23 Mar 2020

Interactive Displays In Corporate Environments

Why enterprise is finally embracing interactive solutions.

In 2020, 2.1 billion people own a touch screen smartphone. With powerful interactive technology in the majority of the populations’ pockets, it is shocking that this technology hasn’t been further adopted in the workforce. However, we are beginning to see a change. In the past three years, the industry has seen a noticeable year on year increase, in sales of interactive displays in corporate environments. 

Five of the main reasons to invest in interactive displays for corporate offices are:

Ease of Use

When considering which interactive solution is best for your corporate environment, there are many things to consider; the primary being ease of use. 

Some interactive displays can be complex with dozens of features, this is because the primary environment for interactive displays is in a classroom. In this environment, there is typically one primary user, the teacher, they can be fully trained on how to use the board and learn about all of its features. However, this is not the case in corporate environments.

In an office, an interactive display could have a handful of different users in a single day. As such, it’s essential that each user can use the display, without having to read a manual or ask a member of IT to sit in and teach them.

User adoption is essential for corporate environments. Interactive screens can be extremely comprehensive and have powerful software pre-installed. The key to adoption is for the interactive solution to seamlessly integrate with existing systems such as MS office and UC platforms such as MS Teams, Zoom and Cisco WebEx. This way the screen gives a familiar look and feel but with great added benefits to the room and the users. This, in turn, ensures a much great user adoption rate and return on investment.

Even easy-to-use touch screens still pack a lot of power. As they have PC’s pre-installed in them, removing the need for an external PC, everything can be done by interacting with the display.

Increase Productivity 

Whilst businesses will need a larger budget to kit out every meeting space with an interactive display. This will improve productivity, workflow and user adoption. Harvard Business Review revealed 71% of senior managers consider meetings as unproductive and inefficient and Doodle’s State of Meetings Report 2019 found that poorly organised meetings cost billions every year. 78% of younger employees said that they could work more efficiently if they had the right technology, according to a study by PWC. 

It is essential for widespread adoption that each meeting room and office have the same touch screen display. The perfect workplace would have the same user experience, whether sitting at a desk, or in a meeting room, or in a scrum room. Businesses with different brands and screens in each meeting room will struggle; they will either need to train employees how to use each screen or employees will only use the room with the interactive display they feel most comfortable using. 

Remember it is not only important to upgrade the kit but to upskill the people too. One of the most common reasons technology isn’t widely adopted by the workforce is that companies forget to provide comprehensive training on the new kit, leaving employees clueless on what to do with it.

This is easily solvable with vendors and distributors providing training on interactive displays. At Midwich we not only provide training for resellers and end-users on tier one products, but our new Innovation House Experience Centre also has a variety of interactive displays on show for both you and your customers to visit and interact with. If you want to find out more about the Experience Centre, contact your account manager.

Remote Meetings

No longer is it required for remote staff and customers to travel long distances for a half-hour meeting or hour-long training session. Even though most companies have probably already invested in a UC software, it has only been health concerns this year that has caused the software to be fully adopted. In the past 90 days, there has been significant growth in searches for Zoom Video Communications, as businesses are restricting travel.

Investing in touch displays with a camera and speaker built-in allows staff to easily video conference with others. The next generation of corporate touch displays will demand a video and speaker, as UC takes off further. With these features built into the interactive display, they are far easier to use compared to displays where the user has to marry up all of the individual pieces of technology.

They Enable Instant Collaboration

All businesses are looking to improve the way they work and their workflow. This desire has been triggered by companies looking to do more with less budget and resources. To achieve this task, companies need to invest in the best technology that enables staff to work smarter not harder. 

Interactive displays enable fluid collaboration. Rather than a long, drawn-out process of adapting and adding comments to a document, then forwarding it on to another collaborator, all work can be updated and discusses in real-time. What once took weeks, of sperate meetings and travel, can now be done collaboratively without travel and in half the time.

With 5G right around the corner, investing in this technology now means that businesses are futureproofing their workspace. 5G will transform working by allowing businesses anywhere across the globe to update and annotate work in real-time and removing any lag or poor video connections. No matter how many people are logged into the same document, worries about file sizes shared will be a thing of the past, as colleagues will be able to collaborate on a document together and then instantly share it.

Win More Business

The lack of this technology in offices and workspaces can make a business look very outdated and behind in the times. One of the main arguments for not upgrading technology and continuing to use whiteboards instead is because a business has always worked that way. This mentality is poisonous to a business. 

Whilst competitors and even customers are upgrading their technology to the latest and best on the market, it is instrumental that you and your customers do too. If you’re not moving forwards, it can look as if you are moving backwards. A top tier business should always look like a top tier business. 

Technology provides a key factor in getting ahead of your competition. Not only will technology help you win more business based on looking better, but it will also help your workforce increase productivity, giving staff more time to hit their targets. 

Why Upgrade Your Technology Now?

But why should you consider upgrading your technology now? As it stands, 24% of the workforce are Gen Z. These employees are touch screen natives; they don’t know a world without touch technology and will expect it to be available as a key tool in the workplace. 

The dry erase board was created in 1950 and the Flipboard invented in 1820, yet these two products remain the most used tools in meeting rooms and collaborative spaces. Most lounges and bedrooms today have more technological power than meeting rooms, greatly restricting the productivity of these spaces. 

It will be detrimental if businesses fall behind by not upgrading their technology, they will not only lose out on business but also miss out on talent in their workforce.

At Midwich we have a dedicated team of interactive specialists to help you find the best solution. If you want to find out more about our interactive offering, download our inTouch guide which is full of the best interactive displays from world-leading vendors designed for different environments. 

Download Guide