Polycom Study: Indian Businesses Make Best Use of Collaboration Technology in Asia Pacific

Indian organisations have the best-equipped huddle rooms, or small meeting spaces in the Asia Pacific, according to a new survey. A new study released by Polycom revealed that India is leading the region in enabling productive meetings between onsite and remote participants with a choice of collaboration tools in huddle meeting areas, including audio and video conferencing, content sharing, and digital whiteboards. Two-thirds of small meeting rooms in India are video-enabled, compared to less than half in Australia and Singapore, and only a quarter in Japan and Korea, indicating a high preference by workers to work smarter with technology.

The survey Growing Big Ideas from Small Spaces: The Polycom Huddle Room set out to discover the top collaboration preferences among businesses and employees in the Asia Pacific – Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. The report also sought to understand the growth in popularity of using smaller meeting spaces or huddle rooms.

The study, which surveyed over 2000 APAC workers, including 202 respondents from India, showed that of all countries, Indian employees are exceptional in their use of technology with an overwhelming majority using collaboration tools in small meeting rooms, or Huddle Rooms, to work smarter in many ways. The high uptake of technology in Indian workplace is likely reflective of the Indian government’s emphasis on digital transformation, through nationwide programs such as Digital India, and the increase in the number of remote workers in the country. Creating human-to-human connections and forming close relationships with colleagues also stand out for professionals in India. Most of these interactions take place in small meeting rooms. Of the professionals surveyed, 96% are using audio, video, and content sharing to collaborate with remote participants.

A closer look inside India’s huddle rooms

In addition to understanding how huddle rooms are being used today, the survey also aimed to identify the future collaboration technology needs of these smaller meeting spaces.

Key findings showed:

Indian respondents are the top users of video conferencing and content sharing solutions in APAC
The majority of meeting participants from India (76%) use a laptop to share content, while nearly half (44%) also use a mobile device.

In India, the growth in popularity of working from anywhere or teleworking is also making an impact; 41% of Indian respondents indicated the strongest preference for using collaboration technologies to connect with colleagues when working from outside the office.

Internal meetings, customer meetings, recruitment and training were the top uses for huddle rooms in India.

Over half of Indian respondents indicated that HR functions such as virtual training sessions and interviews/performance reviews with remote participants would benefit from technology-enabled huddle rooms.

“Today’s workers increasingly depend on technology to achieve high levels of productivity. They expect to connect instantly, work smarter, produce outcomes and drive results quicker. Technology-enabled huddle rooms satisfy this need for real-time, productive collaboration and are now, more than ever, an important component in an organisation’s digital transformation journey”, said Minhaj Zia, VP Sales, Polycom India, SAARC and SEA.

He explains, “Huddle rooms are agile, flexible spaces that are critical to the modern workplace and new ways in which people want to work. Organisations have to enrich more workspaces and respond to a growing need for high-performance meetings”.

Audrey William, Senior Fellow and Head of Research, Frost & Sullivan adds, “Creating intelligent workspaces is the future of work. Small meeting spaces are fast becoming smart workspaces where high-performance collaboration like problem solving and idea generation are taking place.

“Over time, expect that collaboration technologies like video will evolve even further with many already starting to include the integration of smart devices and voice-activated speakers powered by Artificial Intelligence technologies. “