Instant messaging a co-worker in London, about to get on a Skype call with the community manager in Amsterdam, and screen-sharing with the development team in Paris from the home office. This not a futuristic scenario; this is how people work in collaborative businesses today. Unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), technology and infrastructure which appeared on the IT horizon a decade ago, is now mainstream. While the business case for UC&C is well accepted, many companies still find it challenging to evolve their existing culture and get their teams on-board to take advantage of its transformative potential.
What are the implications of this, and how can businesses embrace the opportunity to become truly collaborative in the 21st century?
Almost 70 percent of organisations will have moved their UC&C platforms fully to the cloud or to a hybrid model in the next two years
The new wave
Recent market data confirms that UC&C will see a surge of adoption in the coming three years, as both enterprises and SMBs implement or upgrade their infrastructure. While this has been predicted for some time, what’s become apparent is that the move to the cloud is happening a lot faster than anticipated. Almost 70 percent of organisations will have moved their UC&C platforms fully to the cloud or to a hybrid model in the next two years.
Demographics also play an important part in this trend. Millennials will form 50 percent of the workforce in just a couple of years, business today is distributed across multiple sites with remote workers forming part of the team, and 60 percent of meetings are now virtual. A recent Wainhouse paper commissioned by Logitech confirmed this: “The way users get their work done is undergoing a dramatic, historic change. We find this new work environment embraced by work-life harmony-seeking millennials and driven by highly collaborative interaction. Technology has transcended the ability to simply enable virtual collaboration, making it effective and desirable – with few barriers, anyone and everyone can instantly become engaged and help with the task at hand.”
Email and telephone still remain the top forms of communication in business, but forward-thinking companies are starting to explore new ways of collaborating. Whether businesses choose an on-site or cloud-based platform, they are doing so to accelerate the speed of their business. They will achieve this through on-demand collaboration, aiming to foster virtual teams’ rapport and decision-making with rich, high-definition video, and by improving the bottom line with savings made on travel costs.
Remote world
Video conferencing in particular has undergone a revolution, with affordable cloud based software and enterprise-grade hardware solutions now a realistic option for any company, replacing older, more expensive telepresence-type systems previously reserved only for the largest companies with the most extensive budgets.
New-to-market video-conferencing devices, such as Logitech’s ConferenceCam range, are designed to be universally compatible, meaning they work seamlessly with any video conferencing platform, on-site or cloud, and from any location. The user just needs to plug the device into their PC or Mac, and select their chosen video-calling application to be immediately connected.
Even with this simple approach, new technology can seem a little daunting to those new to video conferencing. This is where IT teams can play a major role: first, in selecting the right solutions based on business and user needs and, secondly, in helping non-IT users get up to speed and overcome any inhibitions in using the new technology.
Training must be an integral part of any deployment, and simple steps can make a big difference in the rollout, such as planning for a guided launch period, offering taster sessions to new users, and always ensuring that remote employees are included in the briefings. The goal is make users so proficient that video conferencing becomes a totally natural experience, and collaborating with remote team members a highlight of the working day.