Enterprises of all sizes have access to solution suites that now often use AI-based advanced features to record how they communicate, and to provide actionable insights based on inputs from speech and sentiment analytics. Reporting offers administrators real-time assessments of important call metrics, while individual teams have a wealth of collaboration tooling to choose from when meeting virtually. Establishing international presence has never been easier as well, with platforms dramatically expanding voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone service coverage to help unify global workforces and serve clients in almost any jurisdiction. As a result, the UCaaS market is less utility-focused and increasingly viewed as a driver of digital transformation in its own right.

As always, a platform must support all core features for video, call, and chat to be considered a UCaaS provider. These features also must be available throughout desktop and mobile environments, thus supporting critical hybrid work requirements. This often includes support for physical VoIP devices for a mix of on-premises and cloud-based deployment. A tightly integrated interface is also generally expected from this market, combining all related functionality into an easy-to-use, one-stop workspace. API-driven integration is another key requirement, as deployment often will require supporting legacy systems that may be providing a portion of the overall UCaaS feature set.

If a solution is deployed successfully, enterprises will benefit from a highly flexible cost structure that offers per seat and feature pricing. Strong video capabilities can help reduce real estate costs while providing even more supervision through native features such as employee presence. Extensive phone functionality such as interactive voice response (IVR) and calling groups can be deployed cheaply through VoIP and cloud-based PBX services. Purpose-built solutions such as webinars help enhance employee and customer engagement through scalable events and interactive tooling. Various vendors now also offer related products, such as contact center as a service (CCaaS) and customer experience (CX) solutions that may be useful add-ons for future investment.

This GigaOm Radar report highlights key UCaaS vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating UCaaS Solutions,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market.

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Challenges have always existed around scaling user access and facilitating mobility in working environments. This is true for remote working, the general needs of globally distributed enterprises, and working flexibly within an on-premises solution. The predominant use of on-premises telephony and an overreliance on email provided little insight into how an enterprise communicates and how it could do so more effectively. Simply embracing digital meetings and messaging clearly won’t solve all problems. Collaboration without physical presence can make it difficult to exchange ideas, gather information, gauge reactions, and create a sense of enterprise or team culture.

Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions can reduce the time and effort required to deploy and manage communication services. They can improve productivity by enabling more fluid discussions of work items and facilitate sharing of assets connected to these discussions. High-quality face-to-face meetings with low latency provide more natural conversations, leading to better business outcomes. Usage analytics help team leaders understand the frequency and quality of internal and external interactions and can drive process improvements. And increasingly more advanced AI-driven capabilities now not only support communications but actually enhance and optimize how enterprises engage with customers and their own employees. As a result, UCaaS is becoming less of a utility and more a driver of digital transformation for SMBs and large enterprises alike.

This is the second year that GigaOm has reported on the UCaaS space, and the need to facilitate collaboration and streamline communication for remote and colocated employees alike has only continued to grow. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report details the capabilities (table stakes, key criteria, and emerging technologies) and non-functional requirements (evaluation metrics) for selecting an effective UCaaS solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those capabilities and metrics. Together, these reports provide an overview of the category and its underlying technology, identify leading UCaaS offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

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E-signature solutions have been available for decades and have matured into a robust domain that is well-prepared to meet increases in market demand. Leaders and challengers continue to invest in more extensive jurisdictional support, enabling direct integration with numerous country-specific eID services. Qualified digital signatures (QES, shown in Figure 1) were once considered an advanced functionality but are now more commonplace, with leading solutions offering five or more integrated trusted service providers (TSPs) in addition to supporting the ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) in the US.

Figure 1. Requirements for Legally Binding Signatures: Simple, Advanced, and Qualified

Similarly, identity authentication methods have expanded as well, with many solutions offering advanced features to verify signees, including video, document verification, and biometric functionality. Aside from documents that are still legally not in scope for electronic execution (for example, wills and court orders), even the most complex international use cases can be supported by multiple vendor offerings.

Beyond core compliance, almost the entire market has started or continued to invest in end-to-end document management software. Commonly referred to as contract lifecycle management (CLM), this investment expands e-signature functionality to other document functions, such as creation, negotiation, and post-execution processing. This represents a shift in how businesses view e-signatures: no longer as a point solution but as part of a broader transformation strategy that aims to drive automation and digitization across all document activities.

As a result, broader platforms have started integrating other workflow capabilities within e-signature products, blurring the line between document management and this solution space. Often e-signatures are the entry point, but quickly become part of a multiple-product package whose components work together within an ecosystem to produce more comprehensive transformation. Feature-focused offerings are investing in similar expansion as well, though they’re more heavily reliant on native functionality paired with expanded third-party integration options. One example is data field configuration, which now commonly enables automated population and extraction into domain systems, thus supporting requirements before and after the e-signature function.

