The young and savvy business executives of tomorrow will have high expectations and won't embrace or tolerate obsolete processes. As a new generation is entering the management ranks of companies worldwide, they will bring with them their own preferred ways of communicating and collaborating.
A global market study by Cisco Systems has revealed that the majority of these next-generation executives intend to depend heavily upon business-class video to connect with their teams, colleagues, suppliers, customers and prospects -- as well as to help their businesses deliver new products and services.
The 2013 Cisco Global Young Executives' Video Attitudes Survey gives insight into what management-track leaders aged 34 and under think about business-class video, which delivers high-quality, reliable, and highly secure lifelike video to users. Cisco commissioned Redshift Research to conduct the survey of more than 1,300 global respondents.
"Today's leaders are often tech enthusiasts. Tomorrow's leaders are increasingly tech dependent and video is no exception to the rule. The next generation of leaders is realizing that using video makes them more productive, helps companies reduce costs, and even plays a role in attracting the best talent available. They understand why video can be better than being there," said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager, Collaboration Technology Group, Cisco.
Top findings from the worldwide study include:
The study's findings fall into three main categories that are top-of-mind for future leaders: video's impact on their career, its impact on the broader organization and future business needs.
Career Impact
Findings show that young executives anticipate that video will dramatically impact the way they communicate.
A global market study by Cisco Systems has revealed that the majority of these next-generation executives intend to depend heavily upon business-class video to connect with their teams, colleagues, suppliers, customers and prospects -- as well as to help their businesses deliver new products and services.
The 2013 Cisco Global Young Executives' Video Attitudes Survey gives insight into what management-track leaders aged 34 and under think about business-class video, which delivers high-quality, reliable, and highly secure lifelike video to users. Cisco commissioned Redshift Research to conduct the survey of more than 1,300 global respondents.
"Today's leaders are often tech enthusiasts. Tomorrow's leaders are increasingly tech dependent and video is no exception to the rule. The next generation of leaders is realizing that using video makes them more productive, helps companies reduce costs, and even plays a role in attracting the best talent available. They understand why video can be better than being there," said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager, Collaboration Technology Group, Cisco.
Top findings from the worldwide study include:
- Three out of five young executives say they will rely more heavily on business-class video during the next five to 10 years.
- 87 percent believe video has a significant and positive impact on an organization, citing benefits ranging from enhancing the experience of telecommuters to saving money on travel costs and even attracting top talent.
- 94 percent of those organizations with less than 400 employees value video as a way to break down language barriers in the increasingly global marketplace.
- 87 percent say they would choose to work for a video-enabled organization over a company that has not invested in business-class video communications, because the video-enabled organization "cares about using technology to fuel business growth."
The study's findings fall into three main categories that are top-of-mind for future leaders: video's impact on their career, its impact on the broader organization and future business needs.
Career Impact
Findings show that young executives anticipate that video will dramatically impact the way they communicate.
- While three out of five (61percent) of the young executives said they will rely more heavily on business-class video in the next five to 10 years, those who aspire to manage the largest teams intend to rely upon video even more; 70 percent of those who aspire to managing teams with 51 or more members said they will rely more heavily on video as their careers progress.
- As video is clearly on the rise amongst young executives, what do they perceive as the medium's main benefits both today and tomorrow?
- Today: The top three benefits young executives stated they derive from video are the ability:
- to read visual cues
- to "be there" without travelling
- to share content in real-time
- Tomorrow: They anticipate video technology innovations will allow them to both customize and enhance the experience - both things one cannot readily do when face to face.
- 54 percent indicated an interest in customizing the experience (for example, the ability to quickly edit and/or cut a video recording from a meeting and share it via social media tools; understand the dynamics of a business video meeting-in-progress when they join late, by allowing them to privately watch/listen/scan content from earlier in the meeting).
- 21 percent indicated they are keenly interested in features that will take the conversation to the next level—such as real-time language translations (for example, closed captioning for telepresence) and pop-up bubbles that would provide background information on participants from sources like LinkedIn and Salesforce.com.