What is Video Conferencing in 2021?

The New Standard for Working from Home

High-quality secure video conferencing experiences are increasingly important for end-user productivity. With more users working from home and turning on video, IT must ensure company networks can handle the load. Just as importantly, meeting rooms often need to support Zoom video conferencing as well Microsoft Teams video conferencing, as collaboration between in-office and remote users is the new normal and users require both.

Room Systems Supported

  • What is Video Conferencing
  • Current State and Trends for Telecommuting and Remote Work
  • Key Elements of Conferencing Security and How it Works
  • Managing the Video Conferencing Experience
What is Video Conferencing?
The Future of Working from Home with Video Conferencing
The Importance of Secure Video Conferencing
Managing the Video Conferencing Experience

What is Video Conferencing?

Gartner defines video conferencing, often called videoconferencing and teleconference, as communication by individuals or groups using systems that support image, voice and data transfer over digital networks or telephone circuits. Recently, several video conferencing platforms have grown in popularity for work. Top platforms include Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Skype for Business.

The Need for Video Conferencing

By 2024, remote work and changing workforce demographics will impact enterprise meetings. Only 25% will take place in person, down from 60% today. 

Challenges of Teleconference

The growing popularity of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and video conferencing in general is driving increased usage of room systems in organizations. These room systems exponentially increase support needs and associated costs. 

Common Challenges with Video Conferencing Solutions:

  • Multi-platform Management: Modern organizations typically use multiple videoconferencing solutions, such as Zoom video conferencing & Teams video conferencing and require a central management solution.
  • Actionable Meeting Room Analytics: Are rooms over capacity? What rooms should be upgraded? Actionable insights are key to continuous improvement of the meeting room experience.
  • Integrating Software and Hardware: Videoconferencing solutions and meeting rooms are complicated. They require the perfect connection between hardware and software, typically from different vendors.
  • Inherited Video Conferencing Technologies: Organizations need tools to deal with legacy technologies while still meeting end-user expectations of a modern conferencing experience.
  • Room System Troubleshooting: If there's an issue with a meeting room, IT needs to know. Troubleshooting guidance is important, especially when working across multiple systems like Zoom Rooms, Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR), and Skype for Businesss Room Systems (SRS).
  • Room System Security: What is the best way to manage admin access to your platforms and monitor the integrity of meeting recordings? Ensuring secure video conferencing is key.

Return to the Office Webinar

While Managing Remote Employees Working from Home

The initial purpose of unified communications video conferencing was to create an environment that easily blended your workspace and a physical meeting room. With employee work habits changing drastically with COVID-19, enterprise organizations have relied on video conferencing to run their business with so many employees working from home.

The next step for many is to adopt a hybrid approach with many employees continuing to work from home, while some plan to return to the office at some stage. Watch this webinar to learn how how to approach this next stage. 

Watch the Webinar

Working Home with Video Conferencing

Pre Covid-19 statistics showed over 70% of professionals conducted remote meetings or worked from home (WFH) for at least one day each week. However, in the wake of Covid-19, whole companies are working from home, and they’re doing so 100% of the time. 

Learn more about what Unify Square and our PowerSuite software and managed services are doing to empower enterprise IT to manage complex work-from-home scenarios with their videoconferencing solutions.

Learn More

The Upside to this Quick Transition

This rapid transition to remote work showed a low impact on daily functions. Businesses reported that they experienced a number of benefits:

1.

Better employee quality of life (59%)

2.

Better environmental impact (42.7%)

3.

Reduced employee turnovers rates (32.8%)

4.

More productive employees (28%)

5.

Cost savings (24.9%)

 

The downside to this
quick transition

More Challenges for IT

Beginning in early-March, the world experienced an unprecedented shift to working from home. This resulted in two significant transformations. First, organizations suddenly found themselves with the need to deploy video conferencing solutions on a massive scale. Second, the threat of video conferencing security dangers quickly became a top issue in the UC world.

Caught Unprepared
IT was not ready

A recent survey found that 85% of companies believe embracing the public cloud is critical to fuel innovation. But only 40% of those who have already adopted public cloud have a cloud security management approach in place. 

End users were
not ready.

Most end users were unaware of vital security settings of video conferencing platforms. For the few who did know about them, they assumed that someone else was managing security on the back end. 

And in many cases, the UC Platforms was not ready.

The Importance of Secure Video Conferencing

With an expected 40% of businesses maintaining a remote structure post COVID-19, secure video conferencing is a higher priority as we transition back to a semblance of normality. The key elements of security for video conferencing monitoring can be broken down into three areas:

Pre-Call Settings and Policies

The difference between a “Zoom-Bomb” or an exposed chat thread and a secure video conferencing meeting, is as simple as checking a few boxes in the settings.

