Video conferencing finds the answers

ver the last two years, the importance of visual communications in business has experienced a dramatic reversal of fortunes. While there was a period of time when video conferencing had ‘fallen off the radar scope’ of many senior executives, independent research by growth consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan shows it now firmly back on the boardroom agenda – and with good reason.

This article reviews the factors impacting the market for visual communications that explain this remarkable change, highlighting the key business challenges for which video is now providing the answers.

In a white-water world
In a recent survey by IBM of global CEOs, the phrase “white-water world” was used by one executive to describe the complexity of the business environment and the hectic pace of change that organizations now face.

The accelerating rate of change in the environments in which many companies must operate is being created by a number of factors, chief of which being the continuous and growing impact of globalization.

While the globalization for corporations in the 1980s and 1990s was primarily about finding new overseas markets and off-shoring production capacity to lower the cost of manufacturing, today this phenomenon is creating new challenges for companies. Production is no longer a standalone entity – a steel factory in Brazil, or a software development house in India. Today, production itself has gone global, with elements of the process of building a new product spread in many locations, in many countries and across multiple times zones – demanding far better coordination and collaboration.

Other factors include the rising demand from stakeholders for visible action on climate change. Organizations of all sizes are now expected to have clear corporate social responsibility statements detailing how they intend to reduce the impact their operations are having on the environment, most prominently including the lowering of carbon emissions.

Additionally, employers and employees are demanding great flexibility of each other. Companies want their people to be more adaptable in both there place and time of work, while workers want more freedom to chose when the work, allowing the more time with families.

Video steps up to the plate

While the problems facing companies have been piling up, technology has not been standing still.
The last five years have seen an amazing transformation in both the range and capabilities of collaborative products and services, and of the networks to make their use an attractive and viable proposition for companies - from the smallest firm, to the largest global corporation.
After a number of years of relatively slow growth in interest, videoconferencing is now re-emerging as a collaboration tool of preference for many organisations.

The transition to IP as the network of choice, the quality of picture delivered by the latest high definition products, the ability to support multipoint calls for a single VC system have each played a vital part in creating a new generation of products that will help companies prosper in the white-water world.

It’s little wonder, then, that at Frost & Sullivan we see the global videoconferencing endpoints market is set for a period of sustained growth, from $1.1 billion in 2007 to $3.9 billion in 2014: a compound annual growth rate of 19.9 per cent.