The recession is driving wide-scale adoption of managed telecomunications services according to a Forrester survey of 2,300 IT decision makers across Europe and North America.

One in five said they are purchasing more of these services as a result of the recession, while 47% of enterprises said they already have contracts in place. Desktop voice over IP (VoIP) was a major driver with 34% of enterprise respondents implementing or already operating a VoIP environment.

A further 22% claimed to be currently evaluating a unified communications (UC) solution while only 12% expressed no interest in the technology. Key motivations cited for UC adoption were cost reduction and enabling greater communication between employees.