Today s Huddle Room Experience Maybe Adequate Just Isn t

Transcription

1 September 2017 Today s Huddle Room Experiene Maybe Adequate Just Isn t A Wainhouse Researh ebook Sponsored by

2 Table of Contents 1. About This ebook 2. A Glimpse At the Way We Work 3. The Rise of the Huddle Room 4. Meet the Power Meeter 5. Huddle Room Conferening Apps and Devies 6. Equipment Performane 7. Hithes in Huddle Room Meetings 8. Bottom Line on Huddle Rooms 9. Hardware In the Huddle Room

3 About This ebook

4 A GLIMPSE AT THE WAY WE WORK The way we work ontinues to hange at a rapid pae. Case in point: group ollaboration. More and more, the way we get our work done is via a ollaborative group. The way we meet is hanging as well. Long, extended, stale meetings are out replaed by fewer, but more produtive and shorter meetings. Our data shows that onferening tools have beome standard issue in the mid-sized enterprise: 75% of that workfore has at least one onferening aount. 1 There is a very interesting story behind this data, however. Most of today s workfore has aess to a range of onferening servies in fat, almost half reeive four or more aounts! The reality here: onferening is a feature now found within many solutions, from traditional audio onferening to web onferening to unified ommuniations (UC) and beyond. This proliferation of tools may reflet the perspetive that ollaboration is integral to driving workplae performane 2. Number of Conferening Aounts 6% 11% 8% 48% or more 1 Soure: Wainhouse Researh, 2016 Collaboration End User Survey, showing enterprise size 250-1k seats; n=250 2 Soure: Forbes, June 2017, Collaboration Drives Workplae Performane Our work environment is hanging, too. Consider almost 40% of US workers teleommute at least one day a week 3. Our workfore is inreasingly mobile, fueled by a mix of tehnology and employee preferenes. Open-seating floorplans are ommon, supporting the new mobile workfore, and delivering ost savings to boot. THE RISE OF THE HUDDLE ROOM Swirl these trends together, and you have a ontinued rise in huddle room popularity. These smaller meeting rooms provide a quiet, ollaborative environment for groups of 6 or less a ritial spae for those enterprises with a ollaborative, mobile workfore, and open seating environments. As researhers, the use of huddle rooms for group ollaboration is an important trend, as teams hange the way they interat, reate, and get their jobs done but we have many questions. As sponsor of this ebook, Logiteh shares our uriosity. Together, we wanted to find out: what s happening during onferenes in huddle rooms? 3 Soure: PWC Worklife 3.0 study, June 2016 So... we surveyed a panel of huddle room users from midsized ommerial enterprises in North Ameria, asking them just that what do you do in huddle rooms during onferenes?

5 Meet the Power Meeter We spend all day every day investigating the ollaboration industry. One thing we ve found over the years: while we all ollaborate regularly, a selet group ollaborates very differently. We segment our survey results to fous on the Power Meeter the top 1/3 of respondents in terms of meeting volume Average Meeters Meetings Per Week Power Meeters Average Weekly Meetings Average 4 Power 14 They also make good use of their onferening tools, using audio, video, or web onferening solutions to meet with virtual partiipants in almost 60% of their meetings. % of Huddle Room Conferenes: Alone or with 1-2 Other People Average 36% Power 45% In general, Power Meeters meet a lot and this survey s group was no exeption, with 3.5x the weekly meeting load as the Average Meeters. Perent of Huddle Room Meetings Involving People Loated Elsewhere Average 47% Power 59% Our PMs are also more likely to join onferenes by themselves, or with a small group in the huddle room. By omparison, the AMs are morel likely to join huddle room onferenes with 3 or more partiipants. We ve found that the Power Meeters an deliver a wealth of insight. Their meeting volume drives an expertise and familiarity with meeting tehnology. Their tool seletion shows whih tools are most popular. Overall, they provide a valuable benhmark of meeting behavior. Perhaps most importantly, their perspetives on what works and what doesn t should lead your strategy and ollaboration investments with the expetation that fine-tuning your environment for the Power Meeters will benefit all ollaborators and may even onvert some Average Meeters! When you join an audio, video, or web onferene, what perent of the time do you join from: 40% 40% Huddle room 22% 26% 23% 22% Mid or large size Desk or personal onferene room workspae 10% 8% 5% 5% On the road Power Meeter Average Meeter Other Perhaps most interesting is the fat that these rooms beome a ommon ground for onferening - by far the most popular single loation for huddle room users to hold their audio, video, & web onferenes.

