Increasing collaboration - A look at huddle rooms and VC

Open any business textbook and you’ll be faced with numerous articles on how collaboration is essential to innovation. As a natural consequence of collaboration, innovation is the spearhead of competitive advantage and the key to remaining relevant in today’s saturated markets. Therefore, it is imperative that all steps towards it are optimised.

Organisations looking for long term success must be serious about creating spaces that inspire collaboration. This means going back to the drawing board and re-thinking the conference room, to conjure up spaces like huddle rooms.

But what’s wrong with our open-plan office you may ask, does that not inspire collaboration? Well it does, but recent studies have suggested that open floor plans in the workplace may in fact decrease employee productivity whilst increasing the number of sick days they take - scary stuff!

As a result, organisations are investing in spaces like huddle rooms to reduce the negative side-effects of these ‘too open’ spaces in the workplace, and harness the true potential of focused collaboration.

So, what is a huddle room?

A Huddle Room is what it says it is, a room to ‘huddle’ and plot your next moves. A concept synonymous with football teams before a big game, it’s designed to empower people to meet quickly and easily, and will usually accommodate up to five people with certain equipment:

• A Video conferencing solution
• An LCD or LED monitor / interactive screen
• A small central table that allows for sitting or standing

Why do Huddle Rooms work?

Huddle Rooms allow for people to collaborate quickly and efficiently due to:

1. Flexibility

A key reason people use huddle rooms is for their flexibility. Most organisations have multiple huddle rooms, allowing for instant availability, removing the need to schedule a room days or weeks in advance. If an unexpected event arises where an immediate discussion is needed then huddle rooms allow for this. Also, because most will be equipped with the latest communications technology, remote colleagues and employees can be reached.

2. Distraction-free environment

Compact huddle rooms allow for distraction-free workspaces where creativity can be channelled to efficiently meet task requirements. As mentioned previously, open workspaces have their positives but they don’t come without their downfalls, those being the constant potential for distractions, which are significantly reduced with an increase in employee privacy.

3. Increased collaboration through video conferencing

From project meetings to impromptu collaboration sessions, video conferencing makes everyday interactions easier, improving efficiency, productivity, and adding value.

Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever before, and video conferencing has become a key component of a successful business collaboration strategy. Video has found its way into just about every area of our lives, from our living rooms to our boardrooms, via the advanced mobile communications that dominate today’s society.

An increasing number of organisations are utilising today’s technology to capitalise on the power of video collaboration to:

• Increase efficiency and productivity, to improve overall performance
• Allow for quicker decision making by connecting key stakeholders in real time
• Reduce unnecessary travel
• Enable distributed workforces, remote employees, partners, and customers to connect and synchronise

Introducing the AMX Acendo range

With the AMX Acendo family of products you can walk into a meeting space and get started straight away, making it possible to share ideas in real time, and pull the group together no matter where they are. Acendo allows you to support the conversation with professional audio, precision tuned for voice clarity, ensuring everyone is heard. When it’s time to join forces simply find a free meeting room and start your conference on time with one touch.

Acendo brings you closer to your remote teammates with easy video-conferencing and a wide-angle camera, so everyone in the room is seen and heard clearly. Ideas don’t come from just one place, and with Acendo you can share and work on content on up to four devices at once. Furthermore, make sure meetings end on time and business keeps running smoothly with end of meeting notifications.

Harman’s Acendo products along with Samsung’s professional displays work together to drive the future of your business. The unparalleled combination of Samsung’s industry-leading visual display technologies and HARMAN’s pioneering audio and video technologies are empowering more efficient collaboration in modern huddle spaces. With Samsung and HARMAN Huddle Space Solutions, meetings start and end instantly and crystal-clear conferencing, and document sharing, keep things moving to create a seamless user experience with unprecedented savings.

4 great huddle room solution bundles from Harman & Samsung:

Huddle Standard Solution – Designed for small huddle rooms and communal workspaces, this solution combines a Samsung DC Series high definition display and HARMAN’s AMX Sereno video conferencing camera with microphone. It accommodates fundamental collaboration needs at a modest price point.

Huddle Premium Solution – A versatile solution for huddle spaces targeting BYOD, the Huddle Premium Solution includes a Samsung QMH Series UHD display and an AMX Acendo Vibe conferencing soundbar with camera from HARMAN. The Acendo Vibe provides a wide-angle camera to capture all of the room participants and JBL-designed audio with a far-field microphone array to ensure meeting attendees can communicate effectively using their own devices during a meeting.

Huddle Enterprise Solution – A premium option for customer-facing collaboration, the Huddle Enterprise Solution includes the same display and conferencing soundbar from the Huddle Premium Solution and adds the AMX Acendo Core business communication platform from HARMAN. The Acendo Core platform facilitates a fast and flawless meeting start, providing document viewing, wireless screen sharing and one-touch Skype for Business interaction. The solution allows users to participate in local and remote meetings without bringing anything into the room.

Huddle Enterprise Plus Solution – An all-inclusive, interactive collaboration system, the Huddle Enterprise Plus upgrades the display in the Huddle Enterprise solution to a Samsung PMF-BC Series touch-based display. This interactive solution elevates the traditional meeting experience with a 55” touchscreen, eliminating the need for a keyboard and mouse and allowing room users to interact directly with their content on the screen.