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Growing market appetite for video solutions

Utilisation of video is spreading across not only large enterprises, but to SMEs and vertical markets too, says Kathea Communications.

Lebo Mashiloane
By Lebo Mashiloane
Johannesburg, 25 Nov 2013

Video conferencing is maturing in the sense that a large number of resellers are starting to move away from the enterprise-only environment and are also providing solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

So says David Sales, head of product management at video conferencing technology company, Kathea Communications.

"We are also seeing video being used for day-to-day operations in vertical markets such as healthcare and education," adds Sales.

In education, for example, highly skilled teachers cannot only be accessed by a classroom of 30 students, but also by thousands of other students through their mobile devices or tablets, he notes.

"There's also a leap into healthcare, where the same video technology used in education is being utilised to make doctors available in regions where skilled doctors are not available on the ground," he says. "Through streaming of video on the iPad or mobile device, a doctor is able to interview a patient in real time, and essentially provide information to the patient that will help with his or her recovery."

Banking and 'the branch of the future', as Sales refers to it, is another area in which video will have an immense impact.

He uses an example of having to visit a branch to speak to a home loans specialist. "So instead of having home loan specialists in all 500 bank branches, what the institution can do is have a minimal number in a central location, with a video conferencing solution on their desks. A customer comes in, clicks on a home loan screen and is automatically directed to the portal, defying the distance."

One of the effects of pushing boundaries, observes Sales, is that there are bound to be challenges, one of them being change management.

"While new technology comes in, it often takes time from an end-user perspective in organisations to embrace that change, even though the specific value proportion can be seen from the outset," he says.

He adds that there is also the question around how these new technologies are governed by compliance requirements.

"How does an organisation make the service available to their staff and how far does the freedom for employees to use these technologies go?" asks Sales.

Despite these obstacles, he notes, the maturity of video as a service and being available in the cloud means it's now easier for organisations to consume video in pockets and not require IT departments to sign off on specific elements before the marketing department can use a video service.

Sales concludes that a large number of companies are adapting to these technologies to better their products and to meet customer demand, which is benefiting their businesses.

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