Needless to say, video telephony or video conferencing today has become an indispensable part of both our personal and professional lives ever since its first use. The reasons are far from unknown, given the fact that work from home became an inevitable choice during the pandemic besides several other benefits that a video conferencing platform has to offer. And, therefore, it’s use is getting as common as the use of emails.
Top 6 Developments in Video Conferencing That Shape the Modern-Day Businesses
In the present blog, we will look at the top 6 advancements in the area of video conferencing that has come to shape modern-day businesses.
1. Video Conferencing Has Undergone a Complete Make-Over
Think of engaging in video conference calls today and you face the realization that you would not have found a more secure interface than what you have today. That’s because the solution providers are continuously working on improving the security and privacy within the video application interface. You can have room-wide video conferencing capability for your business that lets you have access to clear audio and video, high-resolution images, better voice-recording, file-sharing, screen-sharing, and more.
As an example, Intermedia with its latest iteration of Any Meeting provides for a video quality that’s better than its earlier version. Cisco made significant improvements in its Webex Business in terms of live video conferencing features, ease of use, and application integration.
2. Modern Day Video Conferencing Helps in Cost-Minimization
Since the time the proprietary systems got replaced with a web browser-based video conferencing, an employee can access the meeting from anywhere thus reducing the company’s cost of travel and accommodation. Also, more advanced features such as remote access to one another’s desktop, digital whiteboard communication, video broadcast to a very large group, voice-video call conversion, sharing of meetings at the touch of a button, etc. has helped minimize inconsistencies in professional communication and when such video conferencing services are offered on a per-user or per-host basis, your costs get minimized.
Zoom Meetings’, for example, has claimed its way to fame, not only because of high performance, but also a generous free plan for self-hosted video conferencing users.
3. Video Conferencing Has Helped Leverage Organizational Performance
In the past, it was only the senior executives or managers who had access to this video conferencing tool. That was partly because of the high costs being incurred by the organizations. But, with the increasing competition and more solution vendors to offer such services, there was a reduction in costs, and hence increased utilization by all levels of employees within an organization. All of this has paved the way to increased organizational performance and business success.
Microsoft Teams, for example, makes for a very good team messaging app, especially if your organization is a Microsoft shop.
4. Video Conferencing Does Not Require Specific Installation or Storage
Because of WebRTC — an open-source video conferencing technology in real-time — the solution providers today provide you with cloud video services to enable video conferencing without the use of any dedicated PC, meeting room, smart screen, mobile devices, webcam, or microphone so that the data files shared during the video conferencing need not be stored separately and locally but instead on the cloud servers.
This reduces the additional costs that organizations would incur on account of data management and storage. Also, such browser-based services do not require one to download or install any app though they say, such cloud video services work best for you once you have installed Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android app.
5. Business Investors Foresee a Tremendous Growth in Consumer Demand
The recent data on the usage of video conferencing as a tool for better team collaboration suggests that the market for video conferencing exists both within the B2B and B2C channels, and within those channels, healthcare and education sectors at the helm. At least 69% of video conferencing users agree to the fact that Covid-19 has pushed the need for more and more use of web video conferencing, with most companies sending their entire workforce back home in 2020. Though 65% of people make use of audio-only for their meetings, 71% talk about the benefits of both audio and video conferencing (Forbes, LifeSize). According to the latest statistics, video conferencing has observed a rise of at least 535% in its daily traffic in 2020, and its growth in the market is estimated to reach a CAGR of 11.45% between 2020-2026. The below fig. provides an interesting glimpse of the market share of top video conferencing platforms in 2021.
Zoom dominates the market with a 50% share, while others such as Microsoft Teams, Webex Meetings, Team Viewer, and Google Meet follow the lead as popular alternatives. While this is true for any hardcore professional collaboration, when it comes to interactions on a little less professional note or just personal, Facebook or Amazon Chime take the lead.
That shows how critical video or web conferencing solutions are to modern-day businesses and to what extent consumers depend on such solutions. And, that’s also the reason why more and more tech companies are ready to integrate video conferencing api into their existing platforms. Microsoft collaborating with Logitech to create an MS Skype Room System might be just one example in that regard.
6. Video Conferencing Makes For an Excellent Inter-Communication Tool
Web Conferencing in its infancy came to be used primarily for intra-communication, that is, for professional communication within the organization itself, despite having a dedicated video conferencing platform. But, with the open-source video conferencing software now available in the market for a much cheaper price than ever, the organizations are keen to collaborate with partners, vendors, and end consumers outside of their organizational sphere. They are ready to flex their muscles to collaborate with experts in their area, employees who would need corporate training, and customers who would like to get educated about their high-end products and services.
For example, Ly Cheng Machinery Ltd., an organization from Taiwan and dealing with agri-machinery products makes great use of webinars to educate their partners coming from other parts of the world.
Conclusion
The top 6 developments as talked about in this blog explain well how enterprises are taking their businesses forward through the use of browser-based video conferencing. That said, with AI (Artificial Intelligence) being contained in the newer video conferencing technologies, organizations will be keen to integrate video conferencing api into their existing platforms. Hitherto, it would be a win-win kind of situation, if you could customize your video conferencing software to suit your unique business needs.
