Presenting the ‘Office of the Future’

Taking a closer look at the evolution of meeting room technologies and the changes workers might see in their offices—if they still have them—in the 2020s.

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Presenting the ‘Office of the Future’

The pro AV corporate end user market is expected to witness consistent growth over the next decade, as the industry adapts and evolves to meet the changing needs of end-users across multiple applications, according to Futuresource Consulting.

Collaboration and connectivity will continue to drive revenues in this so-called office of the future, where there’s more of an emphasis on teamwork to solve and craft creative solutions than ever before as companies literally break down walls between colleagues. 

Jeremy Keefe, VP of UK and Ireland for Poly, highlighted three key trends driving developments of meeting room technologies and products for the office of the future at the recent Futuresource Audio Collaborative event: flexible office spaces, the rise of huddle rooms, and the move to mobility. 

Keefe also cited audio and video quality as key elements of the end users’ experience, along with remote working and collaborating across teams.

“Interoperability across office ecosystems also remains a key aspect of AV hardware purchasing decisions both in the corporate and education spaces,” said Claire Kerrison, senior analyst for Futuresource Consulting.

“AV managed services will become a key longer-term strategic focus for brands, as they will help to cement end user customers into a given ecosystem and provide an opportunity for them to streamline their route-to-market,” she said.

AVIXA chief marketing officer Dan Goldstein emphasized the role AV integrators play in shaping the office of the future in his recent piece for Work Design.

“With more and more companies utilizing remote workers or freelancers, high-quality virtual collaboration spaces are more important than ever,” he wrote.

“As a result, forward-thinking workspace designers must arm themselves with the latest meeting room technologies to enable simple and seamless virtual collaboration that is as effective as in-person meetings,” wrote Goldstein.

With more and more companies utilizing remote workers or freelancers, high-quality virtual collaboration spaces are more important than ever.

AVIXA editor-at-large Brad Grimes agrees with Goldstein on the changing face of the corporate landscape and he understands the role AV integrators must play in that evolution.

“For as long as conferencing and collaboration took place in, well, conference rooms, the pro AV industry’s value proposition was also well understood: Building so-called videoconferencing systems that allowed people to meet with remote counterparts using audio and video,” he wrote.

“But of course, things have changed — rapidly. On the one hand, more collaboration now takes place online, via software-based solutions such as Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams.

“On the other hand, there’s been a rapid rise in “out-of-the-box” meeting room solutions, such as BlueJeans, Lifesize, and Zoom,” wrote Grimes in a blog on AVIXA’s website recapping some of the major takeaways from the 2019 AV Executive Conference in New Orleans.

“Now, the two hands are shaking in the middle: Most recently, Microsoft and Zoom announced plans to enable users of Teams and Zoom Rooms to join each other’s meetings,” Grimes wrote.

“What does all this mean for pro AV and the industry’s long-held understanding of conferencing and collaboration? It means AV’s role in collaboration solutions will evolve in new and important ways.”

Office of the Future Trends for Workers

Kerrison expects AV solutions to “become a key element of data acquisition, from facial detection to climate monitoring.” Managed services, she said, “will help end-users drive cost-saving and resource efficiency initiatives, as well as optimizing the efficacy of signage.”

According to the latest Futuresource Professional Displays Report, regular usage of collaboration and connectivity solutions is mounting worldwide.

This trend is “changing not only what display and meeting room technologies are being purchased but what technologies are being integrated within them,” according to the Futuresource outlook.

In 2018, the number of “collaboration displays” sold worldwide grew over 150% with a 25% CAGR forecast 2019-2023. Wireless presentation solutions including hardware-based, room hubs, collaboration displays and software exceeded a major milestone in 2018.

Listen: Integrating 300+ Collaboration Displays Smoothly in Worldwide Offices… Can it be Done? Episode 84 of AV+

The demand for meeting room technologies is also at an all-time high, says Futuresource, driven by trends in remote working video conferencing.

Hardware shipments increased by 50% last year, according to Futuresource’s latest Global Video Conferencing Report, with a projected CAGR of 27% out to 2022.

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