Video Conferencing Set To Grow in 2016

Video conferencing has been a major topic on this site and across the business world for years now, but the amount of time discussing videoconferencing technologies hides the fact that a large portion of companies incorporate absolutely no videoconferencing into their day-to-day operations. As big as it has become, video conferencing is still a growing industry. Coming into the new year, it doesn’t look like things will be slowing down.

In a post for NoJitter.com, Irwin Lazar, Vice President and Service Director at Nemertes Research, explains some reasons and some figures that project this growth. He points to several moves by big companies in the space that show their commitment to video conferencing. Cisco’s acquisition of Acano to deliver integrated collaboration solutions (and I would add its recent partnership with Ericsson). Mitel’s strengthening of its partnership with Vidyo to deliver a wider range of video conferencing colutions. Tely’s launch of huddle space solutions for cloud-based video meeting room services. ThinkingPhone’s purchase of Fuze to expand its UCaaS platform. And finally Polycom’s introduction of products for conferencing in small meeting rooms (we got a sneak peek at these products prior to launch, you can read about them here).

All of these moves show the commitment to small meeting rooms and video conferencing solutions for them. These large companies are seeing the trends and are gearing up to deliver companies what they need for these spaces. Lazar also pointed to some figures from Nemertes after tracking the cvideo conferencing market over several years:

• “Cloud video conferencing continues to grow. About 38% of participants in our most recent benchmark are already using a cloud video conferencing platform, and another 7% plan to do so in 2016.”
• “Desktop/mobile stalled, but poised for growth… Participants tell us that around 10% of employees use desktop video conferencing at least once a week, while even smaller percentages regularly participate in video conferences from their smartphones or tablets. However, most say they expect usage across desktops and tablets to increase in 2016 while just 43% expect to see smartphone video conferencing growth.”
• “Room system deployments continue to grow. Half of participants say they are increasing the number of room systems, largely as a result of employee demand for wider access to video conferencing. Nearly 42% say room system utilization rates are growing while the rest say they’re flat (nobody is seeing a decline in room system use).”
• Companies continue to struggle to measure video’s value. One surprising data point from our benchmark is that slightly less than 18% of participants refresh their room systems at least every three years. About 41% have no formal refresh program.
• Video will expand beyond conferencing. Almost 58% of participants have active programs underway to evaluate video’s use in improving specific business processes.

Based on the moved made by large companies and the responses from his own company’s research, video conferencing will see a large expansion in the coming years. It stands to reason as business becomes increasingly global and the boundaries of what constitutes a works space continue to evolve. One thing is for sure: companies are video conferencing, and soon it will be a majority of companies doing it. If you haven’t started thinking about how this will affect your business, you should start now.

 

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