VIDEO CONFERENCING 95
T
V and movie producers have long had a soft spot for video conferencing. Its pseudo-futuristic functionality enabled and perhaps even encouraged shoddy dialogue to make it past the cutting room floor as viewers were dazzled by the ability of two people to interact via screens rather than focusing on actual plot development. In the real world, video conferencing had been eliciting similar yelps of awe for decades. Despite it being an ostensibly simple and effective means of conducting meetings and collaboration, most users were overawed by the technology, which has been stymied at various stages of its evolution by poor connectivity, unreliability, low defi nition and sound delays. Costs, too, have been prohibitive in the past, as demand has lagged behind the imperceptible technological advances that have been occurring regardless of adoption rates. In the past few years, however, the industry has matured and evolved to such a point where most users are no longer put off by the potential complexity of the systems. Today’s video conferencing interfaces are much more user-friendly, enabling even the most technophobe of executives to get on with business without having to call upon the IT work experience kid to bail them out. Costs have also fallen to a point where reliable, good quality kit is a cost-effective proposition when the alternative is endless and expensive travel and hotel costs in order to conduct face-to-face meetings. Earlier this year, the travel chaos caused by April’s volcanic ash cloud brought the efficacy of videoconferencing into sharper focus as grounded businessmen and women were forced to seek alternative means of conducting their duties. “Wherever possible we use different means of communications to stay in touch with our customers, our vendors, our partners and our employees,” says Kevin Griffi n, CIO EMEA for GE Capital Bank. “We have video conferencing capability in-house so where travel has proved unavoidable, as it was in April with the ash cloud problem, we looked to get them connected via the best means possible. “At the time of the ash cloud, we had leadership team members right out across Europe, Asia and the USA, so in some cases there were guys who were nowhere near a GE site and they had no option but to audio in. But where people were close to GE sites we were able to connect with them via videoconferencing technology and found that we could still work very effectively.”
Cost reduction Although videoconferencing technology is occasionally used to conduct business between partners, vendors and competitors, its primary use for the moment is as a means for communicating and collaborating between various offices within one corporation. John Keeling, Head of IT for the John Lewis Partnership, has been impressed by the ability of technology to make internal collaboration easier. “The way we collaborate can actually make a big difference to a business like ours,” he says. “We’ve got a mobile workforce, which is only possible thanks to the various tools at our disposal, such as smartphones, laptops and now video conferencing. We have this capability up in our offices in Scotland so that they can conduct face-to-face style business with our London-based office. Th is shows that technology capability is becoming an even bigger driver for business.” Technology in all forms is becoming cheaper and more consumerfriendly. The new iPhone 4 has videocall capability, and it cannot be long before the idea of sitting down to a high-speed, high-resolution videoconference becomes second nature across the globe. Th is proliferation of the technology has come on the back of its perceived cost-effectiveness. If the alternative is time-consuming and expensive air travel, then reliable and relatively inexpensive videoconferencing will win every time. “Like a lot of other companies, we were focused on cost reduction and certainly the
Video Conferencing 95
last couple of years has driven us to get even more cost conscious,” says Griffi n. “We see video technology playing a role in that. So one of the costs that we are trying to control is travel and living/accommodation, and that objective is driven by video technology as a way of mitigating the impact of us asking the organisation to travel less.” Like the internet, email and smartphones before it, wider adoption of videoconferencing technology will come to reshape and redefine the way we do business, bringing together formerly disconnected countries and companies in a way that was always thought possible (thanks again, Hollywood), but always seemed just slightly out of reach for the average corporation.
“Videoconferencing will eventually result in faster decision-making and shorter time to market, which are key competitive advantages for us and, I suspect, for every other company” “Videoconferencing is going to allow for more effective management of geographic location, because for businesses like ourselves,” continues Griffi n, “videoconferencing that is life size, high defi nition quality video and wideband audio provides a life-like experience to users. We have got executives that have very high expectations like every other company, and we are fi nding that those expectations are being met and they love using videoconferencing. The adoption rate among the executive population is very, very high.” Longer-term, videoconferencing will, believes Griffin, enable greater collaboration that will prove extremely beneficial to those businesses that decide to adopt the technology fully. “The long-term effect is you drive more cohesiveness because you are having more frequent meetings as people’s work-life balance is not disrupted as much. So videoconferencing will eventually result in faster decision-making and shorter time to market, which are key competitive advantages for us and, I suspect, for every other company.”
Future tech To the uninitiated, videoconferencing remains a wildly exotic technological innovation that can appear rather daunting to use. Overcoming this cultural aversion to both the technology and the initially unusual task of talking to a screen and seeing your own image beamed back at you in the corner of the monitor will take some time, but widespread adoption will come sooner rather than later. “Our executives have shown no reluctance to embrace videoconferencing technology,” says Griffi n. “We found that the high defi nition nature of the technology that we use has allowed us to really allow remote locations to stay in touch, and that virtual face-to-face contact is something that our executives have really taken to – meetings that they would otherwise not have travelled for they are now participating in.” Once the value of videoconference technology has been realised, overcoming minor technicality concerns becomes an easy task. “The key thing for us has been ease of use,” continues Griffi n. “Technology can be an inhibitor sometimes if it is difficult to use. So the key thing about this high defi nition video conferencing is its ease of use. It needs to be easily scheduled and it needs to be easy to operate. Our technology telepresence is a one-touch system whereby the executive walks into the room, presses a button and they are online.” No fiddling with cables or peering behind monitors, then – simplicity is paramount, and modern video conferencing technology is not only simple to use and increasingly cost-effective, but is becoming more commonplace throughout various sectors of the business world.
18/08/2010 15:48