- Barco has released the results of its recent ‘Meeting Room of the Future’ survey, jointly organized with InAVate and PFM magazine.
- Via this research, more than 300 senior business managers in the EMEA region expressed their opinion on collaboration and knowledge sharing and the environments and tools that support these behaviors. One of the major results is that 59 percent of the respondents believe that the meeting room of the future will be fully digital by 2014, with 94 percent believing this will be the case by 2020.
- During the month of June, InAVate, PFM, and Barco launched an online survey in which respondents shared their vision on the meeting room of the future and the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing in those meeting spaces. The survey provided important insights into how organizations are dealing with today’s changing work environment and culture and how this affects the technology needs for meeting rooms. 59 percent of the survey respondents expect their meeting rooms to be fully digitally equipped by 2014, 25 percent expect this by 2016, and 9 percent by 2020.
- When sounded out about how often they and their colleagues work remotely, 91 percent of the survey respondents stated that they work remotely on a regular basis, with 27 percent working remotely almost daily. The future is mobile and as increasing numbers of employees are working remotely, meeting spaces must become more flexible and support a greater range of technologies and demands for virtual conferencing. When attending a meeting, 82 percent bring their own device (the majority of these are laptops, but other mobile devices are on the rise).
- While meetings are still largely presentation-driven, 92 percent of the respondents cite support for presentation software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, as the main priority, there is a growing demand to provide support for additional digital media. 59 percent of businesses are now using photos and video to deliver better meeting performance, as digital media drive the push to improve the effectiveness of corporate meetings.
- When organizing or attending a meeting, the survey respondents are most frustrated by long setup times and technical issues. That’s why the main objectives for investing in new AV equipment are to: improve meeting dynamics (47 percent), reduce meeting setup times (41 percent), and improve the reliability of technology (40 percent).
- When investing in meeting spaces, the three most important technology priorities are: presentation tools, remote conferencing technology, and audio reproduction systems. In the respondents’ organizations, the IT Manager (47 percent), CIO (30 percent), and Facilities Manager (28 percent) are the main decision-makers for investing in AV equipment. The average budget for meeting room technology is €10,000.
