You probably already have opinions regarding video and your business. You may be using it or thinking about using it, or may have decided you don’t need it. Whatever your preconceptions, it’s important to better understand this medium and its place in businesses around the world. Video has reached a tipping point, with mainstream consumer adoption crossing boundaries into the workplace – and there are several reasons why you should care.
Most people agree that face-to-face communication is best. As proof, take a look at your company’s travel budget. To solve complex business problems and develop strong relationships, an email or instant message – or even a phone conversation – is not as effective as a face-to-face meeting. Video communications provide the human element and rich content of face-to-face conversation, allowing people to do their jobs most effectively.
In addition to improving communication, video reduces travel costs and the associated lost productivity. In so doing, video also plays a role in responsible, sustainable ecology practices. Conducting meetings on video reduces dependence on business travel, offsetting the corporate carbon footprint and decreasing factors that lead to global warming and climate change. Gaining a competitive advantage and helping the environment? Is it possible? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’
The case for desktop video
To increase productivity, video should be readily accessible, easy to use and address a variety of communication needs.
For maximum impact, video should be widely available where people work. Only a small percentage of business life occurs in conference rooms, where companies have traditionally deployed video. Not simply a tool for a few, desktop video can and should be deployed widely to teams who need to collaborate often, especially on complex issues. As a self-service application that integrates into everyday workflow, Avistar’s desktop video unites individuals into virtual teams, wherever they are. Video on the desktop (or laptop) provides fast, face-to-face communication that bolsters trust, speeds decision-making and reduces the risk of miscommunication.
Avistar also accommodates the need for larger, planned meetings through its broadcasting capability. A company meeting can be broadcast to hundreds of viewers and various members of the audience can be dynamically ‘dragged and dropped’ into the broadcast when they need to ask a question or impart information.
Inevitably, there are situations in which someone who needs to be present on a broadcast or smaller discussion is unavailable. By providing the ability to record, play back and publish video, Avistar helps organisations overcome the barriers created by geographies and time zones. Recorded broadcasts and video calls can be replayed during a live call or published by email or on a website for easy access.
With so many employees working from regional offices or remote locations, a video solution must be accessible to mobile workers and provide the same state-of-the-art functionality available to office users. Avistar accomplishes this by offering a single application that operates in multiple modes: software-only for mobile workers or –for those in the office – leveraging additional desktop hardware that offloads processing from the PC.
Of course, visual interactions aren’t always necessary. Sometimes another communications tool – email, instant messaging, etc. – is right for the job. When employees are armed with a variety of collaboration tools, they can choose the one that best suits the business challenge at hand. That’s why Avistar integrated its solution with Microsoft Office and IBM’s widely adopted enterprise instant messaging solution, IBM Lotus Sametime. This allows users to initiate Avistar video calls from an instant messaging buddy list, a chat or email. In this way, users can immediately escalate an instant messaging or email interaction to a video call as discussions become more complex—as they so often do.
Adoption: making video work for you
Imagine you had email, but most of your colleagues didn’t have it. Would you use it? If you did, would it matter? Video can be an excellent tool for improving internal communication and increasing the productivity of your employees. However, video is by nature a collaborative technology and must be deployed correctly to achieve optimal benefits.
With 15,000 desktop video users across 40 countries and two top customers that used 25 million minutes of video in 2006, Avistar has leveraged its extensive experience with scaled video deployment to ensure its customers’ installations are among the world’s largest and most successful. Based on this experience, Avistar recommends several video deployment best practices, including:
A thorough examination of business processes and communication patterns to identify the interactions that would be most improved through use of video;
A common understanding among executives, managers and users of the business objectives and rationale behind the video deployment;
A minimum of 40 percent penetration within collaborative groups to reach critical mass;
Training, training, training – old patterns die hard and even easy-to-use products can go unused when training is skipped;
Top-quality support accessible by users on a timely basis.
As an expert in the deployment of video collaboration solutions, Avistar can help your organisation through all steps of this process and provide various levels of post-deployment support.
Measuring the success of video in your organisation
Some of the benefits you’ll realise with video are easy to quantify. For instance, travel cost savings will be considerable. One Avistar customer with thousands of seats has saved over €10m in travel costs. In most cases, a single business trip costs more than an Avistar seat. Other Avistar customers use video to significantly reduce their training costs by making broadcasted or pre-recorded video training sessions available to dispersed employees.
The list of benefits goes on from there. Depending on how you deploy video, your company may also experience faster time-to-market, better dissemination of vital knowledge and stronger relationships that lead to more effective teamwork and a more nimble organisation.
Other benefits can’t be measured in currency or man-hours, but are instead measured in terms of social responsibility and impact on the environment. For example, it is estimated that the customer cited above, with €10m in travel costs savings, also prevented the release of a corresponding 6,000 tonnes of CO2.
Additionally, video helps individuals and communities by supporting work/life balance initiatives. With video access, an employee who works from home can still be effective as he limits commute time and increases time with his family. Likewise, using Avistar’s solution, an executive won’t be tempted to cancel her family’s vacation, even if it occurs at the same time as an unexpected meeting that can’t be missed. She can attend by video and participate fully in complicated, strategic discussions. These benefits extend to the corporation. Employees with better work/life balance are more likely to be satisfied with their work and less likely to seek employment elsewhere. This reduces training, productivity and recruiting costs associated with employee turnover.
Avistar has long recognized that visual communications are uniquely suited for improving the quality and speed of collaboration. Whether in the context of an increasingly outsourced and mobile workforce or in an office environment, desktop video is a powerful tool that can help your employees work more effectively – and at the speed of sight.