According to Polycom’s The Changing World of
Work research, more than half (51%) of Indian respondents said that
they use video multiple times a day to collaborate with others for work
purposes. Video collaboration is the way forward in India and its adoption is
only expected to increase exponentially in the next 12-18 months, forecasts
Polycom with the release of their top five drivers that are set to impact
business collaboration in 2018.
“The future of work and that of the workplace is
changing rapidly. There is a massive shift in how technology is implemented and
used in the workplace,” said Minhaj Zia, Vice President, India & SAARC and
South East Asia, Polycom. ”Collaboration solutions such as video conferencing
is not a luxury reserved for large enterprises or big groups of people. Thanks
to purpose-built solutions and the cloud, we are seeing business-grade
collaboration becoming more available across devices, spaces, and locations, no
matter the size of the organisation”. He added, “As we head into 2018, we fully
expect technology will continue to evolve, enabling us to improve our business
communication and collaboration at all levels.”
Outlined below are Polycom’s top
collaboration predictions for 2018:
1.
Cloud brings need for interoperability
- The
cloud space has transformed, not just our office and workspaces but the way we
work. If we look at the next generation of technology – it’s modular, it’s
adaptive, it’s solutions based and it’s cloud based. As cloud continues to move
into the mainstream, the conversation is no longer about that sub 50 office
space, the one-to-three user space is back on the table; and how you bring them
into the network with mobile devices, with USB devices, and more will be a
priority for businesses of all sizes in 2018.
2.
User experience and ease of adoption
reigns supreme -Where we work and collaborate is no longer
confined to a traditional four-walled office environment. Today, people want to
connect and collaborate with ‘the office’, regardless of their location or device.
This growth in anywhere working and geographically distributed workforces mean
that businesses will need to find new ways to empower employees with vastly
different experiences and relationships with technology, ensuring they can
collaborate effectively to drive the productivity.
Users want simple
click and join. They don’t want to go looking for a meeting room ID, or a
truncated number, or the smart board switch to upload documents for team
discussion. We will expect to see end users continuing to demand more
intelligent, conferencing solutions that can ‘do it all’ – whether connecting
from a meeting room, personal device or third-party platform.
3.
Meetings are getting smarter and more
mobile - Technology, like the latest intelligent face-detection
and voice triangulation cameras, wireless content-sharing, a simple ‘click to
join’ meeting interface, AI and advanced analytics are helping meetings get
smarter and more productive.
In basic terms, it is
the convergence of people plus, not versus, technology that are now working
together. What’s more, as organisations move to Skype for Business, Office 365
and Microsoft Teams, we expect them to look at removing extraneous meeting
technologies and integrate collaboration via these platforms as a means to
reduce costs and ensure a consistent user experience.
4.
The hyper-collaborative organisation
- Imagine
that the next step for individuals, teams and organisations would be to go from
being “collaborative” amongst themselves to “hyper-collaborative” – bringing
together knowledge, capabilities and ideas from a number of ecosystems,
geographies and industries.
We anticipate that for
2018 and beyond, more workplaces will be open to embracing ‘anywhere working’,
that enables this evolution in partnerships and teamwork. Enabling people to
work, the way they want, where they want and in a hyper-collaborative manner that
will become business-normal.
5.
Bridging the urban-rural divide - With the improvement
of our broadband infrastructure, India becomes more digitally inclusive and we
can expect to see a jump in demand for collaboration solutions like high
definition video and digital content sharing that were previously
unavailable.
Speaking on the collaboration trends,
Arjun Vishwanathan, Associate Director, Emerging Technologies, IDC India said,
“Employees are the greatest asset for any organisation. The way they collaborate
and engage with each other to ideate, solve problems, share knowledge, and make
decisions, is key to success. Indian workplaces must prepare for the future by
adopting the right collaboration tools and deliver on these expectations to
remain competitive and forward-thinking in the next few years”.
