A Leadership Perspectives White Paper

Transcription

1 A Leadership Perspectives White Paper Business-Enabled Audio, Web and Video Conferencing Recommended approaches for CIO/CTO leadership Number 4 in a series Executive Summary There is a strong business case to be made for the adoption of audio, web and video conferencing services, and the economic climate has actually escalated demand for such services. The industry continues to evolve rapidly and conferencing environments are changing too, with new hardware and software tools, and managed services options now available in the UAE. Progressive IT departments are looking at how best to exploit these for business benefit. Over time, they want to evolve beyond simply using audio calls to other conferencing technologies, which offer more effective means of knowledge sharing and new levels of collaboration. Video conferencing, in particular, is set to become a pervasive business enabler, as this now provides an excellent customer experience and can be successfully applied to many different business scenarios and generate cost savings in the process. Now that the UAE telco infrastructure is robust enough to support web and video conferencing they look set to become the medium of choice among employees. The generation now entering the workforce are extremely web and video-savvy and will come to expect systems that allow them to share information over the web and run virtual meetings with a video service that connects them with colleagues, customers and business partners wherever they might be.

2 Business case overview The drivers for business investment in audio, web and video conferencing are inherently strong: Where cost savings can be demonstrated, budget holders will listen. Where productivity benefits can be demonstrated, executives will turn their attention. The quality of audio, web and video conferencing hardware and software continues to increase. Awareness of the technology and its benefits continues to increase. Prices, particularly for endpoints, are falling under competitive pressure and economies of scale, making return on investment quicker to achieve. These make for very good reasons for adoption, and a survey of multinational companies carried out during the economic downturn identified that, far from hindering deployment, the recession has actually escalated demand for audio, web and videoconferencing services. Against this backdrop, the outlook for business-enabled conferencing looks extremely positive and we can expect steady growth for the next five years as UAE organisations move to wholesale adoption. The global audio and web conferencing market will grow to $8.2bn in 2015 from $6.2bn in 2010, driven by rapid growth in web conferencing on a global scale and substantial growth in audio conferencing in growth markets like the UAE, which are in turn being driven by globalisation and mobile and remote working. Businesses will also steadily increase their expenditure on video conferencing equipment and services over the next five years from $2.9bn in 2011 to $3.8bn in 2016 globally, with the Middle East markets responsible for around 3% of that. Unlike audio and web conferencing, this increase in demand will be strong globally, particularly in immersive video (so-called highdefinition telepresence) and managed video services. All in all, businesses are facing a huge opportunity with conferencing to cut costs and improve productivity and business processes. CIO/CTOs will want to closely evaluate their technology options and the migration paths available to them, however. The industry continues to evolve rapidly. Changing supplier technology roadmaps, acquisitions, partnerships, and past interoperability problems have caused uncertainty for some early adopters. Conferencing environments are changing too, with new hardware and software tools and managed services becoming available through du which makes the way forward easier to navigate. Understanding the business conferencing options Web conferencing is a real-time Internet-based activity where two or more participants share information and are able to communicate verbally with each other via an integrated VoIP connection or a separate phone line. Popular examples include Cisco Webex and Microsoft LiveMeeting, but there are many competing alternatives. Audio conferencing is a voice call conducted between at least two people using an externally hosted bridge to connect them. Audio conferencing is either automated or managed. Total minute costs are measured by multiplying the number of call participants by the length in minutes of the call. If there is real time sharing of documents using a web interface, the conference is regarded not as an audio conference but as a web conference. Automated audio conferencing (also known as unattended audio or reservationless audio) is set up by one of the participants in the call, and does not require operator assistance or scheduling. Managed audio (also known as event audio) conferences are scheduled in advance and are managed by an operator, which may provide functions such as event moderation, registration, and call admission. A streamed event offers a scheduled web-based conference which is focused on the delivery of information more than the free-flowing exchange of information. In a streamed event, a company will typically present material to participants using PowerPoint slides and audio. Following this, the event is often opened up for a question and answer session. Questions can be asked by chat and/or audio. Typical uses are one-to-many events such as investor relations conferences and internal companywide presentations from executives. Video conferencing is two-way communication between two or more participants all located in rooms or at desktops that primarily uses video as the medium of communication: that is, it is not PC-based or web-based. It can be delivered as a managed solution. Conferencing that is web-based, even if it uses video, is counted as web conferencing.

