scalable enterprise video solutions - kollective.com · scalable enterprise video solutions:...

Scalable Enterprise Video Solutions:

Video can improve competitive advantage and top-line growth opportunities

Finding the “Easy Button” to Drive Successful Executive Communications and Participation

A Frost & Sullivan White Paper

Anisha Vinny, Program Manager, Digital Media PracticeDan Rayburn, Industry Principal, Digital Media PracticeMukul Krishna, Practice Head, Digital Media Practice

Contents

Market Overview ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

Executive Communications: The Opportunity and Challenges............................................................................. 4

Building a Successful Enterprise Video Strategy ....................................................................................................... 5

The Role of Executive Sponsorship..................................................................................................................................... 5

The Role of Technology ......................................................................................................................................................... 6

Step 1: Creating Compelling Content ........................................................................................................................ 8

Coaching to increase effectiveness ..................................................................................................................................... 8

Committing to a schedule ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

Content creation ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Tailoring presentation formats ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Step 2: Tackling the Delivery Problem ........................................................................................................................ 9

Kollective and Skype Meetings Broadcast in Action ................................................................................................ 10

The Bottom Line ............................................................................................................................................................. 11

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Scalable Enterprise Video Solutions: Finding the “Easy Button” to Drive Successful Executive Communications and Participation

Market Overview

Video today has emerged as the medium of choice for the communications strategy of not only every large organization (more than 1,000 employees) with a diverse workforce located across multiple geographies, but also small and medium-sized businesses (less than 1,000 employees). Video enables the seamless flow of information between key groups of enterprise stakeholders, including leadership, employees, contractors, partners, suppliers, and customers in an interactive and immersive manner. Inside the enterprise, video is seen as a powerful tool to enhance corporate communications, promote collaboration and drive enterprise-wide learning and development initiatives. The value and efficacy of video to drive the sales force, improve customer communications, and drive product marketing efforts up several notches has helped propel top-line growth while enabling a slew of cost savings across the enterprise and facilitating productivity gains. These productivity gains include repurposing time and resources saved in communication, collaboration, and providing on-demand training toward other productive tasks.

In addition, the ubiquity of broadband, the increasing acceptance of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and telecommuting in the modern workplace, the growing number of millennials joining the workforce, and the vast amounts of video being consumed in employees’ daily lives, have ensured that enterprise video initiatives have to be front and center if employee engagement is a priority. As a result, enterprise IT departments are re-evaluating their priorities to include video, and CIOs are more open today to managing video on their network despite the perceived complexities.

The adoption of enterprise video is being driven by the growth in flexible deployment models, the popularity of cloud-based video solutions, and the increasing availability of easy-to-use, self-service webcasting solutions, in subscription packages, designed for the business user. Frost & Sullivan research finds that the market for enterprise video platforms and solutions is growing at a healthy CAGR of ~17%, tripling in revenues by 2021. This uptick is driven by broad adoption across all verticals such as financial services firms, business and technology services organizations, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, healthcare, education, government, manufacturing and retail industries to name a few. In 2015, according to Kaltura’s State of the Enterprise report, a typical employee watched about seven hours of work-related video every month.

While enterprise video is employed across several departments and for a variety of use cases, a critical use case that has become a strategic imperative for most organizations is executive communications. Evidence to that can be witnessed in the increase of high-visibility events/meetings like executive broadcasts, employee town halls, and

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Creating Meaningful Customer Engagement

all-hands meetings. More than a third of the revenues from the enterprise video platforms market in 2015 could be attributed exclusively to this executive communications use case wherein presenters are looking to communicate their vision, strategies, and goals for the organization in a clear, compelling, and engaging manner to tens of thousands of employees.

