We have reached a perfect storm in terms of video collaboration, as businesses and consumers call for increased connectivity.
This was the overarching sentiment of a panel discussion at Kathea's annual VISCOM event in Johannesburg this week.
Birgitta Cederstrom, head of best practices for innovation and leadership for Africa at Frost & Sullivan, noted that as many as 90% of CEOs and executives see the value of video collaboration and unified communications (UC), adding that bandwidth is no longer an inhibitor to a visual communications strategy. She stressed that younger workforces want to engage collaboratively. "When you have staff and clients who want this connectivity, you as a business need to offer it. A visual communications strategy makes sense because people want to, and need to, connect."
Despite a significant rise in mobility, Tim Stone, Polycom VP of marketing for EMEA, noted that room-based video-conferencing systems are still doing well. "The first quarter of 2013 saw a record for room-based video-conferencing systems in the global market," said Stone, adding that Polycom is seeing a lot of usage in healthcare and distance-learning initiatives, and even in manufacturing.
Focusing on video collaboration in education, Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx founder and industry analyst, stressed that various political issues are hampering the rollout of educational video offerings in SA. "Video collaboration in the education environment is a great option for SA. Funding is not the problem; the issue is whether we have the desire to implement these solutions, and if they can be managed effectively." Some of the world's top business schools and universities are already sharing videos of their lecture content, he added.
All of the panellists stressed the importance of interoperability with other vendors, noting that new technologies need to be integrated into existing IT systems. "Video has to work with existing environments and support multiple devices, otherwise it presents problems for the organisation," said Stone.
Waseem Hashem, Microsoft Lync CTO for MEA, agreed. "Each business and consumer has unique video needs. Facilitating these different scenarios without interoperability is impossible."
Ermano Quartero, a managing executive at Vodacom Business, described video as "the saviour of data" in that it has counteracted some of the declines in voice. "We are seeing a lot of video use by corporates. Operators in SA and around the world are embracing video by hosting video applications and encouraging enterprises to use video."
"As soon as the business and social case for video collaboration becomes clearer and easier to roll out and manage, there will undoubtedly be massive acceleration in this area," said Goldstuck.
According to Quartero, video collaboration has changed how staff at Vodacom operate on a daily basis. "If video is not looked at as part of a business strategy - like voice was five or six years ago - those businesses are going to miss the mark."
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