6 Huddle Room Conferening Apps and Devies Among those who use huddle rooms... Apps Used for Conferening in Huddle Rooms Devies Used for Conferening in Huddle Rooms First, almost everyone in this survey uses their huddle rooms for web or video onferening only a few noting they don t. That said, Mirosoft and Ciso provide the most ommonly used apps with the PMs favoring both muh more than the AM rowd. With the rise in app-based onferening, we are not surprised to see the laptop as the most ommonly used devie to join onferenes in the huddle room. But right next to the laptop is the speakerphone. In fat, our expert PMs are just as likely to join a onferene from a speakerphone as they are their laptop. Perhaps we are seeing how hard it is to move users from old habits to new experiene. This may also point to gaps in laptop audio quality, and a lak of available peripherals. Another important observation: Today s huddle room user leverages a mix of apps to support their web and video onferening needs. Only 30% of the panel uses a single app and over 20% use 3 or 4 different apps to join web or video onferenes. This mix drives a need for flexible onferene room equipment or drives the user to bring their own devie to join these onferenes. 71% 68% 51% Mirosoft Skype or Skype for Business 57% Ciso WebEx and/or Spark 68% 68% 52% What Apps Do You Use to Join Web or Video Conferenes in Huddle Rooms? Power Meeter 52% 49% GoToMeeting and/or join.me Average Meeter 38% 23% A dediated video onferening system (Polyom, Ciso, et.) 16% 9% Zoom and/or Zoom Rooms What Devies Do You Use to Join Audio/Video/Web Conferenes in Huddle Rooms? Showing: Top 5 Power Meeter Laptop Speakerphone Video onferening system Average Meeter # of Apps Used Showing: Total Respondents 3 apps 16% 46% 50% 48% 48% 48% 36% Smartphone or tablet brought into the room 4 apps 6% 2 apps 40% 2% 1 app 30% 3% We don't use web/video onferening in huddle rooms 31% Dediated PC

7 HOW WELL DOES THEIR EQUIPMENT PERFORM IN HUDDLE ROOMS? We wondered if these users huddle rooms were equipped to handle the rise in popularity of audio, video, and web onferenes so, of ourse, we asked! Speakerphone Display Video system PC with webam USB audio/video devie First, we asked respondents to tell us what perent of the huddle rooms that they used were equipped with devies that enable audio, video, and web onferening. The results point to the speakerphone as the devie found in the majority of their huddle rooms - followed by a display, and then a video onferening system in third plae. These users noted dediated PCs with webams, and USB audio and video peripherals as available less frequently both devies found in less than half of their huddle rooms. We thought these results aligned well with previous responses that show users joining onferenes from a speakerphone, and using their laptops frequently. Separately, these users are onneting their laptop to the in-room display for most of their onferenes with PM s doing this in more of their audio, video, or web onferenes than AMs (70% vs 57%). But the real question on our minds: Does this mix of tehnologies meet our huddle room users needs? Or, does the user feel the tehnology is holding them bak? So we asked them if they were satisfied with how well their huddle rooms were equipped with devies that support high quality audio and video onferenes. What we found: Most respondents felt their huddle rooms were well equipped for audio, video, and web onferening. In fat, over 80% felt their huddle room equipment was adequate or exellent aross every question we asked in this ategory. 2% 4% 54% 40% A high quality video amera 4% 2% 61% 33% A mi that piks up everyone's audio And most over 80% - felt their amera s field of vision and ability to zoom was adequate or exellent as well. If there was any rak in the huddle room s onferening armor, it might be in the zoom ategory - 10% felt their solution was awful at this. 4% 1% 62% 8% 6% 58% 28% 34% A speaker with onsistent audio quality A video am that doesn't "ut out" people on the edges 10% 10% 54% Exellent Adequate Awful No Need Respondents felt their huddle rooms were well equipped for high quality audio and video with almost 95% noting their video ameras and mirophones were adequate or exellent". 26% The ability to "zoom" to partiipants or whiteboards

8 Hithes in Huddle Room Conferenes While these huddle room users indiate that their rooms are at least adequately equipped to support high quality onferenes, they had a different story when it omes to the atual onferenes themselves. We asked speifially if respondents experiened issues during audio or video onferenes with other huddle rooms looking to see if their atual experienes math their equipment perspetives. Things got really interesting to us, at least when we ompared the Power and Average Meeter responses. On average, more PMs experiened issues than their AM brethren by a material perent! Let s dig into the data: When onduting an audio / video onferene with partiipants loated in other huddle rooms, do you experiene these issues? (Showing: Often and Sometimes ) Power Meeter Average Meeter 66% 66% 61% 59% 45% 40% 47% 48% 38% 36% 33% 13% 1% 15% 38% Can't hear everyone: low volume, noise, et. 38% Often Sometimes Rarely Never Don t Know 9% 1% 12% 40% Conferenes start late: app or equipment issues What we found: Most of these respondents experiened issues either sometimes or often. The most ommon gripe: I an t hear everyone. This was followed by meetings starting late, diffiulty seeing everyone in the room, and laptops or other lutter obsuring the view. Blurry images when zooming was the least of this panel s worries. Can't see everyone: view is not wide enough 4% 16% 31% 13% 36% 19% 33% 4% 14% 31% Can't see everyone: open laptops et. obstrut the view Video gets blurry when zooming 23% 4% 33% 12% 28% Can't hear everyone: low volume, noise, et. 25% 8% Can't see everyone: view is not wide enough 38% Conferenes start late: app or equipment issues 33% 25% Can't see everyone: open laptops, et. obstrut the view When onferening from a huddle room, do you ever have too many laptops (or other things) on the table at one and not enough table spae? Power Meeter Average Meeter Video gets blurry when zooming Aross the board, more PMs noted they had issues, at least sometimes, than the AMs. Challenges hearing and seeing everyone were the most ommon gripes for our PMs in this survey. 27% 32% 13% Yes all the time Yes on oasion Yes but rarely No this is never an issue Our Power Meeters also pointed to hallenges with lutter on the huddle room table, more-so than the AM respondents. This, despite the fat that they tend to join onferenes in smaller groups, on average perhaps pointing to PMs as more tehnial users, toting more gear with them.