The executive communication use case has further helped cement enterprise video as the fastest growing enterprise content type as an increasing number of executives are becoming more comfortable with the use of video and started to see tangible benefits, as described through this paper. Despite early enthusiasm and emerging executive champions for deploying enterprise video across organizations, there are significant challenges to overcome. The need for scale to ensure that executive content reaches the largest audience necessary as well as the need for scale of deployments, plus the limitations of internal infrastructure, can easily overwhelm organizations that are constantly looking for the “easy” button. Companies that are cracking the code have figured out how to:

1. Work with their executive teams to build compelling content, and

2. Have enough of the right technology in place to deliver a great user experience to their audience.

This paper is the second in a series by Frost & Sullivan. The first white paper explored the changing face of enterprise communications, the role of enterprise video in solving business and communications challenges, and the characteristics of a well-integrated enterprise video ecosystem. We will use this paper to delve into the key factors to consider while crafting a successful enterprise video strategy with a focus on the executive communications use case. This paper will explore the two critical pieces for enterprises to get right in this endeavor— content and delivery.

Other data pOints

• The increasing ubiquity of BYOD and telecommuting has fundamentally changed the nature of the workplace. Today, more than 70% of enterprises in the United States see BYOD activity. This number is expected to grow to as much as 78% by 2018. The resulting proliferation of mobile phones, tablets, and other personal devices makes for a fragmented delivery landscape — a key challenge during enterprise video deployments.

• According to Kaltura’s 2015 State of the Enterprise report, a typical employee watches about seven hours of work-related video every month.

• By 2025, millennials will form 75% of the workforce.

executive cOMMunicatiOns: the OppOrtunity and challenges

Among the top challenges facing executives in any given year is driving higher levels of employee engagement and ensuring that the leadership and workforce are on the same page in the face of intensely dynamic competitive environments.

With shorter business cycles, accelerating cycle times and high employee turnover being the norm, staying ahead of the innovation curve is tough. For companies operating in regions or industries facing economic turmoil that necessitates a reduction in force, it becomes that much more critical to engage with employees to handle their reactions while keeping morale up and focused on future growth initiatives. All of this calls for a streamlined and scalable communications strategy. For companies operating in acquisition-rich environments or for those undergoing restructuring, time-sensitive information must be conveyed to employees, suppliers, partners, and customers from a viable source. Newsletters and mass mailers are viewed as impersonal and ineffective ways to allay the fears of the



acquired and/or the retained. Video enables organizations to better address the nuances of such complex situations, demonstrating its power as a sticky and engaging crisis communications tool.

Executives are constantly looking to communicate their organizations’ mission, strategies, and goals for the quarter or year. While some CXOs are looking to introduce the value in a new business model, process or procedure, others want to drive integrated marketing and corporate communications initiatives to build their brand reputation. Still others want to accomplish the incredibly difficult task of bringing about changes in organizational culture or behavior. In all of these cases, for any executive or department head looking to drive results through a team, it becomes imperative to set up regular touch points to reinforce engagement and measure success.

While video is a great tool in any executive communicator’s arsenal to drive employee engagement in all of the above use cases and more, organizations too often report that enterprise video deployments are underutilized. Pervasive enterprise video adoption is far from reality for several reasons. An enterprise’s openness to video communications is dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, organizational culture, vertical industry dynamics, regulatory environments, percentage of millennial employees, and geographic differences. Add to this list organizational technology implementation maturity levels that include the willingness and ability to manage business applications such as webcasting and video portals, having a scalable delivery infrastructure, ease of use of deployed solutions, interoperability issues, and investment in homegrown solutions, and we can easily see why—despite the increasingly dire need—many organizations still shy away from widespread video deployments. Hence, some companies readily embrace video, while others follow a much steeper adoption curve.

