Some 68 percent of respondents to a survey by Voice Report and BizTechReports report they already use video collaboration. For about half of organizations (51 percent), video-enabled collaboration currently accounts for less than 10 percent of their inter-office communications.
However, over the next year 56.8 percent plan to deploy this technology to more locations in their enterprise, and 58.5 percent have indicated that they will increase their video-enabled collaboration budgets over the next twelve months.
The survey of 125 executives across different industries suggests that video collaboration quite often now is used by workers in many parts of the organizations, not only the "C" suite. That is the issue with such studies, equivalent to asking whether an organization uses private jets. That's a legitimate question, but is qualitatively different than asking the extent to which that particular tool is used within an organization.
What might be more telling is the extent to which video collaboration is used "at the desk," and how widespread a practice that is. A majority of respondents (56 percent) also reports that their organizations will deploy video-enabled collaboration to more locations during 2011. On that score, many organizations seem to be using video collaboration quite extensively.
More than half (56 percent) report using desktop sharing features, while 43 percent say their organizations use video-enabled collaboration for training purposes (Fig. 9). Only 31 percent report using video-enabled collaboration for presence functions and 28 percent for instant messaging. Currently, only 10 percent of respondents say their organizations support mobile device access for video-enabled collaboration, and only 6 percent say they currently use it to support contact center operations.
Almost 70 percent of respondents believe that the interactive features offered by video-enabled collaboration services are a significant benefit over legacy tele-conferencing. Among the other major benefits respondents identify are improvements in user productivity (60 percent), utilization of IP networks (53 percent), greater end-user satisfaction (52 percent), and cost savings (51 percent).
Some 30 percent cite more efficient administration, while 27 percent perceive the customer service/support they receive from video-enabled collaboration service providers as a benefit. The caveat is that such comments deal only with "perceptions," rather than more-quantitative measures that are less subjective. That is not to say there are not such benefits, merely to note that belief there is a benefit is not the same thing as demonstrating there is a benefit.
While 67 percent of respondents report some use of video-enabled collaboration, utilization within their enterprises is far from pervasive. Half of respondents report that video-enabled collaboration accounts for less than 10 percent of their organizations’ inter-office communications.
Some 22 percent report using video-enabled collaboration 10 percent to 19 percent of the time for inter-office communications, and four percent report using it 30 percent to 49 percent of the time.
While more than half of all respondents cite cost savings as a major benefit that video-enabled collaboration offers over legacy tele-conferencing, 40 percent report saving less than 10 percent over their previous travel and meeting costs. Some 31 percent report costs savings greater than 10 percent. Some 19 percent report savings of 10 percent to 29 percent, and eight percent report saving 30 percent to 49 percent. About three percent of respondents found savings of 50 percent to 75 percent over their previous costs.
Of course, much of the impact will be hard to quantify. Better quality decisions, better customer support and so forth are harder to measure, and where measurable are hard to attribute specifically to just one change in organizational practice, if many changes are underway.
When asked about the challenges their organizations experience using video-enabled collaboration, more than one third (36 percent) report issues with video quality. Some 33 percent cite issues with reliability, while 31 percent experience issues with administration. One quarter of respondents (25 percent) report experiencing issues with user satisfaction and sound quality, while 21 percent found issues with technical delays.
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