High-definition video communication can help organizations significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint
By Rick Leung, CTO, Vyopta
The desire for many organizations to “go green” has finally become something more than simple lip-service, transforming into what might be described as a nescient eco-conscious movement. From turning off un-needed lights, recycling to carpooling, every day more individuals and organizations are taking small steps to be more mindful of their environmental impact. We can also find in the workplace other supporting signs of this movement by leveraging video conferencing to reduce travel. However, this technology has had minimum impact to date because it has NOT been widely used and has been primarily relegated to use in a small number of meeting rooms.
What is not so obvious is that video communication technologies have recently advanced significantly to enable communication and collaboration among a large number of users from meeting rooms, desktops, personal computers and mobile devices. Newly available high-definition video communication has much greater potential to contribute to the green movement by significantly reducing travel, energy consumption and carbon footprint because these solutions are more user-friendly, usable in many settings, and economical to adopt enterprise-wide.
From organizations working to pioneer the newest-technologies, to non-profits and universities, innovations in video communication are now dramatically changing the way individuals interact with colleagues, students, patients and customers. The good news is that these profound changes have the potential to bring a plethora of environmental and competitive advantages. When organizations have a reliable and visually-sophisticated method to meet and to improve top- and bottom-line financial performance, it just makes sense to invest in high-definition video communication.
Video communication solutions enable individuals to work anywhere and support a variety of applications, such as high-touch video contact centers, telemedicine, distance learning, and emergency management. As more organizations see how technologies such as PC-based video and organization-wide presence are able to bring remote teams together, there is a profound opportunity to dramatically change long-accepted principles for how business is done. We live in a very exciting time. In the next decade there is a true potential for video communications to change our definition of the workplace, while taking millions of cars off the road every day.
Organizations willing to embrace these changes, to pioneer and become familiar with high-definition video communication, will have a significant head start in not only contributing to the green movement by reducing energy consumption, but in increasing workforce productivity and enhancing access to and quality of services. FINALLY -- in the chaos of today’s financial storm, a head start in adopting high-definition video communication might be the primary difference between success and failure.