With the explosive growth of video technologies and with global internet connectivity always improving, the video conferencing user experience is becoming more and more enhanced. This, along with the explosion of cloud-based video conferencing services, pushing costs down and enabling greater accessibility to higher quality solutions for organisations of all sizes, is driving widespread adoption and strong growth in the sector.
According to Credence Research, the global video conferencing market value will hit $7.7BN by 2022.
The main benefits of video conferencing are obvious: its use has the potential to increase productivity and efficiency by reducing unproductive travel time and high travel costs, to reduce meeting delays caused by travel issues, to encourage shorter and more structured meetings and to allow for greater reach of a message. Along with these clear benefits, enhanced video conference functionality such as high definition, the ability to share screens and to record meeting content and conversations and technological developments such as 360 degree video and that allows users to feel as if they are in the same room as the other participants in the conference, means that video conferencing is widely tipped to overtake all other forms of corporate communication in the developed World by the end of 2018.
So, the future of video conferencing looks very rosy. However, there is one area where it lags behind and where there is a woeful lack of focus… Staff training. Most organisations that use video conferencing simply provide the facility for their staff, perhaps train them technically and let them get on with it, assuming that they will instinctively know how to get the most out of the medium. However, the skills needed to communicate clearly and effective via video, “Communicating Through Glass”, as we call it, are very different to the skills needed to communicate face-to-face. These skills can be acquired easily and yet it has occurred to very few organisations to invest in this training. Even a Google search on “Training staff for video conferencing” returns search results that are predominantly focused on training that is delivered via video conferencing rather than on training for video conferencing.
However, for organisations that become aware of this skill gap and invest in training their staff properly, the rewards can be significant. In the highly competitive modern commercial world very small commercial advantages or disadvantages can make a world of difference. A workforce that is fully trained and competent in the use of video conferencing and other video applications can manage clients more effectively, sell more effectively and communicate more effectively.
The other advantage of the fully video-trained organisation is that it can embrace these media still further, leveraging the expertise of its people to make further time and travel savings as video conferencing is applied in new scenarios.
The McCarthy Consultancy offers a unique ‘Communicating Through Glass’ training programme suitable for all organisations. Contact us today or visit the Communicating Through Glass page on our website for more details.
