There’s no denying that the world has changed. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of Americans indoors and changed the landscape of the economy and workforce, large and small businesses alike were actively exploring the technology and processes needed to empower their staff to do their jobs remotely.
This process was accelerated when multiple state governors gave shelter-in-place orders, and companies began shutting down offices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and reduce the risk of infection for personnel. A robust and detailed strategy to enable remote meeting, collaboration, and productivity is now a requirement, not simply a bonus.
However, there exists a wide variety of teleconferencing solutions and platforms, each with their own interfaces, support structures, and proprietary features. Finding the right remote meeting solution for your business can be a daunting task. The decision can be made easier by clearly defining what your organization is looking for.
When adopting a teleconferencing and remote meeting solution, enterprise leaders tend to seek a technology platform that satisfies both the needs of individual team members and the expectations of high-level stakeholders. This can apply to several use cases, including employees meeting in virtual conference rooms to share working materials, connect via audio and video, and collaborate closely.
Organizations with a concentration on sales and marketing also require simple and engaging methods for connecting with external clients, leads, and partners as they develop opportunities for new business. Meanwhile, trainers and mentors need tools that can reach and be accessible to a wide variety of audiences—after all, people learn better when they’re able to connect and engage on their own terms.
Additionally, many professionals in corporate communication spaces are seeking to make internal messaging more direct and captivating. They need a technology solution that allows them to build a CEO town hall or similar virtual event that can simultaneously be delivered to an entire corporate structure in real-time.
Organization leaders are facing the challenge of crafting a remote meeting solution that meets the needs of all of these use cases, as well as the challenge of making this solution operate reliably on any device—from smartphones to workstations. What they need is a persistent virtual meeting space that all members of the team can benefit from.
Many enterprise-level businesses already employ cloud office products with built-in conferencing functions throughout their organizations, but some find themselves requiring an internal collaboration solution that delivers a consistent experience across different platforms.
At the same time, professionals responsible for external presentations are in need of a high degree of control and flexibility in terms of transitioning, question and answer management, and more. They’re also seeking reliable security measures and reliable audio and video quality to make their presentations as functional and effective as possible.
Trainers, meanwhile, can also benefit from a simple meeting product that can enable testing and learning even in cases of limited budgets and smaller scales. Webinars and other larger-scale online events are also gaining relevance as scalability and audience engagement become more important in business environments.
These endpoints can all be served by a cloud-based meeting solution.
“By 2023, 50% of meetings will be facilitated by virtual concierges and advanced analytics. Through 2023, the cloud conferencing market will be the fastest-growing segment (by spend) of the overall unified communications (UC) market, growing at a compound annual rate of 7%.”
Gartner, Critical Capabilites for Meeting Solutions, Tom Eagle, Adam Present, Mike Fasciani, 8 October 2019
Let the experts at CBTS help your organization prepare for the cloud conferencing future with our suite of Cisco remote meeting solutions. For more information on what CBTS and Cisco can do to modernize and empower your workforce. Click here to learn more about the meeting solutions CBTS offers.
Continue reading: How to train your organization to use Microsoft Teams