Your Guide to Videoconferencing
Save Cost. Save Time. Protect the Environment.
Videoconferencing – The Way Forward
No matter what business you are in, success is driven by the quality of your decision-making and the skill of your team in carrying through those decisions, both of which depend on high quality communications.
According to Mehrabian and Ferris, there are three elements that affect the quality of face-to-face human communication¹:
On site meeting
(hours)
Video conference
(hours) Schedule the meeting with
participants and book the meeting room
1 1
Make booking for flights,
hotels, rental car, etc. 1 0
Prepare materials for meeting 2 2
Drive to airport 1 0
Check in & pre-flight waiting 1 0
Flight time to meeting 2 0
Drive from airport to meeting 1 0
Waiting for the meeting start 1 0
Meeting duration 3 3
Drive from meeting to airport 1 0
Check in & pre-flight waiting 1 0
Flight time from meeting 2 0
Drive from airport 1 0
Recovery from trip 1 0
Follow up from meeting 2 2
Total 21 8
• Body language such as facial expressions, eye contact, body posture, gestures, signs and use of space (55%)
• Tone of voice (38%)
• Content or words used (7%)
In today’s world of global business with its increasing reliance on home or remote working and e-mail, face-to- face communication can get lost. Many organisations have turned to videoconferencing as the best way of bringing people together, no matter where in the world they are located.
• Videoconferencing saves cost
Arranging face-to-face meetings can be costly with travel expenses, hotel costs plus lunch and dinner arrangements – often for a meeting that may only last three or four hours.
• Videoconferencing saves time
Holding a videoconference optimises time management – you only need to be there for the meeting itself so you can achieve more in your day, spending time working on projects and talking to customers.
Videoconferencing for All
Videoconferencing is not just for top management meetings in boardrooms and conference rooms. It’s a personal video solution that people throughout an organisation can use to save time and cost while doing their jobs. For example, videoconferencing can be used to:
• Interview job candidates remotely
• Enhance telework programs
• Gain real-time feedback from suppliers straight to the manufacturing floor
• Record training sessions and messages
In almost every market sector, videoconferencing lowers costs while increasing productivity and communication. It helps organisations achieve their ultimate goal of profit maximisation and boosts competitive advantage.
Thinking of the Environment
Videoconferencing helps companies become more environmentally responsible and efficient. Introducing systems in meeting rooms, on user desktop computers and even at customer, client or supplier locations dramatically lowers the carbon footprint. Good for business, good for the planet.
¹ Mehrabian, Albert and Susan R. Ferris, 1967, Journal of Consulting Psychology 31: pp 248-252
Understanding Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is an umbrella term covering video communication, telepresence, video telephony and partly unified communication. The concept of videoconferencing involves connecting two or more locations and transmitting audio and video over a network. Normally these networks are either ISDN (telephone) or IP (data and internet).
Over 25% of all video conferences ran on an IP network in 2006, according to Frost and Sullivan. This figure rose to over 50% in 2010.
Return on Investment
Global business demands solutions that maximize return on investment. Your success is assured if you can deliver innovative products and services, react quickly to market opportunities and customer needs, efficiently solve support issues and battle competitive threats.
Videoconferencing can help increase productivity, reduce carbon emissions, improve the work-life balance for employees and keep business running smoothly. The way forward in the twenty-first century.
Saves Costs
The most obvious and immediate advantage of videoconferencing is a reduction in travel costs.
Conducting face-to-face meetings via video is an excellent way to preserve the bottom line without compromising customer relationships.
Improves Lifestyles
Traveling all day for a two-hour meeting can be stressful with traffic jams, delayed flights and even lost luggage.
It can also compromise family and personal time. By using video to attend that meeting, either from home or the office, employees can maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life. Frequent business travellers can also keep in touch with friends and family while away using videoconferencing at no extra cost.
Many organisations have cut their travel budgets in these challenging economic times. Videoconferencing enables them to do this while continuing to hold the critical meetings necessary to increase revenue and grow business. Talking via video is also a much more personal experience than on a telephone, leading to better understanding and customer loyalty.
Boosts Efficiency
Inefficient communication wastes an estimated $297 billion each year in the United States alone. The time we spend traveling, waiting for materials to arrive or trying unsuccessfully to explain complex issues over e-mail is time that could be better used to bring new products to market or solve customer service issues.
Video encourages everyone to share ideas, show detailed presentations and make faster decisions.
It enables you to benefit from the expertise of a few people across an entire organisation without them having to travel to different locations.
Manufacturing
Manufacturers are facing increasing pressure to bring products to market faster than ever using an increasingly complex internal and external supply chain.
With the trend towards outsourcing to offshore partners and shorter product life cycles, the demand for effective communication and collaboration has grown substantially. Using videoconferencing in the manufacturing process offers huge advantages and allows companies to keep in daily or even hourly contact with suppliers, QA departments, risk and margin analysts, designers and project managers.
Education & Training
One of the most established ways of using videoconferencing is for distance learning. Schools can contract with other schools to provide lectures and classes that normally wouldn’t be available. This is especially useful in rural areas.
If a school only has a few students who want to learn Japanese, it clearly doesn’t make sense to hire a full time instructor. But setting up videoconferencing with another school makes learning possible.
Brings People Together
After a global expansion, merger or outsourcing initiative, companies can become fragmented with departments often isolated from project goals and company culture. Videoconferencing creates a virtual meeting room that brings people together and keeps everyone involved.
Training, translating, consulting and troubleshooting can take place in real time and with video streaming and archiving, knowledge can be saved and accessed by anyone at any time.
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Who Can Benefit?
