanks to its technologies, companies can customize the telephony API for their tasks, scale the system in real time and complement with new functions, − says Vasily Sazhko.

According to him, in the near future the robotic functions of the platform will be extended to text channels, including various messengers, and in the longer term, due to AI technologies, it is planned to develop and deepen its "intellectual abilities."

Thus, for the year and a half that has passed since the beginning of the special military operation, the Russian market for unified communications has shown positive dynamics, and mainly thanks to the efforts of domestic vendors.

Platforms and solutions of global suppliers have been developing for more than a dozen years: they were replenished with new functions taking into account the wishes of customers, transferred to new technologies, adapted scenarios of work to changes in user behavior and habits. It is clear that over the years huge investments have been made in their development, the effectiveness of which was facilitated by intense competition.

And since the wide functionality of the platforms of foreign vendors and the ecosystem of their partner services is not easy to transfer to Russian soil, their outcome from Russia still did not go without losing some of the capabilities, although experts, for the most part, do not consider them vital for the business of customers.

There are no super-critical functions that would be completely absent in Russian products, the main questions about the quality of implementation and user convenience, − says Andrey Vratsky.

Nadezhda Alyabyeva, as the capabilities of unified communications systems that have become temporarily inaccessible to Russian companies, names the functionality that requires the deep introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. Also, according to her, none of the Russian suppliers and service providers now provides access to metaseles.

And not only to them, but also to the ecosystems of international vendors such as Microsoft, are supplemented by other experts.

Domestic software developers and equipment manufacturers are able to cover all the basic needs of Russian customers, − summarizes Artur Koplik (I-Teco). − A conditional Russian IP phone is dialed to a subscriber in a narrowband codec G.729; a video conference session is stable, in good quality and even with auto-protocol, and working with e-mail is protected by an anti-spam and antivirus system. "

For our huge country, this is a serious drawback that all the major players in the UC market are working on today, − he states.

To the question: "Has the choice of platforms, solutions and unified communications services in Russia narrowed after the departure of foreign players?" - domestic vendors, integrators and service providers respond negatively.

Many foreign vendors left Russia completely, some remained, but the use of their products causes difficulties and has vague prospects. These circumstances opened the market to Russian developers, whose products, as it turned out, are practically in no way inferior to foreign ones, and in terms of functionality they are sometimes ahead of them, − he said.

The departure of foreign suppliers of unified communications systems, according to Russian participants in this market, rather caused the opposite effect. The range of UC solutions has expanded.

Domestic developers create unique solutions, sometimes industry-specific, for a specific target audience and the customer, already at the stage of analyzing the functionality, can choose 2-3 solutions suitable for him, − explains Artem Cheprak.

In his opinion, although Russian communication platforms are still inferior to Western ones in terms of functionality, they are actively developing and are already quite close to meeting most of the requirements of the Russian corporate customer and providing him with a seamless transition from a foreign platform to a domestic one.

In addition, as mentioned above, recently many new players have appeared in the unified communications market in Russia. So there is no need to talk about narrowing the spectrum of available systems.

New solutions for building omnichannel customer experience appear on the Russian unified communications market. The development of artificial intelligence technologies allows companies to better support and advise their clients, − he says.

Users can already find all the basic functionality in the solutions of Russian vendors. Thus, the integration of products from Russian VKS vendors VideoMost, corporate messenger Roschat (with Minicom PBX), Mail 2 from MyOffice, Communigate, Infotecs VipNet and Connect fully comply with the unified communications paradigm, which implies the unification of corporate PBX, contacts, video conferencing, messenger, mail clients and calendars in a single system. The introduction of such integration 100% closes all basic requirements for UC systems and covers the functionality of similar foreign solutions, she says.

We have a special information security school and, having gone through this entire period, we were able to become much safer and, perhaps, even safer than Avaya, Poly, Cisco and others, − notes Stanislav Iodkovsky. According to the expert, an autostenographer with support for the Russian language is already available in many Russian unified communications systems, which is not in the same Zoom.

And the imminent appearance of real-time translators from English to Russian and vice versa will allow for much better international conferences and international communication.

In addition, in Russia, unique niche functions are being developed for unified communications systems, which are in great demand by Russian customers. For example, the Informtechnika and Svyaz company has introduced a flexible role model of users in its UC solution, which allows you to distinguish between the visibility of contacts, as well as fine-tune access to the functionality of services. And at the same time, Russian vendors provide scalability, security and manageability, which is no less important than the presence of extensive functionality, the lion's share of which is never used at all and remains only a line in the SOW, Nadezhda Alyabyeva notes.

