The Video Conferencing Market in 2020: Taking Video to the Cloud

Introducing the video first future

5
Meeting Room Software Market Guide 2020
CollaborationInsights

Published: August 6, 2020

Rob Scott

Rob Scott

Publisher

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Video isn’t exactly a new concept in the communication landscape. For years, businesses have been investing in video to strengthen collaboration and enhance productivity. However, many of the old-fashioned video conferencing solutions were expensive, complicated, and challenging to maintain.

As legacy video infrastructure reaches end-of-life status for many leading enterprises, the opportunity to switch from an on-premise, to cloud-focused service could unlock many benefits. Thanks to the cloud and VCaaS (video conferencing as a service), businesses of all sizes and backgrounds can access the latest video technology, without the need for complex on-premise investments.

Even smaller companies in the SMB range can discover the unique benefits of maintaining face-to-face interactions anywhere with VCaaS.

Moving into the Cloud

Bloomberg believes that the video conferencing market will be worth $6.7 billion by 2025.

As organisations of all sizes continue to discover the benefits of video, yesterday’s complex solutions simply won’t cut it. Today’s employees don’t have the time to learn how to setup complicated board-room video systems. Expensive room kits are quickly being replaced with agile tools that allow organisations to deliver plug-and-play accessibility to teams.

With VCaaS, the demands on your bottom line aren’t the only thing that you can reduce. Business leaders can also eliminate the amount of work IT teams need to do to get video conferencing strategies up and running.

Ultimately, the demand for VCaaS is growing for many reasons. One of the biggest drivers is the changing workspace. As remote and globalized working becomes more popular, with people signing into their workplace from all over the globe, video on the cloud is essential.

With a VCaaS solution, in-office and remote workers can connect through face-to-face contextual communications in any environment. With the touch of a button, you can use a tool like Microsoft Teams to broadcast crucial business updates or connect with a contractor over Zoom.

Serving the New Workplace

The modern VCaaS environment even means that your employees can take their video communication tools with them to multiple rooms throughout the business landscape. A plug-and-play room kit with access to the cloud can deliver high-level video and audio, as well as state-of-the-art collaboration and file-sharing tools, all in a lightweight and portable design.

This is ideal for an environment where employees are no longer shackled to the office desk. VCaaS opens the door to the huddle rooms, coworking areas, and hotdesking trends that are boosting business productivity. Remember, remote working increases employee satisfaction, reduces attrition, and improves engagement according to Stanford studies.

What’s more, with easy-to-use VCaaS services, businesses can more easily expand their teams with remote talent from around the world. We’re quickly moving away from the era of office work as companies discover that work doesn’t have to be a “place you go to”. VCaaS simplifies the art of connecting face-to-face with colleagues for home and mobile workers alike.

As new technologies continue to emerge, the power of VCaaS is likely to evolve even further. For instance, in the years to come, when 5G becomes more accessible, we’ll be able to unlock everything from HD video on-the-move to VR/AR collaboration.

Already, 4K conferencing has begun to emerge, helping to create the crisp and clear visual connections that make employees feel as though they’re in the same room as their colleagues. Going forward, we’re likely to see the demand for these high-definition, latency-free, and infinitely scalable VCaaS tools increase. This is particularly true in the medical and manufacturing industries, where visual context can be critical to teams working together.

Getting Ready for Video

VCaaS has the potential to change the way that we do business in every vertical. It not only enhances the collaboration and meeting room space, but also opens new doorways to advanced customer service and support, provisioning, and training strategies for resellers, and even HR capabilities.

However, like any communication strategy, business leaders will need to ensure that they have the right strategy in place to improve security, compliance and adoption. This could mean:

  • Starting with a freemium version of a tool to measure the potential outcomes of switching to a video-first culture.
  • Working with partners and resellers to prioritize network security through things like encrypted platforms and endpoints, as well as managed session border controller (SBC) tools.
  • Implementing policies on enterprise-level premium tools that allow for complete control over the way that employees share data.

It may even be important to consider additional steps, like implementing recording features for compliance and auditing purposes, or updating bandwidth so the quality of the audio and video in a meeting can be improved. Here, resellers and partners can step in to make the video-first landscape more accessible.

VCaaS resellers have endless opportunities to maximize their ROI through things like:

  • Tailored VCaaS services designed to solve unique pain points for customers, like ensuring good video quality on mobile devices.
  • Support for protecting against video security issues and vulnerabilities.
  • Creating custom roll-outs of VCaaS software combined with other tools like cloud PBX technology and collaboration apps.

Preparing for a Video-First Culture

The age of the video-first culture is coming.

In the years to come, businesses will be relying on video not just for a meeting, but for a range of other key practices, from training employees, to interviewing candidates located across the globe. We’re living in a world where new generations are growing up with video at the heart of their communication strategy.

Both millennials and Gen Z are finding it increasingly easy to simply tap a button to launch a video call or start a face-time meeting rather than relying exclusively on audio communication. All the while, freemium video collaboration products are breaking down the barriers to entry in this visual landscape. Free versions of tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams mean that small and large companies can get a taste of what video-driven communication is like.

While premium tools offer more enterprise support and security than their freemium counterparts, those budget-friendly initial taster sessions can be all it takes to convince a brand to change its entire communication strategy.

In the years to come, video could be at the heart of our communication landscape.

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