Telepresence and video conferencing has come of age. Not only is it allowing the world’s leading organisations to reduce business travel, increase productivity and demonstrate corporate social responsibility, it is driving competitive advantage by bringing together business-critical people faster, more frequently and at a lower cost.
The way organisations buy telepresence and video conferencing has also changed. With the arrival of video conferencing-as-a-service (VaaS), embracing the technology no longer involves a large capital expenditure. Many have invested millions in the technology but failed to consider key issues such as service availability, ease of use and quality of experience which have a massive impact on usage, adoption and therefore success.
Accelerating business
Evolving workplace practices mean that many organisations now rely on virtual teams, operating across several locations and incorporating remote and mobile workers.
This, coupled with the frequency of the threats to productivity and profitability now posed by snowfall, flooding, transport strikes and even volcanoes, have caused many organisations to reassess their continuity planning and business agility.
Whether one operates in a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) arena, the effects of accelerating the business processes within one’s organisation are both systemic and dramatic. It not only means faster market access, increased customer value, simplified otherwise complex supply chains, but also powers knowledge sharing, business unification and the greater revenues that follow better customer retention and intimacy.
Telepresence and video conferencing-as-a-service
More importantly perhaps than ‘why’ organisations buy video conferencing is ‘how’. Many CIOs already use software and systems-as-a-service to meet their strategic needs. The same applies to communications technologies with managed video conferencing, or video conferencing-as-a-service (VaaS).
A December 2009 Gartner Report states that “by 2015, over 200 million workers globally will run corporate-supplied video conferencing from their desktops and by 2012, 40 percent of enterprises will adopt a blend of cloud and premises-based approaches to meet their unified communication (UC) needs.”
VaaS, also known as the ‘on-demand model’, is changing the way businesses of all sizes and in all industries procure video conferencing. Everything from the technology itself to its costing structure is designed to deliver an entirely new experience.
VaaS is a service distribution model in which video conferencing is hosted by a specialist service provider and made available to customers over a dedicated video network. The service provider manages access to video conferencing, including security, availability and performance. VaaS allows extremely simple and highly affordable access to business quality video conferencing through its delivery as a state-of-the-art managed service rather than a technology or a product.
Removing the last two great barriers to video conferencing adoption – expense and infrastructure – VaaS finally delivers the promise of totally reliable, broadcast quality video conferencing for all. It’s now about paying for the business benefit and not the technology.
Solid delivery with a managed service
It’s of paramount importance that people can begin their video meetings without having to worry about the technology. If it’s not easy to use, employees will never adopt a new way of working. Help is at hand with managed video service. For a fixed monthly cost, organisations are provided with a dedicated video network, endpoints (the hardware) and supporting services such as a concierge facility, directory of contacts and helpdesk.
The main advantage to this, according to user organisations such as Eurostar, Nomura and Poundland, is that it doesn’t require an increase in IT headcount to install or maintain. And, it provides the ongoing specialist expertise that is quite often lacking within IT departments; even in the largest of corporations.
The pressure to keep pace with the business community by entering the video conferencing age has created a significant skills challenge for many organisations. These skills are highly sought after and usually command a price tag that reflects this. It is a dilemma fraught with risk; how does an organisation source the appropriate skill sets with a limited understanding of video conferencing and how can it be sure that it has acquired the right person or expertise?
Telepresence; it’s more about adoption than deployment
To achieve the full potential of telepresence and video conferencing throughout an organisation, employees need to understand what the system is, the potential it has to improve their working lives and the contribution it can make to the success of their business.
Once users have experienced visual communication, they rarely want to give it up. However, this enthusiasm is quickly dented by poor availability; either because using the equipment correctly is hard or the service itself has failed. So, ensuring a solid service is absolutely critical if people are to adopt the technology. This is very important when rolling out high-end immersive telepresence systems.
An integrated solution
Telepresence and video conferencing needs to be easy and effective at four critical stages; point of purchase, deployment, ongoing management then usage and adoption. Acknowledging this and in response to evolving customer demands, specialist IT and services provider, Dimension Data recently acquired mvision for its dedicated managed service and VaaS offerings.
The combined result is truly integrated communications expertise that is now affordable for organisations large and small to help them communicate and collaborate across multiple channels, improve productivity, enhance customer service and achieve competitive advantage.