3 Charting the phases of business conferencing evolution The complementary nature of conferencing technologies can mean that many business customers particularly larger businesses will purchase multiple conferencing services. Likely evolution Less likely evolution Web Collaborative video desktop or room Each technology serves a different requirement. For example, automated audio is useful for small, ad hoc meetings where ongoing two-way dialog is required, but it will not be practical for a briefing-type conference, such as an investor relations conference where the numbers of attendees will be too large for a free flow of information and where a managed audio call would be more appropriate. Similarly, a streamed event conference will be good for distributing information to many individuals, but is poorer than an audio or web conference for true two-way collaboration. Web conferences will be effective for advanced collaboration but are unlikely to be appropriate for swift exchanges of information or for non-pc-led environments. Because there is relatively little overlap between conferencing technologies, we expect little substitution between them, save for the long-term migration that is outlined below. Therefore there is room for all of the technologies to be adopted by the business and championed by IT. Over time, most businesses will evolve beyond audio calls to the other conferencing technologies, using more effective means of knowledge sharing and making their business processes more efficient in the process. The most likely migration paths, which consist of two or three phases, is detailed below. Beyond simple phone calls, the first stage in conferencing for nearly all businesses is audio conferencing, because it is the simplest service and commonly requires only telephone handsets for all participants. Audio is a transitory stage, lasting for a period of time that depends on a mesh of factors, including availability of more advanced technologies, vertical sector, PC usage, and many more. Beyond audio, businesses tend to choose to follow one of three migration paths with which to bolster their knowledge sharing: web conferencing (adds document sharing), streaming events (adds distribution), or video conferencing (adds visual communication). Transitory stage Sub-evolutionary end-point Evolutionary end-point Audio Streaming event Time Noncollaborative video desktop or room The web conferencing path, which is growing in popularity, is generally chosen by businesses that want to share documents or other files or data in their meetings. In many cases, it is being chosen instead of video conferencing because of the far lower cost. The availability of web conferencing with moderate-quality video capabilities is bolstering its growth. Video conferencing is chosen where businesses want to build stronger visual relationships between meeting participants. Accordingly, video usage tends to appeal more to businesses that want to conduct conferences with business partners and customers. For these sorts of relationships, web conferencing may be inadequate. Companies may choose to move to a simple noncollaborative video solution, or one of the growing range of video solutions offering collaborative tools. The third migration path is to streamed events, and this is also growing in popularity, particularly because, unlike video conferencing, streamed events require little hardware, and are therefore low in capital cost to implement. An increasing number of businesses are now using streaming events as a way to communicate with and distribute information to large numbers of people. Streaming events are often used for intra-company presentations, investor relations events, press conferences, sales promotional events, and training sessions, among other uses. For this type of event, streaming works well because it is possible to deliver a large amount of content to participants without any interruption from them. It is possible to take questions from participants, while screening those questions for suitability. However, streamed events lack interaction. Level of collaboration