To be a significant player in this space, an e-signature solution must support the core e-signature process (preparation, distribution, execution), and also offer extensive compliance support, scalability for high-volume use cases, and flexibility across a range of countries, languages, and interfaces. Functionality that simply allows a user to draw a signature on a document is not sufficient to be considered in this report. Recent entrants Microsoft and Google are excluded for this reason, but expect them to be more significant alternatives in the near future.

This GigaOm Radar report highlights key e-signature vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating E-Signature Solutions,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market.

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The core competency of an e-signature technology is the ability to execute a document in a digital and legal manner. To satisfy this requirement, a full solution encompasses the following capabilities:

• Preparation: The ability to upload a digital version of a document, specify data capture requirements, and define a desired workflow.
• Distribution: The ability to digitally and securely send a document and specific instructions to a signee as per the specified workflow.
• Execution: The ability to sign a document in a legally compliant fashion. This is defined by the local jurisdiction but most often includes identity verification, audits, and accessible storage functionality.

Solutions in this space allow organizations to upload existing documents, apply digital capture fields, and deliver instructive requests to recipients securely via email. Providers that are compliant with local regulations offer signee authentication, audit certificates, and record storage to establish a legally binding result for all parties. More comprehensive tooling that supports contract lifecycle management (CLM), document creation, collaboration, and digitization via optical character recognition (OCR) or natural language processing (NLP) are out of scope for this report.

Organizations adopting e-signature solutions benefit from enhanced customization, transparency, and speed when executing documents. Users can specify multistage routing requirements, customize where and what data is captured, and track external actions taken by the recipient. Signees can access the document from virtually any interface, ensuring frictionless execution on both sides of the transaction. Cost savings and efficiencies are highly scalable because most document types and use cases can be enhanced by an e-signature solution.

E-signature technologies range from freeware and limited volume trials to enterprise-level subscription services. Solutions can be fully cloud based or support on-premises software and storage. Organizations should consider the types of documents they process along with the volume of documents and the number of internal teams utilizing the service. Common limiting factors include the ways existing documents are created or stored and what organizational frameworks are available to dictate prioritization and manage access across multiple business units.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report details the criteria and evaluation metrics for selecting an effective e-signature solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those criteria and metrics. Together, these reports provide an overview of the category and its underlying technology, identify leading e-signature offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

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As shown in Figure 1, HRISs focus on core HR processes and data, providing a foundation for eventual investment in experience-focused HCM applications.

Figure 1. Applications across HRIS and HCM Domains

HRISs consist of applications that help generate, process, and centrally store employee data. HR teams use self-service modules to specify important data fields and then collect updates on demand from employees as required. All data is structured and stored for use across any other process within the HRIS ecosystem. This includes recruiting, onboarding, payroll, benefit administration, and time tracking. Codified policies help HR teams ensure compliance with labor laws and other regulations via prebuilt workflows, secure document execution, and alerts when data is missing or errors occur.

These functions are critical to SMBs standing up scaled employee management, especially in a remote operating environment. Advanced time tracking functionality helps disparate teams improve transparency when paired with dashboard summaries of important metrics and employee messaging services for ad-hoc requests or issues. HRISs also integrate with other common business tools, cultivating a holistic solution across an entire business.

HRISs can drive significant efficiencies through centralization and automation of common HR processes. Other benefits include the reduced maintenance costs that come with cloud deployment, enhanced employee experiences supported by self-serve functionality, and reduced compliance risk across applicable jurisdictions. In choosing an HRIS provider, SMBs should consider the size of their business, the migration of any existing HR applications, and data security or compliance requirements based on business location. HCM functionality, in terms of more advanced analytics and experience-based functionality, is out of scope for this report but may be a future requirement as SMBs grow into larger enterprises.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report details the capabilities (table stakes, key criteria, and emerging technologies) and evaluation metrics for selecting an effective HRIS. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those capabilities and metrics. Together, these reports provide an overview of the category and its underlying technology, identify leading HRISs for SMBs, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

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To be considered in this report, solutions must support the full employee lifecycle. This includes functionality to recruit, onboard, pay, and train employees, as well as maintain their data. While embedded functionality is generally easier for SMBs to use, solutions may also be considered if certain aspects of the employee lifecycle are supported by well-integrated third-party partners. Additionally, all data collected and used throughout these modules should be stored in an accessible centralized data store.

