Virtual Office Featured Article

What You Need to Know About Millennials Working Remotely

December 16, 2015
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

The concept of being seen and not heard may work well for the extreme introvert, but it doesn’t sit well for millennials working out of a virtual office. These individuals want to be heard, seen and considered important parts of the dynamic puzzle that make up the successful team. This is helping to drive the demand for video conferencing technologies across the board.


According to new research analysis from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), the conferencing services market in North America is in a state of rapid transition as audio conferencing is no longer the gold standard in staying connected across the miles. Video services and visual collaboration are becoming an essential part of the virtual office and the commoditization of mature technologies will continue to temper growth.

Frost & Sullivan’s North American Conferencing Services Market shows that $4.5 billion was earned in market revenues in 2014 and is expected to hit $5.9 billion by 2021, with a CAGR of 4.1 percent. Visual collaboration especially is gaining traction in a region where a distributed and remote workforce requires the use of virtual office technologies so that employees have access to tools that are both feature-rich and easy to use.

"What was once a rudimentary component now holds serious weight in the minds of decision-makers across businesses," said Frost & Sullivan Unified Communications (News - Alert) & Collaboration Industry Manager Alaa Saayed in a press release. "As Millennials continue to make up a larger share of the workforce, video will become more pervasive and price points will drop with newer technologies, further fueling adoption."

Even with the opportunities in the North America conferencing services market, there are a number of challenges that will affect revenues. For instance, service providers have to compete with conferencing capabilities provided in unified communications bundles, which limits their market potential. Likewise, consumers are accustomed to free conferencing solutions and it’s difficult to promote the use of professional-grade services when it appears the free option is meeting the need.

This could shift in the long-term, however, depending upon the quality advancements in the free space versus price declines in paid-for options. Millennials aren’t always big fans of poor quality when it comes to technology and those companies wanting to attract the younger sect as virtual office employees may need to step up their investments to meet the demand. Cloud and hosted offerings provide a way to gain access to higher quality at a lower capital outlay, as long as needs and expectations are managed accordingly.

Whatever the direction of the market, if you’re interested in hiring a millennial for a virtual position, remember that they want to be seen and heard, and you’ll be much better prepared for visual collaboration investments. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle

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