Imagine meeting with a consultant, developing a platform, and launching it throughout an organization only to see it fail because no one uses it. Sadly, this happens often, and is one of the greatest challenges affecting video collaboration. We must address problems such as interoperability, accessibility, security, shadow IT, and compliance for the program to be successful. Our latest whitepaper, Workflow Design. Making Video Collaboration Easy explores those issues and much more. Here’s a quick look at some of the issues we address:
- Interoperability and accessibility. These are no small issues; whether you develop a policy regulating the devices that connect to your network or not, employees and clients are used to certain tools. With so many connected devices coming and going, accounting for these preferences is a significant challenge. For example, you must address protocol issues, bandwidth restrictions, security, updates, and more.
- Shadow IT. This is another issue related to devices employees bring to work. Even with your new tool, workers may still try to use collaboration platforms they prefer. Shadow IT refers to the compliance and safety risks this behavior raises. For example, if your legal team if working on a case on an internal video platform and a junior attorney sends a document through an unapproved app, you could face some unpleasant litigation of your own.
- This is an issue for any enterprise, but those in the financial or medical fields must ensure their systems meet industry regulations. While you must consider hackers, identity thieves, and distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, individuals who have access to the network present the biggest risk—whether they deliberately ignore security protocols or connect an unsafe device to the network.
- Speaking of security, certain industries must comply with federally mandated usability and data sharing standards. For example, the health care industry is required to follow Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards, which regulate data sharing and the handling and storage of private patient information. This is also an issue for those in the legal field or any industry that must be mindful of confidential or nondisclosure agreements. The enterprise, its workers, clients, and vendors—anyone else connected to the network—must adhere to these strict guidelines.
There are plenty of other challenges an organization must address before it launches a videoconferencing adoption strategy. If you tackle these problems head on, everyone involved can seamlessly collaborate.
If you’re interested in learning more about the other challenges you may face when you implement a video collaboration solution—and how you can overcome them, you can download our free white paper, Exploring the Future of Video Collaboration: Simple Workflow, Better Experiences for more information.
This article was first seen on HB Communications and can be found here. To learn more about how HB Communications is leading the way in designing video and unified communications solutions, download our newest paper “Workflow Design: Making Video Collaboration Easy.”
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Ted ThompsonDynamic Technology Executive with 20+ years’ achievement in progressively responsible operational leadership roles. Recognized expertise in Unified Communications (UC), Video Collaboration, Telepresence and enterprise architecture. Rigorous analytical thinker who combines deep technical knowledge with the necessary business savvy to spearhead strategic initiatives, increase year-over-year profitability, and help organizations achieve bottom-line goals. Transformative business leader and skilled relationship-builder with a demonstrated track record of providing technology vision, engineering process improvements, managing highly effective teams, and driving revenue growth. Solutions architect for customer UC and video collaboration solutions that include Polycom, Cisco, Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business.