In recent years, companies have relied heavily on video meeting platforms to conduct business, whether Zoom, Teams, Webex, Blue Jeans or others. The results have been striking, with many users finding it normal to conduct business on multiple platforms each day.

If multi-platform collaboration is the norm outside of the office, will in-office technology provide a similar experience in order to maintain user productivity?

The simple answer is yes, but not without a little help. The key is understanding your employee’s behaviors and meeting expectations moving forward. This means talking to employees about:

• What do they bring into meetings – laptops, pens, paper?
• Will they have a hybrid work option?
• How will they expect rooms to function?
• What platforms will be most frequently used – both by the organization internally, as well as its customers, vendors and partners?

With these questions answered, you can then begin to evaluate the solution best fitted for your office.

The most common answers

1. Platform interoperability

If you’ve already invested in dedicated video meeting room hardware, there may not be a need to rip and replace as most provide some level of interoperability. Talk to your integration partner about your current hardware set up and platform needs to determine your interoperability options. For some, this may require Cloud Video Interop (CVI) integrations whereas, for others, minor software setting changes should do the trick.

While this will take a little bit of time and investment to executive, it will help future-proof your meeting room technology, as well as continue to optimize existing solutions.

2. Bring your own meeting (BYOM)

Another straightforward solution is to mirror the user experience from laptops in the meeting. This is a great option if employees bring their laptops into meetings. Employees can come into a meeting with their personal device, plug in a cable and voila: the room’s technology becomes an extension of their laptop.

For larger meeting spaces, BYOM designs will require a balance of flexibility and workflow. Likewise, using a personal computer as the meeting catalyst may require additional components/dongles to ensure the computer can easily connect to the room video and audio. Once again, your integration partner can help guide you through the various options for your unique situations.

3. Mobile carts

Those looking to launch collaboration technology rooms lightning-fast might lean toward mobile carts, which provide nimbleness until long-term solutions are in place. This option is an excellent go-between when rooms are needed now and there’s no time to reconfigure rooms’ physical infrastructure – at least not right away.

Mobile carts provide the convenience of having all virtual meeting components housed within a single cart that is easy to move from room to room. Thanks to this flexibility, users get a great video experience instantly while company leaders figure out longer-term collaboration solutions. Then once a need is identified, mobile cart components can be disassembled from their temporary home and mounted to become permanent room fixtures.

Don’t settle for less – let RoomReady help

Whether employees trickle back into the office or come in by the droves, the time has come to make meeting room technology work with any meeting platform. There’s no need to forgo more planning and settle for a minimally viable solution. RoomReady makes it easy to accelerate the planning phase so companies don’t settle for regrettable, short-lived decisions.

We’ll make sure the transition to in-person or hybrid working is simple. After all, we’re all about simplifying the meeting room experience and improving your overall meeting space success.