Prior to the pandemic, many global businesses had already made investments in video collaboration hardware, software and infrastructure. When covid-19 hit and entire workforces had to transition to working from home overnight, this technology was put to the test. While employees were able to continue working, many organisations had to quickly add additional video conferencing applications to support fully-remote staff. Teams used a variety of unified communication and collaboration (UCC) platforms to do business at breakneck speeds. We hosted sales calls, department updates, town halls, and virtual events right from our laptops.
Now, business leaders are encouraging staff to return to the office – often on a hybrid basis – which presents a new set of technology challenges and requirements. The technology that employees, customers, and partners had used in a fully remote structure does not always work so well together in a hybrid work environment, especially when used in conjunction with older legacy technology and infrastructure. These issues include compatibility, interoperability, and increased management and licensing costs of disparate systems.
The success of your ‘return to the office’ plans relies on working technology and a well-established interoperability plan. This plan, developed with an expert partner such as AVI-SPL, will ensure both on-site teams and remote staff will be able to operate in a ‘business as usual’ environment without interruptions.
A key component of collaborative design is interoperability. Interoperability enables video conferencing solutions to work and connect seamlessly and is fundamental to hosting productive virtual meetings. This is particularly critical for teams that conduct a large volume of internal and external meetings across various platforms.
According to a recent study, 72% of enterprises support between three and nine UCC tools, up 9% from 2020. Today’s users are invited to meetings hosted on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet and more. Whether they are collaborating between departments or between organisations, users need a simple way to join any meeting, and IT admins need control to manage and secure them.
As staff move back to the office and businesses respond to the rising technological demands of the hybrid model, many businesses are struggling to navigate misalignment’s in their technology stack to the detriment of productivity, interoperability, and ultimately, collaboration itself.
We have seen interoperability as a growing challenge, and in fast-paced global environments end-users simply cannot afford to waste time trying to get disconnected technologies to work together.
Our partner, Pexip, enables us to provide a world-class suite of solutions to all our clients. “Pexip’s flexible deployment model, interoperability with Microsoft and Google, and smart scalability are all valuable solutions for our enterprise clients around the world” adds Tim Riek, SVP of Services at AVI-SPL.
Collaborative design ensures video collaboration technology infrastructure is designed to work on-premise, in the cloud, and with a hybrid deployment model. Once developed and deployed, we train users and support the ongoing use of new systems. A key element to a successful platform is interoperability. Businesses find that when they solve for interoperability, they can operate with fewer interruptions, data is accessible, security is enhanced and systems work in tandem to support business goals.
Ensure both staff and technology are supported
In a true hybrid work structure, the demands on technology to enable staff to collaborate seamlessly are significantly higher than the requirements when all employees are working remotely or are all in the office. We have seen many businesses experiencing issues with the legacy equipment and infrastructures they invested in prior to the pandemic now needing to be used again with a return to the office, whilst also being compatible with staff working in different locations and with different technology needs.These updated hybrid office spaces require collaboration solutions designed for flexibility and scalability.
For instance, Microsoft customers can utilise Cloud Video Interop (CVI) which provides every user a simple and easy-to-use meeting experience. With CVI, Teams calls are easily joined and every participant enjoys the same high-quality video and content sharing experience they have come to expect. Pexip works with us to help global organisations’ modernising their video conferencing infrastructure to save money and provide a simple, intuitive meeting experience for their users.
If your organisation has experienced challenges or disruptions as you adjust to a hybrid work structure, you can get in touch with our experts here at AVI-SPL. Our team is on-hand to support you in creating ‘meeting equity’ by overcoming common video conferencing challenges such as interoperability.
