Video conferencing for SMBs

The pandemic brought video conferencing to the forefront of business operations, and it has remained a core staple since then. Even post-pandemic, video conferencing remains vital to support hybrid working, team work, and collaborative ways of working in groups.

While enterprise-sized organisations build new conference rooms and redesigning working spaces for cameras, screens and optimal remote meeting experiences, is there a best-fit approach for SMBs to take?

First up, many SMBs had no video conferencing facilities in the first place, so essentially have a clean slate to look at what’s best. This means less legacy facilities to adapt, or creaking infrastructure to replace. With hybrid working taking off in the way it has, there is a real need to accommodate to a new expectation of employees in order to recruit – and retain – the top talents.

New ways of working for SMBs – and everyone

During the pandemic, the shift was towards showing employees new ways of working in order to keep up business operations. Since then, the environment has shifted to employees expecting more flexible working arrangements, the ability to work from anywhere – and the right tools in place to do so. Not doing so increases the risk of users adopting shadow IT, unsecure communications, or giving your business an unprofessional appearance to customers or partners.

In this era of video conferencing culture, board meetings, client negotiations, procurement processes, project delivery and other types of meeting or collaboration all take place over virtual platforms. If you have the space to accommodate it, a purpose built video-enabled meeting room can be the perfect central hub of a modern workspace. However, what’s more important is to ensure all your users’ devices are equipped with a best-in-class video platform such as Microsoft Teams. This ensures consistency of communications, and a reliable platform for all staff to use for internal or external meetings. This approach enables fully remote meetings, or hybrid style with some staff in a video conference room, at their workstations, or working from home.

📹 Find out more about Microsoft Teams in this short introduction.