9 Summary Analysis This survey of huddle room users reinfored a few expetations: Speakerphones are still most ommon devie found in the huddle room, followed by a display. Users tend to use a ombination of speakerphones and their laptops to start and join onferenes. And video and web onferening are popular forms of ollaboration within the huddle room. However, this researh unovered an important disonnet between a user s pereption of their huddle room equipment and the reality of their onferening experiene. On the one hand, these users felt their huddle rooms are adequately outfitted with high-quality devies with many noting their equipment was exellent! The message seemed lear: Our rooms have exellent speakers and mirophones, apable of onsistent, high quality audio... Our huddle room video ameras deliver high quality video, that doesn t ut people out on the edges... But when asked about issues with their atual experiene, we heard a very different story: Well, I do have issues hearing everyone on the far end... Now that you mention it, I have had issues with the video utting people out on the edges... Now, in all fairness, we played a bit of a trik on our survey respondents we asked the same question in two different ways, gathering feedbak on their satisfation with huddle room equipment, followed by issues with their atual experiene. The ontrast between responses is telling: users are experiening issues during huddle room onferenes, but aren t attributing them to the equipment or servies that diretly support that experiene. We also found the experiene gap widens with our Power Meeters the ones generating the most amount of onferening in the huddle room. This reveals that the familiarity or expertise with the equipment is not what s standing in the way of a quality experiene in fat, it shows that the more you use, the more likely you are to experiene issues. Another important observation: we tend to fous on the Power Meeters for good reason: they provide a leading indiator in the huddle room disussion. It s your heaviest users who an best tell you what s working, and what s not. However, it s lear that even our power users are not neessarily experts with the equipment that their organization provides. On the other hand, our users and espeially our power users are more qualified to provide feedbak on their atual experiene; feedbak that will enable the enterprise to adapt its equipment and servies to improve everyone s onferening experiene. To this point, we think it s important to dig into the Power Meeter s onerns, looking for the root ause behind any issues they experiene on a regular basis. It stands to reason: if you deliver the equipment and solutions that enhane their onferening experiene, you maximize the benefit aross your organization and you may just onvert a few average users to power users at the same time!

10 Hardware In the Huddle Room itopia, a leading loud migration provider, has been using the Logiteh MeetUp as an early adopter. Here s what they have to say about their experiene: Today, there are a number of vendors providing solutions designed to address the needs of the huddle room user. Case-in-point: Logiteh, the sponsor of this ebook, reently introdued MeetUp, a USB devie designed to support an inreasing volume of huddle room audio and video onferenes. MeetUp is equipped with a amera boasting 4K resolution and a super-wide 120-degree field of view, making it easier to see every seat at the table espeially when the amera is loser to the partiipants. We re really exited about the MeetUp system. We really like the small footprint ompared to other produts on the market at an unbelievably reasonable prie point. -Jonathan Lieberman Co-Founder and CEO, itopia I an already see the wide angle is a game hanger, espeially beause we have a small onferene room. We an fit more people loser to the amera, so in addition to the good video and audio quality that is definitely a must have that we ouldn t live without, today. -Ubaldo Don Co-Founder and CTO, itopia The devie s integrated speaker is optimized for huddle room aoustis, and it inludes three beamforming mirophones in addition to an optional on-table mi as well. Logiteh MeetUp an be mounted to a display, on a wall, or set on a table top flexibility intended to redue additional on-table lutter. Logiteh asked the survey audiene if they thought their huddle rooms would benefit from a video devie providing these features. The results: 90% of these huddle room users said they would onsider it, and just over 2/3 s said yep! And those Power Meeter s we keep talking about? Well, almost 75% replied with a firm yes.

11 About Wainhouse Researh Wainhouse Researh is an independent analyst firm that fouses on ritial issues in the unified ommuniations and ollaboration market. The ompany provides 6 different vendor subsriptions overing unified ommuniations, group videoonferening, personal & web-based ollaboration, audio onferening, streaming & webasting, and distane eduation & e-learning solutions, as well as a single all-inlusive subsription for enterprise users. The ompany ats as a trusted advisor providing strategi advie and diretion for both the UC&C industry and its enterprise users. For further details ontat sales@wainhouse.om or see The information ontained herein has been obtained from soures believed to be reliable. Wainhouse Researh shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequaies in the information ontained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the seletion of these materials to ahieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subjet to hange without notie.