Building a successful enterprise videO strategy

the rOle Of executive spOnsOrship

Effective communication and collaboration is the cornerstone of successful teams and organizations. Without executive leadership clearly stating its vision to every employee and providing motivation to achieve goals, it is difficult to see how business success can be achieved. It is therefore incumbent on executives to lead the charge



in creating compelling content that can be used to deliver such business-critical messaging. As seen in this paper, enterprise video is the most effective tool to help executives achieve this. Leadership participation is critical to drive the adoption of any technology, including video. In many organizations, there is a dire lack of corporate sponsorship for video initiatives. Despite investments in video technology and infrastructure upgrades, in many cases executives are “camera shy” and are reluctant to be the “first.” In others, there is often cultural resistance to be captured on video. In still other cases, senior executives do not consider driving engagement and collaboration to be a good use of their time. Executives that do invest in video communications oftentimes cannot commit to a schedule and run out of steam despite best intentions.

Changing an employee base culturally and encouraging people to lower inhibition toward creating content are both time consuming and challenging. Organizations in which executives lead by example and become role models for leveraging video to drive engagement are more successful at driving video usage not only within the rungs of leadership, but also throughout the organization.

the rOle Of technOlOgy

Oftentimes technology itself is the inhibitor. Multiple vendors in this market provide different parts of the same solution, and enterprises often cobble together a combination of different hardware and software point solutions as well as end-to-end platforms that become cumbersome and less than intuitive for business users to operate.

Business and IT teams are on different pages in many organizations. Individual departments or functional groups at an enterprise approach a webcasting vendor to solve an urgent need. Business-level buyers focus on the application and its feature functionality, and are usually limited in their understanding and knowledge of the network, delivery, and security challenges. At some point, these video initiatives, especially for large-scale adoption, require IT support and sponsorship. However, in enterprises, IT is looped into such conversations at a much later stage, and new challenges are brought to light when IT organizations evaluate RFPs.

The resulting confusion, accompanied by the bandwidth limitations of the internal corporate network that is typically not optimized for video, makes scaling the video message to the largest possible audience while still delivering a consistent and superior user experience a nightmare.

Developing a holistic enterprise video strategy is crucial to driving the widespread adoption of deployed technologies. As corporate communications and IT support teams sit together with their executive sponsor to




pen down a vision for enterprise collaboration and engagement initiatives through video, the following elements must be addressed:

• An easy-to-use, self-service platform that delivers live and on-demand video assets to all employees;

• A video delivery infrastructure that supports current and future video use cases;

• A clean and intuitive user interface;

• A comprehensive and end-to-end video management toolkit, and enhanced search capabilities; and

• Analytics tools that help webcast administrators, presenters, network managers and employee communicators derive valuable insights.

Engagement analytics use the help of interactive features such as polls and Q&A to offer feedback through reports and dashboards that track attendance, engagement, the devices that the webcasts are being viewed on, and the number of viewers leaving the webcasts. Quality of service analytics offer insights into network weaknesses and delivery issues at scale.

Apart from these, addressing the plethora of devices that employees and other stakeholders access content on through a mobile strategy and integrating with enterprise social media channels to promote webcasts internally are also growing in importance. Similarly, integrations with video conferencing and unified communications bring with it the ability to broadcast meetings, helping enterprise video platforms become the one-stop shop for all video assets within the enterprise. Though the focus of this paper is the very critical use case of executive communications, organizations have to also address integration with marketing automation platforms to enhance the value derived from marketing and customer communications.



Of all the above elements to drive a successful video strategy, two remain paramount and crucial to address before all else:

• Creating compelling content because the delivery problem is not a problem if no one wants to watch

• Getting delivery right because the carefully crafted message must be delivered at scale despite the limitations of the corporate network

Let us now investigate these two points in more detail.

step 1: creating cOMpelling cOntent

cOaching tO increase effectiveness

Where there is discomfort with being captured on video, organizations are advised to employ an executive coach well-versed with training and supporting CXOs and senior leadership to deliver content in an articulate and confident manner, making the right impression during the course of the webcast. The coach typically sets up an initial meeting with the presenter six to eight weeks before the date of the event. Over three to four sessions, coaches prepare the executives and give honest feedback along the way, thus significantly improving the quality of delivery during the live event.

