By Ludré Stevens – Inbotiqa, Chief Product Officer

As providers of next-generation Intelligent Business Email, a discussion on Twitter about the future of email naturally caught our eye. The specific question posed in a tweet addressed the high school generations’ preference for texting and how this will impact on business communication:

“Email seems to be in trouble as a communication medium. High school students aren’t using it, they just text. As this generation grows up how would that impact business communication?”

Responses to the question came from a variety of users in the Twitter community. While not an empirical study, the responses to the question provide an intriguing insight into what is happening on the ground and where things are heading. It also got the Inbotiqa team thinking about the history and future of communication – more on that later.

While messenger / chat services and collaboration tools are popular, useful and valued, the overall consensus from the discussion was that they are used in conjunction with business email. On the take-up of email by younger generations, once students progress to university and then on into the workplace, email has been adopted. This doesn’t mean messaging or text are abandoned, they are used in tandem. As one VC responded:

“They adopt it in college and even more so when they join the work force. I’ve seen it again and again with my kids and their friends. I’ve heard people predict the death of email for twenty years and it just gets stronger and stronger.”

Text and messaging allow for speed but comments outlined issues with keeping track of who is doing and has done what. The need for better organisation and search capabilities as provided by email was also put forth. Other replies described companies using one or a combination of internal workflow or project management tools and team collaboration solutions – but still needing to revert to email for external communications with clients or in other instances.

Among these, a desire was expressed for a merger of such services – but with the issue of assimilating external emails into work channels still needing to be resolved. The important fact that email provides a formal verification of identity and record of what has occurred, in contrast to the informality of text and messaging, was also raised. The cumbersome nature of long email chains did not escape comment either.

One reply said there are companies that use collaboration tools alone, which seems to indicate that the nature and size of certain businesses and their operations are able to function without reverting to email. Considering the majority of responses to the tweet, and that over 124 billion business emails were sent each day in 2018, projected to rise to over 129 billion in 2019, the need for email as a business communication channel will endure.

Thinking back to the advent of the telephone, people likely considered that its growing prevalence hailed the end of letters, as the necessity of sending mailed correspondence to converse was removed. The telephone did reduce the need for physical mail, and lead to swifter conclusions by enabling conversations which are faster, but it did not provide a formal record of the discussion or a formal or legal agreement. The need to send mail was reduced by the telephone, but it became more of a final formal step as the need for a record, agreement or contract to be produced remained.

Over time, mail evolved into email as it kept up with phones and electronic communication networks. Fast-forward to the present day and a similar situation is occurring with chat / messenger services and project, collaboration and internal workflow tools. As with the telephone, they are increasing the speed of modern-day communication mediums. But they are also evolving ecomms yet further, creating a more asynchronous form of communication in keeping with today’s global and distributed world. Yet still, all this back and forth collaboration, discussion, design and negotiation needs to result in a common, formal accepted record and format, which today is email – especially in business.

This is the Inbotiqa approach. Just as mail evolved into email, present-day email needs to evolve to become intelligent, “i-mail”, in order to keep up and remain fit for purpose for the needs of the business community. Our Intelligent Business Email platform converges email and workflow. High-volume business email group mailboxes and distribution lists are replaced. Our YUDOmail platform sits on top of existing email systems, providing a workflow management and analytics tool that also cuts costs, reduces turnaround times and risks, increases productivity and improves customer service. Emails are transformed into actionable, trackable, traceable tasks that drive performance and service.

The addition of YUDOsmart to the Inbotiqa platform further enhances internal communication, management insights and productivity gains. With this evolution to Inbotiqa’s next-generation Intelligent Business Email and the additional benefits it brings, our conviction that business email will endure only increases, and in an enhanced form that further underpins a high-performance culture.

Looking into the future, we envisage the ongoing evolution of email. Ultimately, there is a need for an omnichannel business communications tool to be developed.