What video conference and meeting systems suit your small business or organisation

Many companies are familiar with the traditional phone conference meeting, but are looking for more effective ways to communicate with employees, vendors, and customers. The face-to-face interactions will never be entirely replaced, but it also not always conducive to running day-to-day business operations, when having to travel to have regular face-to-face interactions. Video conferencing allows businesses to hold meetings where live video participation is able to be more effective, and is the next best thing to being face-to-face with one another. For instance, when seeking to demonstrate a product to a customer, or troubleshooting a problem with a remote team of employees, a video conference allows for everyone to see what is going on instead of having to describe the situation over a traditional telephone conference call. The meeting can be held effectively over a live video feed, without requiring additional travel by the meeting participants.

Communicate more effectively

Video conferencing also allows many businesses the gain a competitive edge over their competition. Teams from multiple locations are able to use a video conferencing system, to communicate more effectively with one another, and as a result, be able to bring product improvements and services to customers faster than had the team relied upon other forms of collaboration. Through video conferencing, the ability to view a product demonstration over live video and making necessary suggestions for changes greatly reduces the need for company travel or the time delays associated with shipping a product for review. But, in order for a company to hold a video conference, they must first select a video conferencing system, which will allow them to communicate more effectively.

Making the best use of Zoom

One consideration when selecting a video conferencing system is the video conferencing system compatible with your current network. It may be necessary for a company to update certain types of software or hardware in order to hold a video conference. A benefit of using Zoom video conferencing is that it offers the option to integrate Zoom Meeting with a company’s current technology, helping to reduce costs for many companies. For companies looking to reach a broad audience, through using a video webinar, Zoom allows a company to have up to 10,000 attendees or to integrate videos with YouTube for the ability to have an unlimited audience. Zoom also recommends the use of Logitech hardware for the best quality of video and sound, while still being affordable.

Multiple options to held meetings

The second consideration when selecting a video conferencing system is, how will the system be used by employees. Will meetings be held between only a few employees at a time, or will meetings need to be conducted with larger groups in attendance? Do you need to schedule these meetings in advance, or do you need to be able to start them at a moment’s notice? Zoom Meeting allows options for businesses to be able to conduct a meeting with:

• multiple participants from remote locations
• multiple participants in a centralized location Or
• A combination of anything in between these two options

In addition, Zoom Meeting offers options for scheduling meetings in advance, or the possibility of starting a meeting immediately and then inviting attendees to participate right away.

A third consideration in choosing a video conferencing system is what advanced collaboration features are available. The ability to collaborate with one another helps to increase team productivity, and projects can be completed faster. With Zoom Meeting, there are multiple options available to encouraging collaboration between meeting participants. For instance, Zoom Meetings offer the use of screen sharing between participants so everyone can see the same information, no matter what their location may be. When equipped, participants can also make annotations while working together as a team to complete a project. Other options for collaboration with Zoom Meetings include the use of a whiteboard feature. The feature allows for participants to brainstorm or make annotations which can be saved for easy reference and note taking. Lastly, the opportunity to use instant messaging to chat between individual participants or the entire group is available, including the ability to send files through instant messaging up to 512MB for quick reference. When necessary, an instant message or chat can also quickly become a video meeting or conference call to collaborate further on a task.

Necessary Hardware & Devices for HD Quality

Fourth, it is necessary to consider what types of devices and hardware are necessary for employees to participate in a video conference. Is it necessary for the meeting to be only conducted from a desktop computer? How many participants will need to access the meeting from the same location? Can employees use the video conferencing system from a remote location? Does every participant have to have their own private login information? With Zoom Meetings, participants can join a video conference from a Zoom Room equipped conference room, their computer at their desk, while travelling on a mobile device, or even from their smartphone, allowing for collaboration from a wide variety of settings. In addition, companies already equipped with more traditional conference room based systems, like Polycom, Cisco, Tandberg, and Lifesize can easily be integrated with Zoom Meetings, allowing for companies to have multiple participants meet together in a centralized location to join in a video conference with participants in an entirely different location.

Lastly, a company needs to determine if their video conferencing system needs to have the capability of recording a video conference, and if so, what additional platforms are necessary for this feature to be utilized. Zoom Meetings allows for two different recording options. By recording to the cloud, Zoom Meetings automatically records all video, audio, and meeting chat text in the Zoom Cloud. The meeting can then be downloaded or streamed to view again at a later time. This feature is ideal for allowing meeting participants who are not in attendance to attend the meeting at a later time, reducing the need to reschedule a meeting, and allowing the team to continue to work on a project. A local recording feature also allows for Zoom Meetings to store video and audio files for a meeting on the host computer or onto a company’s shared network drive. This feature allows for future participation, but also allows for companies to demonstrate products for vendors or customers and upload videos onto a streaming server for others to view. With all the different options available, undoubtedly Zoom offers a variety of options to meet every business’s video conferencing system needs.