cOMMitting tO a schedule

Establishing a regular rhythm for webcasts and other video communications is also crucial for keeping the momentum. Developing a schedule of events in the corporate calendar with fortnightly, monthly, or quarterly broadcasts will enable executives to develop greater comfort with video.

cOntent creatiOn

Compelling content is crucial to not only ensure initial employee engagement but also to ensure continued engagement. Depending on whether the content is informational, motivational or action-oriented, it can come from creative sources or directly from the executive. During this content creation process, it is important to strike a balance between what the executive wants to convey and what is of interest to the employees. The CXO in question must be supported by a team that is accustomed to putting together powerful and captivating content, which is promoted through traditional and social channels within the organization and delivered in an interactive manner complete with polls, surveys and questionnaires.

tailOring presentatiOn fOrMats

Depending on where an executive is with respect to their exposure to video, different approaches can be used to tailor the format of the live event. For broadcast-savvy executives, a live event wherein the executive is the sole presenter might not be daunting. Teleprompters presenting outlines, transitions, or more detailed text can provide assistance during the course of the presentation. For executives who are new to video communications, a variety of formats, including interviews or panel discussions, can be used. With interviews, the executive will not be the sole focus of attention and can use his normal tone of voice, easing stage anxiety. In panels, there will be multiple subject-matter experts asked to weigh in on a particular topic. The burden, to some extent, rests on the moderator. Preparing for a panel discussion is far less difficult than preparing for a solo presentation.

Similarly, interjecting a solo presentation or news broadcast with segments of pre-recorded content can be a great way to take the monotony off, present interesting and relevant content in a different format in the meantime, and make executives comfortable.




step 2: tackling the delivery prOBleM

The enterprise network continues to be the biggest challenge that vendors in this market need to navigate. To successfully and reliably deliver video within the enterprise, whether it is to a big screen inside a conference room or a mobile device for a commuting employee at an airport, is a complex task considering the QoE (Quality of Experience) requirements for video to be consistently good regardless of screen or location. Video needs to be transcoded in the appropriate format for the device it’s being played on and there should be no latency or buffering, regardless of where the video communication is being accessed. Since video is something that traditional corporate networks have not been designed to be optimized for or IT workers trained to work with, providing a high QoE with video requires effort.

As video communications become the norm and enterprises’ dependence on video grows, the need for secure, scalable and always available webcasting increases. Often increases in bandwidth and improvements to network infrastructure cost more than the webcasting solutions themselves. Enterprises are thus constrained by the limitations of their network. Ensuring that network congestions don’t create bottlenecks and deliver a good user experience is essential before deploying enterprise video webcasting solutions.

Typically, unless it is a small organization, corporate communications organizations have not been able to deliver live video broadcasts to the entire employee base because of network and infrastructure limitations. Several companies have a first-come, first-serve policy, wherein the first “n” number of employees (typically 500-1,000) can access video, with the remaining using the audio bridge.

When talking about scalability, we refer to two different aspects. First, the webcasting application must scale to meet up to tens of thousands of registrants over a short window of time. With webcasting vendors porting to the cloud, this has become easier to achieve and keep pace with the growth in larger meetings. The cloud now also allows organizations with greater experience with video to take even more control of their video initiatives by moving away from a managed service to a self-service environment. The intuitive interface of such cloud-based, self-service applications is also facilitating increased usage of these applications for smaller meetings, thus further reducing the reliance on managed services.

Second, the network must be enabled to successfully deliver thousands to tens of thousands of streams within the enterprise firewall. To tackle this problem, specific infrastructure, such as a software-defined enterprise content delivery network (SDECDN), like the Kollective SDECDN, can give companies the ability to remove that barrier. A SDECDN enables the network to extend the reach of the webcast from about 1,000 employees to 50,000 or more as a result of those network boundaries being surpassed.

