Value-Added

The business value of presence

The migration to converged IT networks and the spread of IP telephony have provided a receptive platform infrastructure for effective business communication via video-conferencing

It is a distinct competitive advantage to be able to communicate quickly and efficiently in today’s business world. With increasingly busy schedules and diverse locations of information workers, it is hard to get in touch with the right people at the right time. When people understand how to best contact each other, they are able to focus on getting the information they need rather than waste time.

“Accessing and sharing of information plays a vital role in corporate meetings as we have them today. This in the long run is important for swift analysis and decision-making, bringing products to the market and gaining an edge over competitors” says Yugal Sharma, Country Manager, Polycom India.

Video-conferencing in the enterprise

"Accessing and sharing of information plays a vital role in corporate meetings. This is important for swift analysis, decision-making, bringing products to the market, and gaining an edge over competitors" -Yugal Sharma Country Manager Polycom India

With the potential for significant reduction in travel expenses and the ability to conduct productive meetings leading to efficient and effective decision-making, video conferencing has always held out tremendous promise within the enterprise environment. Expanded collaboration, where video would be integrated with voice and data applications, was widely anticipated as commercially feasible but somehow never really materialised. Large enterprises have implemented video for group conferencing applications, but video conferencing has often remained a niche application running parallel to the core of an enterprise’s communications fabric. As expected with a specialised application, it found a useful place in large meetings and presentations. However, challenges around quality, reliability and ease of administration and use have limited its acceptance within many businesses. In addition, collaboration tools such as electronic blackboards, overhead projectors and fax capabilities never worked as a single well-integrated application. As a result, enterprises were never able to realise the potential benefits of video-conferencing.

However, the migration to converged IP networks and the spread of IP telephony has provided a receptive platform infrastructure that can enable video to become an integrated element within the telephony environment. This platform, combined with the technological advancements in video and collaboration tools, is ushering in a new era of video telephony.

The inherent benefits of video-conferencing (such as facilitating in-depth interaction levels for business meetings and reducing travel expenses) have often been offset by a number of technology and operational issues. Expanded bandwidth and special networking requirements have limited its integration with the enterprise’s overall communication network and made it an overlay application that required special attention and administration. Room-to-room sessions often require reservations and technical support in setting up the conference and utilising the features of the video conference. Reliability and quality factors have often marred the experience among users. These and other factors have tended to limit the growth of video-conferencing especially in small and medium size enterprises without the technical resources to support the application.

A second change enabled by IP telephony is the ability to set up sessions that can carry multiple media streams while using telephony and Windows-based interfaces to achieve click-to-dial video-conferencing setups between parties on the conference. Multi-party conferences can also be set up using video bridge technologies in a similar manner.

A final factor that is facilitating a leap in the ease of use of video-conferencing is the incorporation of SIP-enabled presence within soft phone applications. This technology allows users at their desktops trying to set up a video conference to know if the person they are connecting to has the ability to enable a video call from his end. Video- conferencing can be easily added to a voice call by simply activating the video application on each end of the existing call.

The ability to expand video-conferencing to any IP telephony connection has the potential to deliver substantial business and employee productivity value to enterprises. Extending video interaction to employee conferences can make sessions focussed, productive and potentially shorter as clarity and real-time decision-making are facilitated. It promises to enhance the development of personal relationships, particularly with colleagues, distribution partners, clients and suppliers. By increasing ease of use including the use of ad hoc sessions and eliminating the need to leave one’s office to achieve a video connection, video- conferencing is likely to become an integral part of everyday operations facilitating new ways of doing business.

“The technology which makes visual communications possible has dramatically improved. The bandwidth potential continues to be affordable. As prices for hardware and broadband reduce and awareness about the technology spreads in the market, it will lead to increased adoption by organisations in the IT, BPO, judiciary and SOHO verticals” says Sharma.

Customer checklist for a video telephony solution

While the convergence of technology trends has enabled the arrival of mainstream video-conferencing application capability to achieve mass acceptance and deployment, communication applications providers will need to address requirements at three levels. The next generation of video conferencing will have to address overall business drivers, the cost and manageability requirements of an enterprise’s IT group, and finally the usability requirements of employees.

No matter how impressive new technology capabilities might be, they need to justify their acquisition by rationalising how they serve enterprise business objectives. Mainstream deployment of enterprise video-conferencing must be built on business case justification that includes facilitating global business growth, decreasing or offsetting existing business costs, improving employee productivity, and enabling virtual business models with highly mobile workforce groups.

The next threshold that must be addressed is the specific requirements of IT decision-makers in adopting widespread application deployment. IT managers require applications that are easy to install, operate and manage. New applications must integrate easily with their existing network and applications infrastructure, and leverage that so as to increase its value and payback.

Finally, IT managers are concerned about the economic payback for new application deployment; it must dovetail with enterprise business objectives.

The third set of requirements that video-conferencing must address is meeting the needs of the employee-user community. New technology acceptance and adoption can sometimes be pushed from power user communities which are driving for greater personal productivity tools. Widespread user adoption of desktop video-conferencing will require that the application be simple, easy and convenient to use. It must also markedly improve personal productivity, enhance working relationships, and lead to faster and efficient decision-making among collaborative groups within the enterprise.

Video-conferencing in India

The video-conferencing equipment market size was estimated to be at $10.8 million in 2004. It is likely to grow at a CAGR of 24.9 percent till 2011. Frost & Sullivan anticipates a growth explosion (30 percent+ growth rates for the next two years) in the medium-term, beyond which growth rates will stabilise at 22 percent. Polycom has a 66 percent marketshare in the video-conferencing end-point segment, and 58 percent share in the infrastructure market.

Conclusion

The convergence of technology, infrastructure and applications is now making desktop video telephony a reality. An IP telephony infrastructure is becoming prevalent in the marketplace as equipment costs have decreased and enterprises have come to recognise its potential as a platform for new applications. At the same time, both desktop and group video systems and applications have become easier to implement, operate and maintain—enabling enterprises to realise their benefits.