Just about everyone in an organisation can benefit from the advantages of videoconferencing. Here’s a few examples:
• Human Resources – videoconferencing as a recruiting tool is becoming increasingly common in companies and is often used for initial interview screening to narrow down a field of candidates
• Sales and Marketing – videoconferencing can be used to conduct weekly sales calls and track sales opportunities, integrate sales and marketing, support product launches and deliver training sessions
• Customer Service and Support – videoconferencing provides instant access to product experts for faster response times and problem solving
• R&D – videoconferencing enables regular project meetings between development teams, speeds up decision-making and provides easy communication with technical experts
• Administration and Operations – videoconferencing makes it easier to implement new data systems, set up project meetings and provide outsourced operations support
• Top Management – videoconferencing provides an effective way for CEOs to communicate corporate information and strategy to staff, speak at events and deliver seasonal messages
Healthcare
Just as medical developments have revolutionised patient care, so advances in communication have changed the way doctors share information.
Videoconferencing is now a powerful medical tool, allowing doctors to broadcast live surgical procedures and lectures to colleagues and students around the world.
It’s also essential for doctors requiring a second opinion from specialists.
Bank and Finance
In the world of finance, videoconferencing can provide rural areas with a full range of services including advice for stocks, pensions, savings and loans. It can help deliver staff training, communicate daily strategy to branches and provide news on shares and markets. Managers can hold face-to-face meetings with head office and discuss confidential projects such as mergers and acquisitions, all in the comfort of their own office.
Choosing the right solution
When choosing your videoconferencing system, ask yourself these key questions:
Who will be using it?
Head office staff, regional office workers, partners and customers or remote workers
How will it be used?
For group training and lectures, one on one communication, data recording or information streaming
How many sites will be connected?
Either point to point or multipoint
Justice
With increased courtroom and travel costs plus the security risks associated with moving prisoners, videoconferencing is fast becoming a popular method of communication in the judicial system.
Ideal for high security locations such as courtrooms, prisons and hospitals, videoconferencing is actively being used for video arraignments, witness testimony, psychiatric evaluations and many other judicial tasks.
Public sector
Videoconferencing coordinates planning between agencies and offers a variety of services to remote areas. With videoconferencing, regional departments can stay in daily touch with central offices for a smoother provision of services.
Elements of a Videoconferencing system
Videoconferencing requires a codec, video camera, microphone, screen or projector and a network.
Other elements may include a document camera, PC, whiteboard, tablet and DVD player, Blu-ray player or VCR.
Latest Technology
Today’s videoconferencing solutions are standards based to ensure inter-operability between brands and models.
HD SD (Simulated images)
With screen and image sizes becoming ever larger, high definition (HD) videoconferencing systems are critical.
High definition images provide approximately four times more detail than standard definition images for finer detail, truer depth and enhanced colour. This makes your videoconferencing experience much more realistic and closer than ever to a real face-to-face meeting.For ease of use, videoconferencing equipment is usually operated by a remote control and a graphical on screen interface.
(Simulated images)
(Simulated images)
Where will it be installed?
In a public area, meeting room, boardroom, office, home or in a special high security location such as a defence establishment, prison or hospital
What quality do you need?
High definition or standard definition using webcam, PC or telepresence
Will content be shared?
Through either annotation or PC connectivity What is your future plan?
Consider whether you’ll want to expand to more rooms, desktops or advanced applications
Implementation
Follow these five tips to kick start videoconferencing in your organisation:
• Appoint a ‘video champion’ to explain technology and benefits
• Make the system available to as many people as possible
• Promote it internally – focus on how easy videoconferencing is to use
• Train the employees so they are comfortable with the technology
• Make it a part of corporate policy – save cost, save time, protect the environment
Features to Consider
Videoconferencing can be installed in a variety of meeting rooms and office environments. In areas with poor or very bright lighting, consider BrightFace technology for consistent screen quality.
Most meetings will include some kind of computer based content. This may take the form of presentations, pictures, spreadsheets or drawings. By using the presentation mode of the system, PC content can easily be shared with colleagues and customers. In addition, using a video annotation function allows you to clearly highlight specific parts of an image on a tablet.
Where more than two sites need to be connected, you will need a MultiPoint Control unit (MCU). This device can either be embedded into one of the videoconferencing units or installed as a separate network device.
Complete Videoconference Solution
Meeting Server CentreData
Secure Transport Room System
Telepresence
Software Endpoint 3rd Vendor
SD & HD
SIP & ISDN Gateway
Local Contact:
Ceelab Contact Ceelab AS Karenslyst Allé 8b N-0278 Oslo Norway
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All rights reserved. Features and specifications are subject to change without notice.
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Ceelab Portfolio
Arrow: Ceelab’s hardware solution, Arrow, offers our clients the best features and a complete range of collaboration tools to ensure seamless communication between all videoconference participants.
Executive Solution: Arrow 1000, the latest Executive all-in-one system, with comprehensive features including HD, 3-way MCU, Data Sharing, and dual display function for the ultimate in connectivity.
Telepresence: The most innovative Telepresence solutions, based on real eye to eye contact, offer the highest quality video image.
Room Solutions: Complete solutions for the meeting room including Arrow system, screen(s) and trolley. MCU integration and added value applications such as data sharing, recording tools and Bright Face Technology that offer the best image quality in today’s market.
Infrastructure and PC Software end-points:
BOW is a scalable, flexible and easy to use virtual meeting solution. It is a complete virtual meeting solution combining the collaboration tools of web conferencing with the face-to-face communications of video conferencing. From 3 to hundred of participants can be connected to multipoint meetings in HD quality. The BOW product line provides PC Software end-points, collaboration tools, MCU, gatekeeper, Firewall Traversal and Management.
