With World Earth Day on 22nd April this year, organisations across the country are looking at how they can drive sustainability efforts, with many businesses using new technologies to help them reduce their impact on the environment. Indeed, the latest survey from StarLeaf shows that 63% of UK IT decision-makers cited reducing their environmental impact through minimising travel and supporting remote working as one of the key drivers for implementing video conferencing technology.
However, unreliable video conferencing technology may undermine these sustainability objectives. If staff cannot communicate seamlessly, instantly, and in high quality video and audio with their colleagues, organisations will struggle to convince them to adapt to the cultural changes associated with remote working.
William MacDonald, Chief Technology Officer at StarLeaf commented: “There is a growing drive from the business community to implement successful sustainability initiatives, particularly when events such as World Earth Day raise awareness of critical issues facing society. Technology has a crucial role to play in enabling organisational cultural changes, such as moving towards remote working, which can deliver enormous tangible benefits and sustainability improvements.
“We are already seeing a significant shift towards remote working, as the ‘always-on economy’ has dramatically transformed working patterns and employees are increasingly adhering to the sentiment of ‘work is something I do and not where I go’. Traditional methods of meeting, such as travelling extensive hours by car to meet people at a specific location or corresponding by e-mail, are not the best ways to communicate.”
The StarLeaf survey found that 35% of UK IT decision-makers reported suffering from poor audio quality during a video conference call, 36% reported general interruptions, and 41% had poor video quality. Organisations now have the opportunity to focus on providing reliable, secure, and intuitive tools that eliminate the frustrations that many employees associate with a video conference experience. Cloud-based solutions with a robust architecture, supported by multiple, global points of presence, give enterprise users the capability to connect, communicate, share, and meet in an instant.
“Sustainability is a growing business imperative. Customers are increasingly choosing to do business with companies that promote their environmental credentials and it’s becoming a powerful recruiting tool, particularly among the more environmentally-minded Millennials. Video conferencing technology can make a substantial contribution to these efforts, supporting a cultural shift towards remote working in the quest to work more productively whilst reducing travel and carbon emissions. With the rapidly changing and unpredictable nature of global business, it is vital for those wishing to lead industries, that they build their enterprises on robust communication tools,” MacDonald concluded.