Business opportunities


Planning and operating meeting rooms


Two startling pieces of information about meet- ing rooms appeared last year. In all, there are 32 million corporate meeting rooms already in existence. Despite this, changes in working prac- tice and workplace deployment has seen average weekly meeting room use has risen by 50 percent since 2014. These figures suggest that there is huge potential market out there, and a vast array of applications and solutions.


In a recent report, Future- source interviewed both corpo- rate AV purchasers and meeting room users in France, Germa- ny, the UK and the USA, about their spending on, and use of, meeting spaces. The corporate market continues to gain im- portance as a key sector for AV providers and the opportunity is substantial. The


report highlights that


the total addressable meeting room market (TAM) exceeds 5 million rooms in both the West- ern European and North Amer- ican markets. Close to 50% of employees note their average weekly use of meeting rooms has increased in the last two years, and despite a forecast growth in home working and the rising usage of remote con- ferencing platforms that allow meetings to take place outside of dedicated spaces, over 20% of companies surveyed expect to add additional meeting rooms in the coming years. “Alongside a general increase in meeting room use there is also a drive towards more collaborative work group envi- ronments. This is being accel- erated by two key points of de- velopment, namely, the rising adoption of touch technology and the growing requirement for meeting room AV to host remote attendees,” comment- ed Ben Davis of Futuresource


Consulting. “Touch is entering the meeting room in both mo- bile devices and meeting room displays. Our survey shows that 26% of respondents are us- ing tablets or smartphones to share content in meetings and over 30% of companies ex- pect to purchase an interactive meeting room display within the next two years, significant- ly growing penetration from its current base of <5%. This touch eco-system is creating new opportunities for content management and collaboration solutions that allow interaction through multiple screens and devices.”


Video communication


"The integration of conferenc- ing solutions is another key point of consideration for AV purchasers. Over 50% of em- ployees surveyed have been assigned a company sponsored web or video conferencing ac- count and there is a strong re- quirement to utilise these tools in meeting spaces with one in five face-to-face meetings including a remote attendee connecting via video, web or voice.”


tive


“The adoption of interac- and conferencing


tools


is creating opportunities for vendors in display, conferenc- ing, device management and


P16 AV News February 2018


collaborative software markets. Across each of these categories a growing number of providers are offering affordable, scalable and highly converged solutions to address the varied require- ments of both enterprise and SME customers," says Davis. The research also explores


the adoption of display prod- ucts highlighting the growing appetite to and motivations for both company purchasers and employees to replace projectors used in meeting rooms with flat panel solutions. As the market moves towards replacement the channels used for display purchase are changing. The research highlights a growing reliance on web channels as the primary point of purchase for display solutions. The report also highlights that there is a clear difference in terms of AV budgetary decision making and purchasing within larger corpo- rations and SMEs. IT managers hold the purse strings for larger corporations, and owner manag- ers in the latter.


Solutions


The size has, and still is, at- tracted numerous solutions to a sector that is still emerging. The experience of early adopt- ers has already shown that it is important that products used in a meeting room space are intu-


itive to use, in order to support easy user adoption. This ease- of-use has always to be tem- pered with security measures, particularly


in the corporate


environment. This can mean USB ports are locked down for security reasons, so screen sharing devices that function via this method will not work. Many IT managers have misgiv- ings about loading any kind of code onto corporate networks. Products such as the popular Clickshare require an ‘applet’ to run either in cache memory (temp) or be installed, which some security regimes rule out. When designing a meeting room, it is obviously import- ant to be cognisant of these restrictions and to be briefed about the purpose of the room. The client CEO’s aim is often to maximise productivity and in- novation by deploying technol- ogies that complement existing workflows and suit a wide range of meeting spaces. These can vary between the board room and a huddle space, and while the functionality is often sim- ilar the choice of solution and specification can vary tremen- dously.


Even fundamentals, like choice of main display size for any given space, can be sub- jective, with variable including room usage and screen reso- lution. However, as a starting


point, dividing the viewing dis- tance by 1/3 will provide a guide to a recommended diagonal for the display in the room. Interac- tive touch screens have become almost standard for meeting spaces, supporting both BYOD plus this in-room and remote collaboration for the various meeting participants.


Operational considerations


With the growth in demand for meeting rooms and the massive- ly increased provision of flexible workspaces, you be forgiven for assuming that the meeting room problem has been solved. Identifying a suitable venue and scheduling a meeting is now possible using a range of room booking solutions, many linked to standard 365-style calendar solutions through dedicated apps. And yet, how many times have you experienced room bok- ing systems that report all the rooms in am organisation full, when a casual stroll along a cor- ridor shows this is not the case? The challenge is to close the loops in the system, by inte- grating the meeting room facil- ities into the calendar and room booking system and, ideally, completing the loop with re- porting feedback on occupancy, equipment and consumables usage (including ‘soft’ factors like catering). Solutions are


available that even monitor variables like oxygen usage and CO2 production to confirm that a rom booked for 12 was actually used by 12, and not 6. Extreme? Well, perhaps but meeting spaces are at a pre- mium and need to be utilise efficiently.


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