In the digital era of online communication, businesses large and small are turning to video conferencing as a means of communication, not just with customers but within the company itself. But investing in any new system or installation can be a huge headache, and video conferencing in particular has a reputation for being a minefield of potential problems.
Don’t let the reputation scare you away from such a powerful tool: with the right preparation and the right conferencing service, your business can harness all the benefits of video collaboration in the workplace and sidestep the hassle. Here, we’ll give you the basics to consider before investing in a video collaboration system.
How Can You Save Costs?
Setup is often the biggest drain on the budget when investing in a new video system. Early video conferencing networks were very complicated to set up, usually calling for the expertise of an IT professional for installation and debugging. Calls with more than three participants (a must for an active business) required an expensive, custom built, and above all clunky piece of technology called a multipoint control unit, or MCU. Fortunately, the development of cloud-based services like Blue Jeans Network have largely rendered the MCU obsolete. Cloud video calls host multiple participants through a third party server online, removing many of the hardware bugs that plagued MCUs. Cloud-based services are also far easier to set up and run. As long as you’re equipped with webcams and microphones, a simple system only requires a software download, saving a significant amount of money on equipment and installation costs.
Another factor to keep in mind when preparing for installation and set-up: what kind of customer service does the system you’ve selected offer? Don’t let yourself get stuck with a buggy setup and sub-par (or nonexistent) tech support: look for services that offer 24/7 customer service or assign agents to their customers to help guide you through the setup process. The quality of tech support and customer dedication a service provides is often a good indicator of the quality of their product.
Is Your Network Ready?
The strain that streaming video will put on your company’s network is another potential pitfall that catches many businesses unaware. Be sure to familiarize yourself with your network’s available bandwidth before you go ahead with a video system installation. For standard video, a 384 kbs (kilobytes per second) connection will serve you just fine, but for high-definition video (720 p or higher), your network will need speeds of at least 1024 kbs. An unplanned network upgrade can wreak havoc on an IT budget, and a network not up to handling high volumes of streaming will prevent you from getting the most out of your new system. Cloud-based services can help you out here too: by hosting the call on a third-party server, this kind of video conference eases the strain on all the networks involved, whether they be yours or your clients.
Is Your System Compatible?
The last important factor to keep in mind is compatibility. How well does the system you’ve selected interface with multiple different operating systems and devices? If your accounting department, working on a PC, needs to get in touch with a freelance designer, working on a Mac, will your system be able to connect to both of them? Will they be able to view the same documents, interact and collaborate easily?
To keep everything running smoothly, look for a video conferencing service that is system-agnostic. This means that the service’s software was specifically designed to run on any operating system, be it desktop, laptop, or even mobile. Video collaboration with Blue Jeans Network and other cloud-based, browser-based services are the easiest to set up and use for exactly that reason: broad compatibility allows anyone to connect to an ongoing call quickly and easily. These services also allow call participants to share documents and even edit documents collaboratively.
Our Recommendation: Blue Jeans Network
Online video collaboration can be a life-saver for a busy company, especially if you can find a good system: easy to install, low startup costs, with broad-based compatibility that won’t make your network burst into flame. Of the cloud-based conferencing services out there, Blue Jeans is probably the best of the best. Their systems are among the most versatile, easily adapted to whatever is most important to your business’ operations. They also offer the best system-agnostic service, even allowing clients using other conferencing services like Skype, Cisco, or Microsoft Lync to join a call hosted on their network. Anyone can join a call through an email link, on a desktop browser or a smartphone, with no downloads required. For fluid, intuitive, and productive online collaboration, as well as quality tech support and flexibility, Blue Jeans Network is hard to beat
