The Burgeoning Set of Use Cases for Live Video Streaming
An extract from a whitepaper by Steve Vonder Haar of Wainhouse Research – January 2015
Identifying Innovative Applications for One-to-Many Video
Creativity Flourishes in Business Video. When it comes to business communications, live streaming video is no one-trick pony. Executives are finding fresh, varied applications for corporate video distributed on a oneto-many basis. Indeed, as video technology platforms grow more robust, the range of business use cases for videoenriched communications is expanding in step. In its most recent executive survey, Wainhouse Research identified more than a dozen applications of live online video that are used by at least 40% of the organizations represented in the survey. (Figure 1) It’s a diversity of use cases that belie the history of online video adoption in the enterprise. For years, employee training has served as the “killer application” of streaming video for corporate users.
By leveraging video to extend the reach of training sessions, organizations can deliver learning opportunities to more employees at a lower cost than would be possible if individuals needed to travel in order to attend a live session in-person.
Little wonder, then, that employee training is the most extensively deployed application of one-to-many online video. More than half of all organizations represented in the Wainhouse Research survey (51%) report than they have implemented online video in employee training applications. The second most frequently deployed application of one-to-many video in the enterprise consists of “executive presentations.” This particular use case is epitomized by the “all-hands meetings” conducted by organizations to allow top executives to update far-flung staff on corporate news and strategies.
Overall, 47% of survey respondents say their organization has deployed one-to-many streaming events to disseminate executive presentations.
While employee training and executive presentations have played a key role in encouraging organizations to adopt streaming video technologies, they do not tell the full story of the technology’s evolving impact on business communications. Indeed, as organizations begin to use live streaming video capabilities more extensively, they begin to embrace increasingly diverse use cases for the technology.
Simply put, expanded adoption of video technologies correlates with a proliferation in the ways that these capabilities are put to work. Figure 2 compares deployment levels for one-to-many video applications between organizations that produce more than 100 live online video events annually and those that use live video between one and nine times per year. The top-to-bottom rankings of applications listed in Figure 2 are based on the size of the adoption gap for each application between active and moderate adopters of live streaming video. As a result, the applications at the top of the list demonstrate the uses of live streaming that gain traction as users’ familiarity with online video grows.
Beyond quantifying how live streaming video is being used today, the survey results also help to identify the applications of the technology that are best poised to gain even more traction in corporate circles over time. In many cases, future momentum in the adoption of specific uses of live video will correlate with a company’s past experiences in using the technology.
As illustrated in the Figure below, companies that are relatively inexperienced with live streaming video (deploying live video between one and nine times per year) tend to focus on boosting the use of the technology to address task-specific communications objectives. Topping the list of applications to be used more frequently as companies spread their live streaming ambitions is “IT Support,” with 22% of respondents reporting plans to boost implementation of the application already in use. Another 26% of this low-deployment-frequency group say they are making plans to initiate the use of live video in IT support.
Other applications near the top of the expansion list for low frequency users are executive presentations, customer service, and employee training. Each of these use cases reflect an application rooted in an organization’s desire to boost efficiency.
Executive presentations – typically embodied by the “all-hands employee meeting” – are used to distribute a standardized executive message to far-flung team members in the hopes of enhancing organizational productivity and fostering a sense of shared community among employees. Efficiencies resulting from using live video more frequently in employee training and customer service result from savings made possible by leveraging video to expand the reach and effectiveness of communications in business functions typically seen as “cost centers” by many organizations. The outlook on relevant uses of online video suitable for expanded adoption appears to shift somewhat among executives at organizations that already use live streaming video extensively. Certainly, some of the basic “blocking-and-tackling” communications applications popular at low-video-frequency organizations also merit continued expansion even at organizations heavily committed to the use of live streaming.
At companies that deploy live video more than 100 times per year, both employee training and customer service remain among the most cited applications targeted for expanded adoption. But, as illustrated in Figure 4, organizations that are highly familiar with the implementation of live online video also are embracing the technology for expanded use in a broader set of external communications applications, as well. More than one-third (36%) of executives at companies deploying live online video more than 100 times per year say that their organization is either planning to initiate or expand upon current use of live online video in marketing presentations. Likewise, 35% of this highvideo frequency group report plans to leverage online video more frequently to deliver enhanced “descriptions of products for sale.”
These survey results illustrate the fact that creativity in using online video truly flourishes as organizations become more familiar with streaming video technologies. As executives become more comfortable with the realization that live video can be distributed to large audiences online in a reliable, high-quality manner, they begin to think more creatively about new ways that the technology can be put to work to build new business opportunities. While the results of executive surveys can help us identify executives’ growing propensity for employing streaming video in a broader range of use cases, these macro market measures fall short in portraying the extent of application innovation taking root in today’s business video marketplace. Viable uses of live online video truly are as varied as the communications objectives of the organizations deploying it for business use. For this research report, Wainhouse Research interviewed executives from three companies that are putting live online video to the test. Their fresh applications demonstrate how the marriage of enhanced video-enabling technologies and executive creativity can enable new approaches for building business benefit.