Telepresence and the serviced office industry
March 22nd, 2008 | by Samantha Middleton |
Choregus have recently been speaking with some of the leading lights of the telepresence industry to see how ‘improved-videoconferencing’ will affect the serviced office market. I say videoconferencing so that you, the reader, has a grasp of what telepresence is as not everyone that we encounter understands its meaning.
Within a few years, telepresence suites will be commonplace in serviced office buildings, allowing companies to negotiate with clients/suppliers and their own staff located elsewhere. The technology is frankly amazing and will become a big part of the future of serviced office space.
Whilst it is currently expensive to install, the savings that are made by companies in travel alone are phenomenal and the green aspect, as we all know, will become more and more of a pressing issue for all businesses including those in the serviced office arena. You must also add wasted time between flights, taxis and so on. How much per hour is your Head of Sales worth to your business?
However, telepresence suites will soon be created with a pay-per-use model of just a few hundred pounds per hour, if not less, which is not that much more than a standard meeting room with someone like Regus for example. However, the increased benefits of the use of telepresence makes it many more times useful.
How will it work for you?
A serviced office building (lets use Edinburgh as an example) houses a telepresence suite in a window-less room with table space for 2 - 6 people. Occupants of the serviced office building, and also the general business community, will pay per-hour to hold a meeting with whomever they choose.
A meeting will take place, just as any other, but by using the impressive telepresence kit, with the other party using the same suite at their office or a local telepresence suite. Nothing beats being able to look someone in the eye as they deliver a sales report or reason for why a failure may have occured - and telepresence allows this to be done whether they are across the desk or in New York.
Technology
When you see a telepresence suite in operation, you are frankly amazed and even the most staunch critics are converted - takes no longer than 10 seconds! Large plasma screens are situated on one side of a boardroom-style table, with the exact same table being used at the other end, so the table looks ‘whole’.
Because of the large screens, when people are sitting opposite you, they are real in size - no shrinkage at all, so it is literally as though they are sitting across from you at the table. You can see and hear when they cough, rub their ears, squint, blush - everything that you would normally see from a person in a normal meeting.
When will it happen?
We think that we are only 2 years away from the first raft of suites in the UK and other major areas, North America, Sweden, Germany etc. Following this, we expect the technology to become commonplace and help businesses to work in a new, improved way that should revolutionise the meeting place. Telepresence is just around the corner.
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3 Responses to “Telepresence and the serviced office industry”
By Jason on Apr 5, 2008 | Reply
Alex Lewis had an interesting perspective on the Marriott deal over on hyperconnectivity.com. He basically put forward that by making Telepresence more widely available to experience that it may gain traction in the market place. I think it may be plausible. What are your thoughts? I’m thinking it increases sales both at the corporate and pay per use level. I sure hope that is the case as the HD Telepresence experience is unbeatable. I was in one of the rooms at the Nortel headquarters in Toronto recently and was blown away!
By James Jones on Apr 6, 2008 | Reply
Jason.
We at Choregus have been very lucky and have seen HD telepresence at first hand. When it does become widely available from certain companies - who have some very exciting irons in the fire - it will start to gain traction as you say.
We expect 2008/2009 to be a whole new era for meetings and conferences because of the new HD telepresence solutions.