Seamless integration into IT infrastructure built on third-party solutions; compliance with the requirements of Russian legislation on data storage in Russia and on the safe transfer of information, as well as resistance to localization and competitive prices - such a list of advantages of domestic UC systems is provided by Roman Romanov.

In other words, both in terms of functionality and in terms of tactical and technical characteristics, domestic unified communications tools are ready to replace foreign ones. It remains to convince customers of this.

Clients of Russian vendors of UC platforms and solutions are representatives of state-owned companies and companies with state participation, to which back in 2015 a requirement was put forward not to purchase foreign software in the presence of Russian analogues. They also include companies that own and operate critical information infrastructure (CII) facilities. These are enterprises of the power, fuel and nuclear industry, defense industry, transport and credit and financial sphere (according to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 30.03.2022 No. 166).

If we talk about state-owned companies, then, probably, more than half of them in terms of unified communications have already completely abandoned foreign products, − he comments.

Roman Romanov (Satel) estimates the share of companies that use only Russian corporate messengers at 25%.

Not only are such companies left without an operational communications service, but they cannot restore the data stored on the servers of these vendors. And we need to think about how these data are now used by former partners, "he notes.

But if we take into account not only state-owned companies and companies with critical infrastructure that fall under the legislation, but also commercial organizations, then this figure is noticeably decreasing.

The share of those who really completely switched to Russian UC products is no more than 20%. The share is higher in the public sector and lower in commerce. Everyone who can continues to use Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom. Someone bought domestic reporting products and put them on the shelf, − Nadezhda Alyabyeva notes.

According to Andrei Vratsky, those customers who have not yet been affected by foreign sanctions and/or bans by Russian regulators on the use of Western products approach migration more carefully and wait for Russian products to come closer in quality to those Western ones that they continue to use.

This is a serious process that, like the introduction of any corporate information system, can take years, − comments Stanislav Iodkovsky.

And this is objective.

You can minimize the effect of this factor by choosing to use UC solutions from the cloud. This model allows you to quickly start training employees to communicate on the new platform and start using it. Such an opportunity is available: today in Russia more than 15 domestic developers offer the UCaaS model to ensure reliable corporate communications, reminds Roman Romanov.

Often in import substitution projects, we try to do everything so as not to worsen the quality of the service that end users are used to, − he notes.

When creating our product, we tried to maintain a generally accepted, intuitive interface so that the user could quickly adapt to the new system, and, as a survey of our customers showed, we managed to do this, − he says.

Some nuances of the user interface of Russian UC systems can be brought into line with the usual consumer experience. And in order to take into account others, more serious improvements are needed from the domestic vendor and co-investments from the customer. However, not all of them are ready for this.

Large corporate customers expect in a very short time to receive a full set of options and functions of global UC systems from small Russian vendors. In addition, they expect to get a developed server infrastructure that can support public services at the Zoom level. At the same time, the customers themselves are not ready to invest and pay for improvements in the product under their own requirements, - notes Nadezhda Alyabyeva.

According to her, many of them prefer to wait for offers from Russian hyperscalers - Yandex and VK or continue to try to gain access to UC solutions and services of global suppliers.

Not all companies that plan to replace VKS solutions have already done this, but the market is promising. And if last year companies that migrated to Russian solutions often tested the products of several suppliers, then by the end of this year we expect that the business will strive to consolidate its infrastructure based on the solutions of the developer they like, "hopes Nikolai Babkin

In conditions when large customers have taken a wait-and-see attitude and are in no hurry to choose, and the middle and small live in economy mode, you can look for new sources of income in other countries.

In recent years, Russian vendors of unified communications have increasingly looked at the markets of other countries. Some of them, for example, VideoMost, have long been operating in different countries and, reorienting themselves to the markets of Southeast Asia and the Middle East, continue this work today.

In my opinion, a serious access to foreign markets will be appropriate after we can occupy the home market and hone our product to an ideal state, and not one solution, but the entire ecosystem, − comments Stanislav Iodkovsky.

Others, like Imformtekhnika and Svyaz, are accumulating experience in introducing their products as "white lable" outside Russia and are preparing to expand their presence in international markets, possibly in the BRICS countries.