4 Collaboration is possible by sharing files such as PowerPoint slides, but streamed events represent collaboration in one of its most basic forms. Questions are usually limited to a chat function, causing a lack of interactivity. The result is that useful questions can go unanswered and both questions and answers can be misunderstood. This limits the benefits streaming events can bring to business processes. Some businesses will implement streamed events and, satisfied with the outcome (and possibly concerned with the cost of further migration), will then not invest in web or video conferencing, missing out on the greater collaborative benefits of these two technologies. Unfortunately, there is no technological migration from streamed events to either web or video conferencing: instead a full replacement and/or upgrade will be required. Streaming events are a technology dead-end. They are an end-point in conferencing migration, but an ineffective one because communication processes are not optimised to the extent that is technologically possible. Migration from web to collaborative video is possible, and some businesses will migrate. Greater availability of and improving quality of video in web conferencing for some makes this sufficient. Both web and video conferencing are therefore endpoints in businesses' migration paths, using the full technology availability. Business video set to become a preferred and pervasive enabler The use of video in business environments will be as prevalent in 2020 as audio conferencing is today. Video communication will be part of most business applications, conferences and meetings within and between companies. Given the effects of consumerisation, increasing deployment of unified communcations features and the influx of the next generation into the workforce, video will start to become one of the preferred business methods of communication. Video multimedia presentations will be as common as PowerPoint use is today. Key trends: Today the current use of business video is primarily the extension of video conferencing (or telepresence) between major locations and conference rooms within the same company. This will dramatically change over the next few years. Inter-company video will be a common practice, video will expand into many different applications and video will be enabled in all businessprovided devices. Tools for video-enabled web conferencing and video applications will dramatically extend their reach over the coming years; this will condition the business community to create, view and leverage video in many business and customer interactions. There will be a great number of enterprise video applications, social networks and management tools as well as video search and archiving tools that will drive the use of video in the business environment. The consumer and prosumer use of video will make its way into enterprise communities. IT organisations will be forced to support video applications as employees use video throughout the enterprise and externally. Video technology will evolve to support various video protocols, and bridging capabilities will be developed to allow all video equipment, software and clients to interoperate and provide high-definition quality, in most cases. This will include many software clients that can be supported on all PCs and mobile devices. Video will be embedded within corporate IT, unified communication and Internet-based applications, and this will enable business end users to create, manage and view video on an on-demand basis. Corporate training, announcements, technical instruction and demonstrations of all kinds will be provided within the corporate network, which will integrate video for remote office, multi-site and global broadcast. This video can then be stored and archived as well as broadcast in real time. The generation entering the workforce will be videosavvy and conditioned to receive information, training, news and information-sharing over video on the web. This will also increase the use of video within the corporate culture, including multimedia presentations, which will both replace or supplement PowerPoint presentations.

5 Planning for the collaborative future of business conferencing The business conferencing market is changing faster than ever, and will look radically different in five years time. New conferencing products and managed services in particular are accelerating that rate of change. Analysts forecast that adoption in the more progressive Middle East countries like UAE will be both rapid and broad. There will be large growth among businesses in these regions as audio penetration further expands and as web conferencing services become more widely available and better understood and as organisations turn in numbers to the managed video conferencing solutions that are now available in the UAE. In October 2010, du signed an agreement with FVC, the value-added distributor of Polycom, which triggered the launch of a video network operations centre and the offer of managed video services to businesses around the UAE. This includes a full range of video conferencing and telepresense systems bundled with network support and services as solutions which can scale from desktop to a fullblown in-room telepresense system. The supporting videonoc service offers 24 x 7 x 365 management of systems, as well as providing video bridging services. This opens a door onto multipoint video conferencing based on open standards covering the widest range of interoperable systems. Videoconferencing is moving away from the scheduled environment of the departmental conference room to the adhoc, unscheduled work style of the desktop, so solutions like this that offer flexibility are essential. Quality-of-service is another important criteria that favours use of a managed solution. Demand for video conferencing is being driven mainly by senior business executives seeking to replace face-to-face meetings with realistic video meetings. Because of the level of interaction required for these, executives will not tolerate a poor-quality video conferencing experience. Conferencing market maturity Laggards Low levels of service availability, particularly outside automated audio Little competition Little understanding of conferencing technology or services Uptake low outside of corporate businesses Lack of ubiquitous high-quality comms and Internet backbone infrastructure impedes market growth Prices remain high Non-evolvers Few services beyond automated audio Almost no competition Little understanding of conferencing technology or services Uptake very low Lack of infrastructure to underpin conferencing growth High and largely stable prices Malawi Jamaica Challengers Service availability growing. Audio is the main play but web becoming a major focus Growing competition Growing recognition of conferencing benefits, technology and services Uptake much higher in corporate businesses Lack of ubiquitous highquality Internet backbone infrastructure impedes market growth Prices reducing Vietnam Ukraine Jordan Malaysia India Brazil Developed and maturing Services widely available in all conferencing technologies High levels of competition in all technologies Widespread recognition of conferencing benefits and technology but some markets face cultural inhibitors Broad uptake in corporate businesses, but room for growth in SME and mid-size Moderate usage and growing significantly Prices falling significantly Developed and mature Full service availability High levels of competition in all technologies Widespread recognition of conferencing benefits Broad uptake of all services across SME/corporate High usage within each business Prices falling significantly Critical factors of business adoption and acceptance by employees Poland South Africa Time UAE Hong Kong Japan Singapore Germany United Kingdom United States As with all emerging business communications methods that are introduced into the business environment, there are many factors that will propel or impede acceptance and growth with the business community. Some of these are technology based but many are business process, culture or infrastructure dependent. Based on current developments and the roadmap of the vendors and service providers focused on the enterprise market, it is highly likely that these factors will be addressed and will contribute to the implementation and acceptance of many web and video applications in enterprise environments.

