Since the events of 2020, the world has gradually grown more accustomed to the concept of “social distancing”. Everything we do is now edged with a degree of caution, whether it’s waiting for the train, or booking meetings with clients. As the future of the hybrid working world unfurls, this careful approach to interactions represents an important opportunity for channel partners.
Companies of all sizes will be looking for ways to transform their meeting rooms, making them more hygienic, COVID-safe, and contact-free.
So, how do channel partners embrace this new environment?
The key to success will be in providing peace of mind through tools that require less interaction, and support employees in staying safe.
Investing in Fewer Wires and Buttons: Voice Assistants
Even before the pandemic, many business buyers were looking to make meeting rooms into more streamlined spaces. Endless wires and buttons often made setting conversations up into a more complex affair. People wanted a way to connect that was simpler, and more intuitive.
The popularity of tools like Amazon Alexa and Google Home opened the door to voice assistants as the go-to strategy for removing immediate problems with contact. Many employees and teams are already comfortable with using their smart assistants to complete tasks at home. Channel partners that can introduce meeting solutions linked to voice assistants will create a natural step into contactless interaction for their customers.
A Microsoft Teams meeting room, for instance, can use access with Microsoft Cortana so that colleagues can start meetings by simply asking their assistant to bring up a section of their calendar, or connect with a colleague. The use of voice assistants will also demand access to the right microphones and peripheral tools for channel partners.
Companies will need to ensure that their meeting rooms can pick up human voice quickly and easily, from wherever an employee might be standing. This clarity of voice will be crucial not just for human-to-human conversation going forward, but for human-to-machine interactions too.
Bring Your Own Device, and Meeting
Another major component of the touchless meeting room will be the evolution of employees using their own personal devices in the meeting space. BYOD (Bring your own device) was a quickly gaining steam as a fantastic way to engage employees and reduce costs in the business environment before the pandemic hit. Now that companies are returning to work in a post-pandemic environment, employees probably won’t want to stop using the tools they’ve gotten used to.
The onus is on channel partners in this environment to ensure that business leaders have a way of managing the various devices that employees bring into the workplace. UCaaS and meeting solutions that can be rolled out to personal devices through cloud-based apps and interfaces will be crucial. Companies will also be looking for ways to secure their employees using external devices, through mobile device management, and remote troubleshooting facilities.
With the right, secured strategy for BYOD, employees should be able to launch meetings and connect to conference calls from socially distanced spaces within a wider meeting room environment. This reduces the need for employees to huddle around a central conference phone or set up a call with a central touchscreen.
