Corporate video conferencing solutions provide the best means of collaboration, especially if the parties involved are countries apart. It allows you to stay connected with your business partners and discuss important matters as effectively as if you were in the same room together. The question on most people’s minds, though, is: How can you maximise the capabilities of such technology? Below, you will find all the basics that can help you start adopting a video conferencing solution into your business.
Business Video Conferencing – What you need to consider
Depending on how your business is structured from a communications perspective will have a lot to do with determining the right video solution based on your requirements.
Your video solution may be hardware, software or cloud based. How you want your employees, customers and business partners to communicate will also play a determine role. Would you prefer meeting room based conferencing, giving employee’s access at the desktop/laptop or enabling mobile access, regardless of where the person is based? Or all of the above? You will need to also think about what devices employees currently have, do their desktops have microphones, will the meeting room need speakers, how many people are likely to be on a call, and are the current mobile devices compatible with headsets? There is a lot to consider when you are contemplating the outcomes that your video solution will provide.
Next are the parts required for video input and output.
Once again, these may come with your devices already built in. If you’re looking for something to accommodate a larger group, then look into projectors, larger screens or room based systems. Most modern television screens have high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) slots for you to easily transmit the image on a bigger screen.
The last but arguably most important component of web conferencing solutions is the Video Conferencing Codec Unit.
This is the hub of all video conferencing, and is where your voice and appearance are compressed into data packets. This information is sent and decompressed through your IP network, after which they are transmitted to the recipients. An important thing to note, though: While calls may be conducted without video and some programs have a chat box for those without audio, without the right codec, video conferencing is impossible to do.
Your codec can come in two different forms: hardware and software.
Before you go out and get the required solution, you need to identify a few things.
- First, you need to consider two things about your video conference participants: number and location. Will you be constantly talking to groups of people or on a one-on-one basis? Do you have partners in faraway countries that you need to constantly communicate with? These determine if you need a larger internet or broadband bandwidth to take the extra burden of video traffic on the network.
- You need to consider the quality of your calls. If you need to make a good first impression with clients or business partners, then a HD display with top-notch audio will let them know they’re dealing with professionals. However, if you use it for quick status updates or something of that manner, quality should still be a priority, though perhaps not so much as to put it before other more crucial aspects.
- One more thing to consider is the need for multimedia sharing and recording. Will you need to present graphs, videos, or other media during your conference calls? Will you need the call video and audio stored for future reference or security purposes? Answering these questions will let you know what kind of features you need on a video conferencing solution.
