Can Webcams Level the Video Playing Field?
Can Webcams at the employee desktop level the playing field in business video communications?
For years, large companies with expansive information technology budgets have had a significant head-start in the implementation of technology platforms enabling video-enriched communications.
From the earliest deployments of traditional video conferencing gear to today’s implementation of increasingly sophisticated telepresence solutions, the most nifty video communications solutions have always gravitated to large corporations.
That time-honored tradition of the corporate video market space, however, is being thrown into question as more cost effective desktop solutions offer the promise for a new age of video democratization in the business sector.
Truth be told, the production of on-demand video content at the corporate desktop is still something of a novelty. Of the 1,002 executives surveyed last year by Interactive Media Strategies, only 17% reported the ability to create videos at the desktop level. Another 22% said they were actively planning for the implementation of these desktop video publishing capabilities.
At companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenues, adoption of desktop video publishing runs just slightly ahead of usage rates seen in the overall market. Twenty-two percent of executives from these largest companies in Corporate America reported actual implementation of desktop video publishing capabilities with 21% reporting imminent plans for implementation.
Higher rates of desktop video deployment were seen in virtually every other segment of the corporate marketplace except for organizations with less than $50 million in annual revenues. At companies with between $500 million and $1 billion in annual sales, for instance, 27% of executives have deployed desktop video publishing capabilities with another 31% citing near-term plans for implementation, according to the Interactive Media Strategies 2011 survey.
The survey results are surprising simply because large companies are always seen as the pioneers in implementing advanced video communications solutions. They have the largest budgets for investing in technology and typically have the most sprawling network of offices that can fully leverage the benefits that come from enabling more engaging forms of far-flung communications.
The fact that more “mid-sized” companies are embracing desktop solutions than their peers at the high-end of the corporate size ladder today indicates a fundamental difference in how these two groups will invest in and use video over the long haul. Outside of the Fortune 500, the interest level in pushing video capabilities to the desktop level is higher than that seen from the globe’s largest multi-national players.
Indeed, if you’ve shied away from implementing video because you think your company is too small to deploy the technology productively, it may be time for you to take a second look at video. Pushing cost-effective video to the desktop could a way for you to leverage the power of video communications and beat the big boys at their own game.
Steven Vonder Haar is Research Director of Interactive Media Strategies and can be reached at svonder@interactivemediaStrategies.com
