New OVCC Forrester Study on Market State of B2B Video Communication

Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) just released three new Forrester Consulting reports on the State of B2B Video Communication Market including adoption, perception, and outlook in the B2B space. The reports were commissioned by the OVCC group and are based on a survey of 695 enterprise decision-makers and influencers of video communications. The three reports are:

• Information Worker Adoption and Usage Habits
  
  
• The Business, IT, and Information Workers' Perceptions
  
  
• Geographic and Industry Opportunities

The reports give a comprehensive view of how information workers see and use video today, what their issues are and what the barriers to adoption are, as well as the industries that are positioned for video adoption. While there are a number of key points in the reports, there are a few areas that deserve emphasis. While IT sees security as a big concern, users see ease of use and video quality as bigger issues (The Business Decision Makers', IT Decision Makers', and Information Workers' Perception). The reports also show that the vast majority of video is used within the organization (over 70%) and communications with peers is by far the largest use, while communicating with the boss is second. This is emphasized in that 75% of video meetings are scheduled versus 25% that are ad hoc. Scheduled meetings refer to reserved network capacity in advance of video meetings, whereas ad hoc video meetings do not require advance reservations for video calls. Notably, the OVCC announcement of the study indicated the next OVCC video specification will support unreserved, or ad hoc, video calls.

In devices used for video, the report confirms the emergence of PC-based desktop video as the new driving force in video use and adoption. The report breaks out the data by worker categories, but about 60% indicated they use a laptop for some video sessions, about 50% a desktop, and about 40% a dedicated room system. Not surprisingly, the use of video on mobile devices was significantly lower at an average of under 20%, most likely due to the inability of smaller screens and cameras to provide adequate video services. However, the report noted that 30% of Gen Y employees reported using tablets and Smartphones for video, reflecting the acceptance of smaller screens in the younger tech savvy demographic.

In the industry and geography report, the use cases ripe for adoption include education and logistics, but healthcare was significantly lower. An interesting ongoing trend identified in the report is the across the board higher value put on video in Asia, a direct reflection of the heightened importance of visual feedback in communications in most Asian cultures.

The three reports have an interesting view of the state of video adoption, challenges, and opportunities at the beginning of 2014. Overall they provide potential adopters of video specific data to analyze the adoption and impact of video in your organization as well as giving a good view of the challenges you should make sure your vendors are solving before you commit to a deployment. The OVCC announcement spotlighted road map items that align with some of the study's findings and reported the data would be referenced for future OVCC compliant service releases. Thanks to OVCC for sponsoring this research, it is a valuable contribution to understanding the state of deployment and adoption.

The Forrester/OVCC reports can be downloaded from the OVCC site here.

OVCC invites you to attend a special webinar, Driving B2B Video Communication, on Wednesday, March 26 at 11:00 a.m. EDT with OVCC President, Andrew McFadzen, and Henry Dewing from Forrester Consulting, where they will highlight results from this study. To attend, please Register Online.