Like other manufacturers, we are interested in exporting our products, − explains the position of Unlimited Production (eXpress) Andrei Vratsky, − but you need to clearly understand that entering foreign markets is competition with the best West, which did not go anywhere from there. Moreover, he has been there for a long time, but we are practically not yet. Therefore, the first task, in our opinion, is to reach products in quality close to Western ones.

The interest of many Russian UC vendors in entering the markets of other countries is expressed in conducting marketing research, participating in international exhibitions and conferences, as well as in developing software solutions specially adapted to the needs of customers outside Russia, recalls Roman Romanov.

The state supports the marketing activities of Russian software developers, and this support is in great demand, since access to international markets requires serious investment.

The first is a quick transition to Russian cloud platforms such as VKurse, Yandex.Telemost, SberJazz and others. The second longer and more complex is the introduction of UC solutions within the organization with the design of all stages of long and painful installations, the possible restructuring of the IT landscape and business processes for new services, the development of security policies, delineation into internal and external circuits, integration with information and security systems such as DLP, SIEM and so on, − Stanislav Iodkovsky shares his vision.

Arthur Koplik cites a slightly different pair of mutually exclusive migration scenarios from foreign unified communication systems: "The first is" instant with the loss of historical data "and serious stress for the end user of the system. The second is "long with conditionally seamless and smooth data migration" and with stress for system administrators. " According to him, the second scenario, which requires highly qualified and stress-resistant administrators to simultaneously support two systems, is chosen by Russian companies.

And our competitive advantage is that we have a solution for both the former and the latter, − he concludes.

Vasily Sazhko calls the rejection of foreign "iron" equipment in favor of Russian cloud software the most common way of migration from foreign unified communications to domestic ones. The growth in popularity of SaaS and PaaS models when importing foreign UC platforms and solutions, which first appeared in 2022, is noted by Nadezhda Alyabyeva.

There are quite understandable reasons for this. The transfer of unified communications to the cloud does not require capital investments, is feasible in a short time and, moreover, ensures timely receipt of updates and versions. This is the best way for the customer, who is important to close all business processes with a solution from one supplier: telephoning the office, organizing a contact center, ensuring the continuity of sales and customer service processes, Nikolai Babkin believes and expresses confidence that the Russian unified communications market will grow due to the SaaS model.

Experts expect that neural networks like ChatGPT in 2-3 years will become an integral part of corporate unified communications, and from here they will penetrate the business processes of procurement, sales, operation, maintenance, support.

Artificial intelligence systems will be improved and will allow closing a large percentage of requests from users, which will optimize the company's resources to solve more complex problems, − Vasily Sazhko expects

In the longer term, Stanislav Iodkovsky suggests, the business will enter a new round of transformation, where artificial intelligence technologies will rebuild the organization beyond recognition, starting from number, continuing with the culture and convenience of using services. And given the rapid development of technology/ AR, with VR a high degree of probability it is possible to predict the transfer of corporate communications either to a virtual space with, augmented reality or to a virtual room using VR technologies.

In the next 2-3 years, companies will finally develop the need for a single tool for all types of corporate communication, from chats and mail to large video conferencing. "Less" zoo, "more unification," − explains Andrei Vratsky. Also, in his opinion, the importance of mobility will increase.

The main vectors for the development of unified communications have already been set: this is the implementation of all UC services without exception from a single window, cross-platform and further development of AI elements, − Arthur Koplik agrees with him.

For Russia, the issues of integrating different products among themselves and reducing risks in the field of information security and infrastructure in general will be relevant, − he said.

All these trends will operate against the background of further migration of users to the clouds, adds Nadezhda Alyabyeva.

All these trends, to one degree or another, are taken into account by the players of the Russian unified communications market. Taking them into account, they develop their platforms and solutions, which means that in this area corporate users will have to learn how to effectively interact with artificial intelligence and correctly use its capabilities to solve everyday business problems related to communications.

• Unified Communications (Russian Market)
• Unified Communications (Global Market)
• PBX - Office PBXs (Russian Market)
• PBX - Office PBXs (Global Market)
• IP telephony (Russian market)
• IP Telephony Projects
• Enterprise Telephony Solutions (Global)
• Video conferencing systems. TAdviser Overview
• VKS projects (video conferencing)
• Unified communications in Russia: features of the market development before and after the departure of global vendors. TAdviser 2022 review