Business is going more mobile, more collaborative and more visual. The mobile market is booming, and smartphones and tablets are changing how people conduct their business and communicate. And with the lines between private life and work life becoming much more blurred, work is now based on what you do, not where you do it.
This technology boom means almost every employee now has a video endpoint in their pocket, and employees can be as productive as they can be, whether in the office, at home or on the go.
Although the focus is often on the specific devices, it is important for organisations to recognise the true value that these devices bring, such as improved productivity, client engagement and rapid innovation, and how implementing mobile collaboration solutions can help you reach your business goals, whether that be improved support for remote offices, better training for customers or shortened time to market.
“The estimated increase in job-related productivity when employees use smartphones, tablets or laptops is 30 minutes per employee, per day”
Cisco metrics, April 2011
But there are a number of challenges to overcome.
IT must pay great attention to how technology is implemented to enable secure Video Collaboration within their network that paves the way for business goals to be reached.
The huge growth in “endpoints” means that more capacity needs to be available, however how can an organisation know how many devices will be connected at any one time? And how will this effect the network and demand for bandwidth? How will mobile video collaboration be of high enough quality when people connect into conferences over lossy or jittery mobile networks? How will the mobile devices integrate with other solutions already in place, such as room based Video Conferencing systems, desktop video phones, immersive telepresence systems or collaboration/UC software?
Solving the Mobility Challenge
To solve the mobility challenge for the enterprise, organisations need to consider the following:
- Assess bandwidth & network needs based upon demand analysis and wireless access plans.
- Decide upon device access control & security policies for content on mobile devices
- Choose highly scalable and distributed virtualised technology as the core infrastructure, which can then be deployed on premise, private or public cloud.
- Select applications that work within a mixed environment, on many mobile devices – Does it work on iOS and Android isn’t the only question you should be asking… what works on a Samsung may not work on a HTC, what works on an iPhone 5 may not work on an iPhone 6!
But before you do anything, start with your strategy. Ensure it is aligned with your business priorities by gaining an understanding of challenges from executives, managers, IT and users and defining business objectives that the organisation is aiming to propel. Then, with the right strategy in place, you are far better positioned to consider and make decisions about collaboration tools that are right for your business. If you’re at this stage, we can help you with customised recommendations and roadmaps related to important questions such as:
- What outcomes would we like our solutions to achieve?
- Which deployment models should be consider?
- What criteria should we use to select the right solution?
- Do we need to deploy everything at the same time or can this be a phased approach?
- Can we pay for our investment over time whilst reaping the benefits of our solution?
- How can we ensure, and measure ROI on our investment?
Once complete, you’ll want to start exploring the recommended solutions for a secure, professional and flexible platform.
One recommended solution to look at in more detail is the Pexip Infinity platform. Pexip Infinity is a virtualised platform that has been designed with mobility in mind. Where enterprise quality video collaboration has traditionally been expensive and complex to use, with scalability being a major challenge due to the cost of hardware and inability to scale up and down as and when needed, the Infinity platform enables all devices and protocols to connect into a Virtual Meeting Room, or directly, in a way that is simple and scalable.
Pexip Infinity Connect Mobile application on the iPhone
Pexip also provide a desktop and mobile application with all the features needed to communicate freely, wherever and whenever you choose. But you don’t even have to rely on the Pexip app to get mobile working; you can use any standards-based video conferencing app, device or software, alongside Skype for Business or Microsoft Lync, and even call directly from a WebRTC enabled browser such as Google Chrome. All within a secure, resilient platform within your own network or data centre, or via a cloud service such as VideoCloud 365.
Or, you may wish to take a look at Cisco Mobility solutions, that offers a single integrated architecture that allows mobile Jabber clients and remote endpoints to register directly to Cisco Unified Communications Manager environments. With Cisco, you can gain a highly secure, fully featured and scalable solution that doesn’t just provide for mobile collaboration, but for enterprise wide collaboration too. High definition voice, video, messaging and desktop sharing to mobile users and others, anywhere on any device.
Whatever stage you are at in your mobile strategy, let us discuss your requirements with you and help you find out how the adoption of new collaboration technologies can address your business priorities. Or, if you’d like to see all the available solutions, side-by-side, we can simply arrange for a visit to our HQ where we can demonstrate how everything fits together, based upon your own business needs and the outcomes you are striving to achieve.
More Information?
- See our Mobile Collaboration Solutions page
- See a selection of mobile and tablet applications for Video Collaboration
- Find out more about Pexip
- Find out more about Cisco
