Keeping tabs on tech trends can feel like trudging through shifting sand: with every step you take, the landscape seems to transform completely, radically altering your perceptions of the world on a seemingly second-by-second basis. It’s helpful, then, to have an aerial view of the terrain. A recent survey conducted by Nemertes Research offers just such a snapshot of the state of the video conferencing world in 2017.
Nemertes surveyed 132 organizations and found that 64% of companies are using video conferencing systems, with 30% of companies reporting that they are planning to implement video conferencing solutions in 2017. Only 5% of responding organizations said they have no plans to pursue video conferencing solutions.
So that’s the wide angle view: video conferencing has been integrated into the vast majority of businesses. Not a huge shock there. But let’s zoom in a little bit and look at which kinds of video conferencing solutions people are seeking out.
If you’ve been following our recent blog posts, it won’t come as a surprise to you that Nemertes found that cloud-based video conferencing systems are increasingly popular. Between 2016 and 2017, the percentage of companies using cloud services increased from 31% to 40%. An additional 41% of survey participants reported that they are planning to use cloud-based video conferencing in the future.
Companies seem to be catching on to the fact that cloud solutions like Prime Call Cloud MeetMe offer all of the advantages of a traditional on-site solution--connection, collaboration, content sharing--while also granting an increased degree of flexibility for a workforce that is more mobile and far-flung than ever.
The rise in popularity of cloud solutions has been matched by another trend, as more and more organizations are hopping on the huddle room bandwagon. 64% of companies surveyed said they are increasing video conferencing deployment in smaller rooms, compared to 32% of companies in 2016.
Much like the uptick in cloud conferencing’s popularity, the ascendancy of the huddle room is in large part due to a need for a more mutable definition of work space. With more employees splitting their time between the office and home, the need for dedicated work stations declines. Such spaces only make sense when everyone works on-site. If your staff is coming and going at irregular intervals, you want multi-use spaces that can become whatever they have to be. And a huddle room is just that: a place for remote employees to land when they visit the office; a venue for an ad hoc brainstorming session; or a quiet room for an important video call.
It might seem like outfitting such a room could get expensive--it has to serve multiple purposes, after all--but manufacturers like Cisco have innovated small-scale solutions that do everything their bigger siblings can.
If there is one area where companies are falling behind, it is desktop conferencing. Only 5% of companies are currently offering desktop conferencing to more than half of their employees. Yes, 65% of companies are currently using desktop conferencing in some capacity, but they are offering the solution to less than 5% of their employees. According to Nemertes, the companies with a wider deployment report a higher success rate, so it’s clear that desktop video should definitely be factored into a company-wide video conferencing plan.
Find out more about our cloud conferencing services, room solutions and desktop options and please contact us with questions about pricing and implementation. We will have one of our experts get back to you shortly.