All of this today is a tangible reality. Let us look at a real-life example of how providers are coming together to deliver exactly that sort of experience for enterprises.

executive cOMMunicatiOns at MicrOsOft

Microsoft is an outstanding example of a global enterprise driving employee engagement through video initiatives and strong CEO sponsorship. Video has been an integral part of the Microsoft executive communications program for years, and today it is a basic expectation of senior leadership to be great in front of the camera.

To power their executives, the company set up the Microsoft Production Studio in Redmond, Wash. The Studio produces more than 3,000 videos a year, including product launches, training videos, and live webcasts. It also works closely with the dedicated in-house employee communications team to drive awareness and message consistency.



Microsoft fully recognizes the importance of building and maintaining a regular rhythm to executive communications. CEO Satya Nadella is a great champion of driving employee engagement through video. He demonstrates his commitment to communication with his monthly live stream, which is popular with employees.

As mentioned earlier, reaching a balance between what executives want to convey and what employees want to hear is crucial to the success of executive communications. At Microsoft, Nadella has tackled this issue in a creative way. According to John Schoonover, senior executive producer at Microsoft Production Studio, “One thing that began to happen when Satya joined Microsoft was he wanted to make sure he talked to employees every month. He wanted to have regular conversations with his employees that included a Q&A session. While the in-person audience is usually limited by the spaces, he travels to different buildings around campus or a different office location around the country for these rather than speaking from one location. Logistically, this is more challenging, but it also sends a great message. While he has his agenda of what he wants to put out there, a solid 45 minutes are allocated to Q&A with the employees.” Questions are vetted from a variety of sources such as Yammer or email, and additionally, employees on location are given the opportunity to ask questions, which Nadella then addresses. “He has done a tremendous job with driving employee engagement through these monthly executive communications broadcasts. The response, in turn, has been overwhelmingly positive. Employees love this direct communication format and the live broadcasts are well attended. The on-demand version of these talks can capture viewing by as many as 25,000-30,000 employees.”

In the continuing quest to help develop their executives’ comfort with video, about a year-and-a-half ago, a team at Microsoft started a media training program internally. Executives were trained on delivering satellite records, interviews, and news broadcasts using their studio facility as training grounds. The program coached executives on how to handle typical scenarios powered by video.

Microsoft Studios, through its Executive Success Program, supports the senior executive leadership team and corporate vice presidents. According to Schoonover, “The focus of this program is providing ‘white glove’ customer service in a time-efficient manner. We manage the end-to-end experience so that Microsoft executives can really focus on the message they want to deliver.” The top priorities of the Microsoft Production Studios team are earning the trust of senior executives, responding to their needs quickly, and making the experience as simple, familiar and repeatable as possible.

kOllective and skype Meetings BrOadcast in actiOn

At Microsoft, the focus has been on helping customers expand their view of meetings so that they do not have to apply boundaries anymore. Microsoft Skype Meeting Broadcast was created to enable companies to drive corporate communications strategies that can scale across their 110,000-plus employees.

The Microsoft unified communications environment is typically used to schedule video meetings for small teams. Powered by the “meeting continuum” philosophy, and with the addition of Skype Meeting Broadcast, the same environment can now power video meetings for large audiences of up to 10,000 employees.

Out of the more than 3,000 videos produced by the Microsoft Production Studio team annually, about 350 are live streaming events. About 250 of these are internal, employee-facing webcasts that use Skype Meeting Broadcast as the primary streaming platform. The remaining are typically external-facing, public, or press events. Most internal events garner between 500-1,500 live viewers. Once or twice a month, viewership hits 5,000-7,000 employees. The most popular internal events, such as the CEO broadcasts, reach 25,000-35,000 live viewers.

To ensure scalability to tens of thousands of viewers and to provide additional customization, the team uses Microsoft’s streaming infrastructure that is built on Azure Media Services.




“Skype Meeting Broadcast is an end-to-end streaming service and platform which utilizes Skype for Business in place of a traditional streaming encoder. It can be used to switch between multiple sources and presenters if they are all joined individually to the Skype for Business call. Alternatively, you can do a traditional production and feed the switched program into Skype Meeting Broadcast using an adapter to feed it into a PC,” explains Greg Baribault, Skype product manager.