Call Data Transmission

Data transmission is the most vulnerable area of security. In the wrong hands, the video conference stream can turn into a private surveillance camera.

Post Call Archiving

Information from these virtual meetings could be sensitive, so data storage needs to be secure and separate from all other networks.

LEARN MORE

Video Conferencing Security Loopholes

zoom meeting management

Security Settings

Each UC platform comes with its unique list of security settings. Keeping track of these settings becomes even more difficult as they’re constantly being updated. How do you navigate the complexity and ensure a consistent experience across multiple platforms?

zoom meeting management, zoom security

Polices

For emerging technologies, the conventional IT impulse is to lock down/discourage adoption until the organization fully understands the risks. However, the adoption of new features isn’t just a security decision anymore.

zoom meeting management, zoom security

Phishing

Apart from exploiting security bugs, cybercriminals have other attack vectors when it comes to collaboration. These phishing attacks include stealing credentials and delivering malware payloads through links and attachments, just like email.

zoom meeting management, zoom security

Recordings Exposure

Any number of different security misses can inadvertently make recordings public. Lack of complex password or default password requirements and nonexistent policy regarding recordings could lead to data leakage.

View the full list in our blog.

Is Your Collaboration Platform at Risk?

Cisco Webex Teams

In March 2019, Cisco patched high-severity vulnerabilities in the video-conferencing platform. If exploited, these could have allowed an attacker to execute code on affected systems.

Microsoft Teams:

Recently, Microsoft Teams had a security flaw that would allow a ‘malicious GIF’ to steal user data across an entire company.  Additionally, some customers are still looking for Teams video conferencing to implement some advanced security features previously valued in Skype for Business.  

Both IT and end users need to keep a core list of security best practices in mind for both Zoom video conferencing and Teams video conferencing. This renewed and hyper-vigilant form of digital workplace dexterity is essential.

Monitor &
Track Metrics

Deploy
Policies

Protect & Verify
Meeting Links

Don't Share Personal IDs

Authenticate & Track Users

Control Screen Sharing

Disable Join Before Host

Use Waiting Rooms

Avoid File Sharing

Double Check Confidentiality

Managing the Video Conferencing Experience

One Tool to Monitor, Analyze, and Secure

Request a Demo

Bring your users’ favorite collaboration and communications apps all under a single management framework, powered by our patented technology. Tackle cross-platform issues with ease. Learn about our plans and pricing to see which is right for you. Gain access to:

Help Desk:

Reduce troubleshooting time and improve end-user satisfaction by providing actionable and prescriptive guidance regarding advanced quality issues.

Benchmarking:

Use the power of crowdsourced cloud intelligence to compare anonymized WSC and UC performance KPIs across multiple sites and between different users and virtual meeting platforms.

Usage and Adoption:

Accelerate user adoption for meetings, chats, and calls across multiple platforms at the same time —visualize the full adoption profile of your entire enterprise Unified Communications and Collaboration environment.

Tracking:

Identify and track a customized and targeted set of Execs, VIPs or even conference rooms so that IT can stay ahead of any potential problems.

Problems & Insights:

AI/ML analyzes platform data to create a centralized hub to view problems and insights. Our software  prioritizes issues to troubleshoot and identifies system anomalies.

Policy Management:

Leverage PowerSuite’s comprehensive policy framework to implement governance covering security and workflow needs.

Let Our Consultants Join Your Team

Consulting

Videoconferencing solutions have increased expectations for productivity gains and always-on reliability. Especially with so many companies new WFH policies, IT teams are now responsible for planning, deploying, and maintaining a multifaceted stack of unified communications and workstream collaboration platforms. Our unified communications experts have been busy honing their skills to cover the video conferencing solutions arena so that you don’t have to. Take a look at our Signature Consulting Services Datasheet to see how we can help your virtual meeting platforms be successful and secure.  Learn More Here. 

More Resources

Post-COVID-19 Remote Work

Long-term impact and statistics you need to know

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Readying the Workplace for the “New Normal”

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How to Plan Your Return to the Office Post-COVID-19

Current state and trends for telecommuting and remote work amid COVID-19

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Remote Work Means Increased Challenges for IT

Top 6 work from home UC challenges and solutions

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Unified Communications (UC) and Collaboration Platform Feature Comparison Guide

Deciding between Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others

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Video Conferencing Security Issues and Opportunities

Is Zoom simply the canary in the coal mine?

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How to Ensure the Perfect Video Conference

COVID-19 is forcing us to be better at remote work.

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How to Create the Perfect Zoom Co-existence Scenario

Best Practices for Pairing Zoom with Microsoft Teams and other apps

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Best Practices for Enterprise Usage of Multiple Collaboration Apps

Battling the multi-platform collaboration app hydra

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