6 1. Enterprise social networking Enterprise-class social networking applications are just being developed within many such web, software and IP telephony and unified communications systems and services being introduced to the market in The deployment of enterprise social networking platforms and their support of video applications, in particular, will start to fuel the use, knowledge and comfort level of corporations and their employees in the creation and sharing of video content. 2. Network requirements Just as telepresence has been enabled by higher and cheaper bandwidth to the major enterprise sites, an enterprise s internal network bandwidth and QoS requirements will have to account for video applications, files and broadcast. This also includes the ability to prioritise video applications in a variety of modes real time, broadcast and recorded sessions. 3. Culture Corporate culture can drive or stall any new communication mode or media. Cultural change comes with management sponsorship, IT policy, employee training and re-enforcement by continual use internally as well as with partners, customers and suppliers. 4. Policy New policies will need to be created regarding the use, sharing and archiving of video communication and broadcasts. This will include the storage requirements for video communication in all its forms. The legal issues surrounding video content ownership, intellectual property and employee privacy will have to be clarified. Future policies covering the transmission and storage of video content will be similar to those which govern Interoperability Given the different devices which will be enabled to carry video, in which cases should the enterprise support interoperability? Where should it outsource or use outside bridging and interoperability services? How does the use of a managed video solution overcome these issues? There may be more efficient external options that provide the protocol conversion and bridging services between companies. Before became fully interoperable, there was a long period in which s only worked within a company and there was a need for an gateway between companies. 6. Consumer video The personal use of video in consumer applications and electronics is continually exposing more and more people to video applications and devices in everyday use. This means that employees and business owners who are also active consumer users of video will not require a great deal of training to apply and use video in business environments. 7. Generation X/Y influx As 2020 approaches, the millennial and digital natives will be coming into the business world as employees and entrepreneurs in larger and larger numbers. They will have grown up with video applications and devices that have supported video. Conclusions: Getting started with conferencing The business case for audio, web and particularly for video conferencing is strong but needs to be fully developed before purchasing any equipment or agreeing new services. There is a need to understand the usage case, the business processes that might be impacted, and the type of meetings that will be carried out, before quantifying the savings on travel and employees time. 1. Define your roadmap/migration for audio, web, streaming, and video conferencing and ensure the technology and services you choose map onto this. Beware technology dead ends and sub-evolutionary paths. 2. Consider deploying a web or video conferencing pilot, even if the endgame is an enterprise wide deployment. This will enable you to calculate usage and the effect on business processes and the network. Understand what benefits you want to achieve and how the technology will help you achieve it. 3. Identify which ICT assets will need to be managed in-house by the existing team and which should be outsourced to a specialist managed solutions supplier. Video services should be treated as part of a wider telecoms discussion. This is the fourth in a regular series of Leadership Perspectives White Papers, produced by du enterprise marketing in association with Ovum, a preferred knowledge partner For more information, please leadershipseries@du.ae or visit