COMMENTARY
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION ASIA
How AV Integrators and Collaboration Technologies Can Help Ensure a Successful Return to Office Work By Zee Hakimoglu, Chair & CEO, ClearOne Over the last year, health concerns around the Covid-19 pandemic caused many businesses to rapidly adapt their daily schedules and work models to allow more work to be done from home. As a result, organizations around the world are poised on the edge of a new workplace frontier that will have permanent effects on worker locations, office space design and the level of collaborative technologies required for daily business. While companies and workers throughout Asia have retained more traditional office work schedules than western nations, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown companies that flexibility is key to successful operations and continued performance through challenging economic and social moments. For businesses that communicate with foreign partners or outside entities, or that want to reduce physical contact, travel expenses or climate impacts, the future will rely on collaboration technologies that bridge the gap between office work and remote work, and between companies and workers across the globe. The Post-Covid Home Office Home offices are increasingly becoming an important working space for tens of millions of employees worldwide, but for many workers living in cities or small dwellings, space is a very real issue. For virtual meetings to flow smoothly and be effective, employees need to have a sense of separation from their home and connection with their colleagues. This is true whether a worker is at their kitchen table or in a hotel room, and technology manufacturers have taken notice.
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Solutions now exist for every budget and any size room. Entry-level HD cameras and basic desktop speaker phones improve upon the integrated components in a laptop or all-in-one computer, while multi-camera 4K solutions with remotecontrolled pan, tilt and zoom functions and AI-based beamforming microphone arrays with standalone speakers can recreate the professional conference room experience. Ultra-wide-angle cameras are likely the best option for small rooms where participants must sit very close to the camera. Whose Responsibility Is It? As employers and employees navigate this new collaborative landscape, companies can take various tracks in regards to technology for the home. Initially, the easiest way to enable remote work is to ensure each employee has a laptop or a desktop with a camera, microphone and speaker. However, there can be severe drops in audio and visual quality when going from a professional conference room solution to a laptop webcam and microphone. Therefore, organizations must decide how important appearance and call quality is to their daily work, and whether they will invest in additional AV equipment for home offices or to install collaboration tools in more small rooms at a corporate office. Understanding that this is not a temporary trend and that remote collaboration will only become more vital, companies that plan for the long term are likely to realize that a relatively small investment can pay outsized dividends in terms of productivity and communications. Executives and leaders who still need to travel a lot could also use an upgrade for their mobile conferencing needs, and there are professionalquality camera and microphone solutions that are small enough to toss in a laptop bag APRIL 2021
