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Midsize companies - those with between 250 and 2,000 employees - are taking center stage in the U.S. economy. Growth at Fortune 500 companies has leveled or dropped during the past few years. Middle market firms, on the other hand, have been an engine of growth, with companies increasing their sales and hiring. As they earn a well-deserved spotlight, midsize firms are also realizing that the stakes are higher and the competition is fiercer.

Communication and collaboration can give your midsize business an advantage, enabling you to compete against much larger companies. Superior tools can help your organization excel in customer experience and employee satisfaction while consistently improving the bottom line. Importantly, better collaboration can have a positive impact on other key midmarket trends: the support for mobility and BYOD, a dispersed workforce and changing communication patterns. 

BYOD is moving from permission to a mandate. Experts say that by 2017, half of employers will require employees to bring their own device. In midmarket companies, this shift is already underway.

Mobility provides employees the freedom to work from anywhere: branch office, home, on the road, at a client site, or anywhere. According to a December 2011 report by IDC about mobile workers, 1.3 billion (37.2%) people will work outside the office by 2015, and 45% of employees will typically work outside the traditional office a minimum of eight hours per week.  Collaboration overcomes the gaps, waits and confusion caused by multiple locations, different devices and changing communication types. Collaboration lets distributed, mobile teams and individuals work together across regions and time zones, sharing documents, manipulating content in real time and having conversations as if they are in the same room.