Telepresence the key to dematerialization? Reducing impact of enterprises?

Thanks for your reply. I agree that ubiquitous broadband access holds the key to enabling telepresence-like communication solutions in the home. This will allow for a variety of services such as healthcare to be delivered and accessed from the comfort of the front room.

In the enterprise though, are we not already there? Do we not have wide-scale broadband capability? From my perspective, having come out of a global IT consultancy just 9 months ago, the catalyst to liberating the potential that unified communications play in contributing to the Climate Group's target of 22% CO2 reductions is cultural transition.

While there has been a notable shift in internal business communications from the physical to the virtual during the economic downturn (due to the self-enforced global corporate travel bans), in essence it has been an involuntary change of behavior. The real success of technologies such as Cisco Telepresence, HP Halo and Microsoft Roundtable will be measured in the recovery. Will we return to the same levels of international travel to tradeshows, conferences, internal meetings and kick-off events? With the infrastructure now in place across multiple geographic regions and industries, will there be a significant increase in the use of Telepresence in B2B communications that coincides with the the global economic recovery. If this occurs then unified communications are truly achieving tangible results in reducing the corporate carbon footprint. I hope that we will reach a point where we will not go back to the days of unnecessary and nonsensical corporate travel.

It's an area that I'll be tracking over the next 12-24 months and hope to publish research on my findings. I'll be putting questions around this topic to representatives of Cisco, Orange Business Services, Alcatel Lucent, Tata Communications, Telstra and the Telecommunications Industry Association at the Sustainability Virtual Summits:Smart ICT event on 30th March 2010. Feel free to register, if you'd like to attend track sessions and discussions around the topic of Telepresence

www.sustainabilityvirtualsummits.com

Hi David,

I agree with your comments that broadband access in the US at en enterprise level is not quite the issue it once was. Having almost 20 years experience with various network providers including AT&T broadband itself is less of an issue as COS is. COS 1 for video is naturally extremely expensive and still a major hurdle in getting corporations to adopt video at every level. Every company that I speak that has even semi remote locations clearly tell me that COS and broadband access at reasonable prices is still the key theme.

I came across an interesting article from Wainhouse:

According to Wainhouse Research, the main factors driving the adoption of video conferencing and telepresence are:

Economic Pressures – increasing need to be more efficient, cut costs, and communicate with customers, partners and suppliers around the world.
Globalization – not only are enterprises today managing trade across borders and outsourcing certain business functions, they also have dispersed management teams and skill sets, which lead to increased challenges for corporate culture and communication. With business flowing in all directions, enterprises have become globally integrated, stateless multinationals.
Business Continuity – concern for threats such as global contagion, energy crises, and terrorism are on the rise, and business needs to be sure it can maintain operations.
Better Equipment – technological advances in the industry have led to a better user experience with CD quality audio and HD quality video, as well as increased collaboration with dual streams, integration, and bridges and gatekeepers. Meanwhile prices have remained relatively flat and users benefit from a better price per performance.
Unified Communications – integration between large unified communications players and video has driven awareness of conferencing and collaboration.
Climate Change – social pressures and corporate responsibility policies are driving the need to reduce travel to lower carbon emissions. As government mandates and rewards for travel reduction grow, organizations will increasingly turn to video conferencing.