While early attempts may have been slow to take off, most South African organisations believe business-class video could positively impact their organisations.
A recent study by Cisco puts the demand for business-class video - technologies that allow people from different locations to view and talk to each other using HD video cameras, monitors and microphones - at 69%.
Survey respondents believe the greatest benefits would be the savings on travel costs and the improvement of relationships with geographically-dispersed colleagues, Cisco says. In the areas where it could be particularly useful to business, 70% believe business-class video could improve conference and speeches, and 61% felt employee training could be improved using business-class video.
"Today, technology is making it easier to connect and collaborate with colleagues, partners and customers in South Africa from any location, and reliable, high-quality, interoperable video - as opposed to video that's Web cam-based, unreliable or incapable of scaling - will play a significant role in the collaboration mix," says Conrad Steyn, product sales specialist at Cisco Collaboration.
He notes video is becoming more pervasive in South African organisations as the mindset regarding the technology changes.
"If you think about it, most desktop and mobile devices today have a camera, if not two. The rise of BYOD is pushing organisations to become 'virtual enterprises' in which employees are fully location- and service-independent.
"We are heading towards a business future where the four walls of an office are not going to be relevant to a large number of the workforce. As the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed, organisations are realising the benefits and growing impact of video as a key part of business collaboration," Steyn says.
According to Steyn, video adoption is as buoyant globally as it is in SA. He points out continued business video adoption, such as HD and Web-based video conferencing and business video-on-demand is prompting greater growth in network virtualisation and leveraging the Internet for video transmission with network ramifications for service providers and over-the-top providers.
In the Middle East and Africa region as a whole, Steyn says, the sheer scope of video technology and its current application potential is breath-taking, particularly when it comes to the collaborative benefits it can deliver in fields like education, healthcare and government services.
According to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption for 2013 to 2018, IP video will be 79% of all IP traffic globally by 2018, up from 66% in 2013 and ultra HD video will account for 11% of IP video traffic globally by 2018, up from 0.1% in 2013, he reveals.
When thinking about bringing video technology into an organisation, Steyn urges, it is important to get every person or department that will be using the technology, such as the security and networking departments, involved. This forms a strong foundation to further build on and roll out the solutions to the rest of the organisation.
"Businesses need to be aware of the impact the implementation of new technology will have on the employees who are used to a certain way of doing things or are using other and/or older technologies. Businesses need to set aside adequate time to properly train employees in the new technology and explain how it will impact their day-to-day working lives and how they will be able to use it to their advantage," he concludes.
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