Читать книгу The New Normal in IT - Gregory S. Smith - Страница 45

During the pandemic, organizations flocked to online meeting tools in larger quantities to accommodate a larger percentage of staff working remotely outside of corporate offices. The prominent online meeting tools include Cisco WebEx, LogMeIn GotoMeeting, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Skype for Business/Teams, and BlueJeans. A recent report from MarketsAndMarkets indicated that the “global video conferencing industry is expected to gain traction” as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic “to connect with remote workers, customers, and employees at the same time.”⁷³ Bans on travel domestically and internationally combined with increasing numbers of knowledge worker employees working from home helped drive increased adoption. Zoom was a major winner throughout the pandemic and is anticipated to retain a top leadership spot post pandemic due to its scale and feature set. Organizations looking for robust online meeting and webinar solutions with features like breakout rooms flocked to Zoom in 2020. Companies could leverage Zoom for free if they kept meeting durations to 40 minutes or less. Otherwise, organizations would have to opt for the fee-based solution. Note that most, if not all, the online meeting/videoconference solutions on the market only charge for licenses that set up and run meetings. Participants can join for free from either a full client installed version or a browser plug-in. This model allowed organizations to carefully select the appropriate team members that would set up (from an administrative perspective) meetings for various departments, thus optimizing license purchases.

Microsoft Teams, the follow up to Microsoft's Skype for Business solution saw robust growth during the 2020–2021 pandemic as it rapidly scaled the number of concurrent video sessions and added more advanced features like breakout rooms. The organization where I serve as the CIO moved from GotoMeeting to Zoom for scale and feature reasons early on in 2020. We also upgraded our Skype for Business platform to Teams and adopted breakout rooms when Microsoft added that feature in the middle of our remote work environment.

According to IBM, the future of knowledge work will be a combination of virtual and in-person settings.⁷⁴ The study by IBM goes on to indicate that 81 percent of respondents indicated “they want to continue working remotely at least some of the time” post Covid-19.⁷⁵ Cisco recently reported an upgrade to its WebEx video conferencing solution that includes integration with online storage giant Box and a telehealth video connector to Epic, the healthcare electronic medical records (EMR) provider.⁷⁶

According to a recent study of small business, 92 percent converted to virtual meetings via tools like Zoom and WebEx, with 34 percent of respondents finding the tools extremely valuable, followed by 43 percent moderately valuable.⁷⁷ The report goes on to indicate the following statistics:

 39 percent of small businesses adopted video conferencing for permanent use, whereas 23 percent adopted it for temporary use.

 47 percent reported the software increased productivity.

 45 percent reported improved engagement with customers.

 45 percent reported increased sales.

 42 percent reported reduced costs.⁷⁸

What's also fascinating about the small business study is that 45 percent of organizations indicated that they would increase their IT spending in 2021 from 2020 by somewhat or much more.⁷⁹

Although it's safe to say that a large percentage of organizations adopted or expanded their online meeting/teleconferencing solutions throughout the pandemic, not all had a positive experience with the tools. Following are some of the reported advantages and disadvantages of online meetings: