Video Goes Mobile: Enabling The Mobile Workforce

As I’m finalizing our Aragon Research Globe on the Video Content Management market, I’ve been going over the impact of video on Digital Business, business processes and the impact of video on the new mobile worker. In fact I just wrapped up a webinar on video for mobile workers. I want to share some of the things we discussed.

Video has become an invaluable business asset. Because people can access it via mobile devices and the cloud, it has exploded across consumer and business spectrums. While it is a valuable asset, there are issues around its increased usage, that it requires management throughout its lifecycle just like any other content type.  There are also issues around overall network strategies and WAN optimization that are crucial to guarantee quality video delivery, to any device, anywhere.

The New Workplace

The workplace has evolved and has broken free from the boundaries of traditional physical or geographic walls. Also more and more workers find themselves being mobile. Mobile workers have to be in multiple places throughout their workday. In this new world of work, wherever I am becomes my office, especially if I have my mobile device. BYOD has been specifically instrumental in driving this mobile worker trend. This new workplace, besides being mobile is dynamic and it’s engaged.

There was an IBM study that showed that Sixty-five percent of knowledge workers require mobile connectivity to do their jobs and each week, 62 percent of employees work in multiple locations. And so in order to make these employees absolutely productive, they will need to be connected to colleagues, internal and external to the organization, they will need access to information in real-time, right on time and just in time of when they need it.

For the mobile worker, with devices, there are numerous use cases where video becomes a key part of it.  Video is useful in healthcare for telemedicine use cases. Sales and marketing communications, support, and education are all emerging use cases where mobile video is an enabler. This is all accessible to the mobile worker. We have not seen a workforce like this previously in any other time in history.

The Pervasive Video Era

This is a pervasive video era, where video is for all intents and purposes, everywhere. The average mobile worker has already both consumed and created video in their personal lives on mobile devices. Mobile devices have democratized the access, usage, consumption and creation of video. For mobile workers, Video becomes an enabler along with mobility to ensure my connectivity and access to business information and assets. Usually what happens in the consumer space or in peoples personal lives begins to creep into our business lives. So video and mobile video is no exception.

Think of the average sales person who spends a majority of their time in the field. They’re with a prospect and need to demo something via their mobile device/tablet. Say there is a demo video the salesperson needs access to right on the spot for this prospect. Having mobile access to a video portal and repository that is organized in its ability to allow the sales person to search, find the video and maybe go to the exact point in the video that is needed is crucial. This is one of the functions and capabilities available in video content management tools.

Depending on my needs as a mobile worker, I may require video collaboration in real-time, the ability to use video to communicate with customers via a webinar or to capture a video session for later on-demand re-use. The real value, in a sales, marketing or training use case, is really in the re-use and on-demand access to the video content. It’s about the lifecycle of a video asset and how it can be used by workers throughout its continuum. Access to this video asset for sales purposes and for on-demand training or education is just invaluable.

Challenges

The major challenges enterprises will have to overcome center around recasting video as a content type that needs to be managed. It needs to be managed just like any other content type. Traditional digital asset management tools won’t suffice for this. The enterprise will need a platform that can capture, tanscode, archive, make searchable and deliver video anywhere to any device. And deliver it with minimal negative network impact. A dedicated video content management tool with content delivery network (CDN) capabilities can help to solve some of the issues around network optimization for the delivery of video and allotting for access on desktops and devices where the mobile worker is concerned.

It’s About People

Focus business use of video decisions around people and how to enable them to get their work done. Focus on the real business use cases. People are the lifeblood of any organization. Video and mobility can be enablers for increasing employee engagement.