With Skype Meeting Broadcast, there are two common-use modalities. In the first case, when production is switched upstream of Skype for Business and to the studio, Skype Meeting Broadcast is used primarily as the streaming, distribution, and authentication platform. In the second, individual cameras, mics and presenters are fed into Skype Meeting Broadcast and switched within Skype for Business.

According to Jeff Tyler, digital experience manager at the Microsoft Production Studio, “As a production facility, our typical use modality is the first, wherein production is switched upstream of Skype Meeting Broadcast. We use Skype Meeting Broadcast in this manner for the streaming of all company-wide internal events and the majority of medium-size internal events (business group all-hands meetings, etc.). Because Skype Meeting Broadcast is available to all users, many smaller events are done by other groups within the company, using a mix of #1 and #2, depending on their needs and equipment.”

When the executive communications team at Microsoft sets up a live CEO event through Skype Meeting Broadcast, an invite with a link to the event is generated that can then be sent to all employees. When employees click the link to join the event at the specified date and time, Skype Meeting Broadcast helps determine the best way to deliver the video stream for quality viewing through the Azure Media Player.

the BOttOM line

For large organizations with geographically dispersed workforces, the need for driving employee engagement through enterprise video has never been greater. Enterprise video platform deployments have grown over the past two to three years. Video initiatives are being employed at all levels, from executive broadcasts, all-hands meetings and crisis communications, to hiring, onboarding, new employee orientation, corporate training, sales force enablement, and product and service updates.

However, while video is used to realize cost savings and drive operational efficiencies, Frost & Sullivan finds that video is often still a second-class citizen at enterprises. Lackluster viewership stats and underutilized enterprise video initiatives are common.

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Most organizations, thus, have a long way to go in using video to drive competitive advantage and top-line gains. Enterprises that aim to be successful at improving employee engagement must focus on getting better at two key pieces to drive widespread viewership and engagement. Companies must work with their executive teams to create compelling content and get leaders more comfortable in front of the camera. At the same time, they must address the infrastructure problem and the limitations of their own networks so that the message can be delivered at scale enterprise-wide. Only organizations that effectively address these two elements continually harness the true power of video.

Before you set this paper aside, see if the following statements ring true to you:

T F

Our executives are camera shy and do not leverage video effectively.

Our ability to scale video is limited by infrastructure issues and is only good for small meetings.

Video is too cumbersome to handle due to the lack of familiarity with it.

Employees are typically unsure of our goals and vision as they have not been effectively communicated down the line.

Our executives have great content, but it is only communicated to a select few as reaching a broader internal audience in a limited time is challenging due to the travel involved.

If any of the statements above rung true to you, the time to act is now. The opportunity cost of not doing so is too high, and as this paper has shown using the real-life use case of Kollective and Microsoft, you have the tools today.

[email protected]

SILICON VALLEY331 E. Evelyn Ave., Suite 100

Mountain View, CA 94041

Tel 650.475.4500

Fax 650.475.1570

SAN ANTONIO

7550 West Interstate 10,

Suite 400

San Antonio, TX 78229

Tel 210.348.1000

Fax 210.348.1003

LONDON4 Grosvenor Gardens

London SW1W 0DH

Tel +44 (0)20 7343 8383

Fax +44 (0)20 7730 3343

AucklandBahrainBangkokBeijingBengaluruBuenos AiresCape TownChennaiDammamDelhiDetroitDubaiFrankfurtHerzliyaHoustonIrvineIskander Malaysia/Johor BahruIstanbulJakartaKolkataKotte ColomboKuala LumpurLondonManhattan

MiamiMilanMoscowMountain ViewMumbaiOxfordParisPuneRockville CentreSan AntonioSão PauloSeoulShanghaiShenzhenSingaporeSydneyTaipeiTokyoTorontoValbonneWarsaw

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today’s market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the Global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?

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