Beyond these core employee functions, solutions must also support SMBs in standing up compliance policies to ensure local regulations and laws are known, understood, and then followed in an automated manner. This typically includes activities such as payroll tax filing, paid time off (PTO) policies, and labor laws but can vary depending on where the business operates. SMBs should also have access to a centralized document management system with an integrated e-signature provider, along with solution-wide provisions for notifications and role-based access controls (RBACs).

HRIS providers support SMBs by offering this core functionality in a streamlined, easy-to-onboard package. All solutions are software as a service (SaaS)-only and offer per employee, per month pricing models that help to significantly reduce any barriers to entry. Vendors continue to improve the ease with which businesses can create solutions, with increasing levels of no-code customization for workflow automation, analytics, and attendance management.

Solutions across this sector are undertaking a wide range of approaches to support SMBs and core HRIS functionality. Some are focused on platform breadth, ensuring use case flexibility is maximized via broad application marketplaces and even HCM support. In contrast, feature-focused players are going deeper into specific parts of the employee lifecycle, such as payroll, or specific business model support (retail, for example). Regardless of the approach, each solution aims to drive transformative benefits to these smaller companies through talent acquisition, HR productivity, and compliance risk reduction.

SMBs should carefully assess their current HR capabilities when evaluating a solution in this space. This includes considering where the business is located (or locations from which employees are to be sourced) and whether existing HR applications will need to be integrated into the new platform provider. Cost is an important consideration, but there is a growing need for more advanced (and often costlier) functionality around analytics and extensive communications, and this must also be taken into account.

This GigaOm Radar report highlights key HRIS vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating Human Resources Information Systems for Small-to-Medium Businesses,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market.

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Feature flag products have evolved into comprehensive management tools that allow teams to create variable-based groupings and release features on demand through no- or low-code interfaces. At a minimum, a solution in this space supports the toggling of feature flags with instant platform updates, an ability to set up A/B tests and experiments that target specific user audiences, and a kill switch mechanism for quick corrections. From a flexibility perspective, feature flag products typically support a wide range of common software development kits (SDKs) and platforms, and are scaled to handle billions of events each month.

Employing a feature flag solution enables enterprises to drive faster feedback loops during experimentation and through on-demand releases and highly granular user segment configuration. Feature flags also help minimize overall maintenance costs by reducing the need for multiple staging environments, and they also reduce risk and the need to roll back large deployments because individual features can be isolated as needed.

Leading vendors in this space have evolved beyond table stakes functionality and now offer comprehensive solutions aimed at supporting end-to-end CI/CD and product development. This includes built-in experimentation modules with custom statistical engines, highly customizable workflows that integrate with other deployment tooling, and advanced functionality to manage technical debt as necessary. Challengers in this space are quickly following suit. Prospective customers now have a number of choices: vendors may target developers or non-technical teams, offer standalone solutions or broad portfolios, and/or focus on niche use cases or support a range of user requirements.

This GigaOm Radar report highlights key feature flag vendors and equips IT decision-makers with the information needed to select the best fit for their business and use case requirements. In the corresponding GigaOm report “Key Criteria for Evaluating Feature Flag Solutions,” we describe in more detail the key features and metrics that are used to evaluate vendors in this market.

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Moving from continuous delivery to continuous deployment is an extremely valuable way for organizations to maintain a competitive edge. Continuous delivery is partly manual, whereas continuous deployment requires higher levels of automation, which also calls for a higher level of governance to be in place. FFs are used to toggle specific application capabilities on and off at execution time without deploying new code. Software development teams using continuous delivery or continuous deployment in an agile environment use FFs to manage the lifecycle of features being developed and released The benefits and use cases of this approach are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Comparative Summary of Development Stages With and Without Feature Flags

FFs enable developers to wrap new functionality in inactive code paths and activate the functionality at a later time. This approach helps with validating functionality in the production environment and reducing the number of code branches and environments.

FFs are also useful in situations when features must be released for a time-bound period (especially in connection with an event) or on a fractional basis, especially if the feature is partially complete, and there is a need to solicit feedback.

FFs assist with selectively releasing new features for canary releases, which are made available to a subset of the user base. FFs help development and operations (DevOps) teams understand user behaviors regarding new functionality as part of experimentation via A/B testing. Only a subset of users are offered the new functionality and their usage behaviors can be compared with the remaining user base. In addition, FFs enable experimentation to be delegated to product teams, conserving developer time and avoiding upsetting release schedules.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report details the criteria and evaluation metrics for selecting an effective FF solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel on those criteria and metrics. Together, these reports provide an overview of this category and its underlying technology, identify leading feature flag offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

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