Work has gone hybrid. So why does IT still need an eCDN provider to manage network bandwidth?

The last 2 years have dramatically shifted our behavior in the workplace. With much of the globe working remotely, businesses and employees have had to adjust to a dramatic spike in video communication. So why is it that even with many now working from home, some of the world’s most successful companies still find themselves in need of a trusted eCDN provider – and what role do user analytics play in all this?

Hive Streaming CEO Johan Ljungberg sat down with Dan Lotzof (CRO & Chief of Staff, Notified) and Eric Nguyen (CPO, Kollective) at Notified’s annual virtual event for communicators to discuss the growing role of video communication in ‘New Work.’  

Dan: During the last 24 months, how has the pandemic affected employee communication?  

Johan: Being in the business of enterprise streaming, what we saw during the first two or three quarters of the pandemic is a dramatic increase of usage, which lasted until the end of 2020, when usage reached its peak. The beginning of 2021 was marked with a slight decrease, but usage levels still reached up to four or five times the numbers we saw pre-Covid.  

Around 12 months ago, companies started to become aware of video fatigue. A very rapid rise in usage of video services was followed by a period of an afterthought and being more thorough with what new software is presented to employees to avoid overwhelming them.  

Eric: We saw an absolute explosion of video communications, with companies exploring new ways to leverage video vis Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other one-to-many broadcasting software. Just like Johan said, we saw an explosion in usage: video was used for all communications, from sync-ups within teams to regional and global-level events. Companies used agile methodologies of keeping teams aligned, resulting in the cadence and number of meetings exploding. 

Dan: Going back to pre-Covid, what were the main video communication needs and challenges for your customer base?  

Eric: Remote work created a different set of challenges for customers, primarily that of having to maintain the same level of service and user experience they were able to provide in-office. With the explosion of usage, user experience was absolutely critical. But now that the challenges of remote work have been solved, the question of “What happens when the workforce returns?” still remains. 

Once customers overcame VPN challenges, attention turned from solving network issues to user analytics. They now wanted to better understand who attended each meeting, did they get the turnout they anticipated, and what was the outcome.  

Johan: Once customers overcame VPN challenges, attention turned from solving network issues to user analytics. They now wanted to better understand who attended each meeting, did they get the turnout they anticipated, and – perhaps, most importantly – what was the outcome. Those questions became key once companies realized that network load is not an issue once people are working from home.  

Dan: Could you share some best examples of using video in internal communication by customers?  

Johan: Customers have changed the way they approach live webcasting in general. Mature companies put more focus on the presenter, making sure production is done professionally to drive higher engagement. Talking numbers, we saw how the average audience size grew from 300 people to 500-600 people, on average. We also saw the number of average minutes of video watched go from less than 15 per employee per month, to – in some cases – go up to over 3 hours. It’s clear that mature companies are investing in good production quality and now keep audiences engaged for much longer.

The number of average minutes of video watched has gone from less than 15 min per employee per month, to – in some cases – up to over 3 hours. 

Eric: Although there was an explosion of sub-1000 attendee events, the duration of events in general shortened to 20-25 minutes. The next step was to take those larger events to the next level: adding a global scale and investing in higher production quality. 

Dan: At Notified, we hold a Noteworthy awards ceremony every quarter to acknowledge collaboration within the org. Historically, people would announce winners and talk about them. Recently, we began to play videos of people who nominated the winners and why they did so. This is a great illustration to the fact that there is no single answer to whether live or on-demand video is the best way to go – in many cases, it’ll be a combination. In our case, a combination of the two allowed us to feature 20-30 presenters within a short video event, something that would have been impossible to do in person. 

Using a combination of both live and on-demand video allows us to feature up to 20-30 presenters within a short event, something that would have been impossible to do in person. 

Dan: How have you seen leaders connect with employees? Please share some use cases and tips for meaningful connection in a remote world.  

Johan: What we see from our Analytics is that engagement is going up. Leaders are becoming more comfortable being on stage. And in some ways, leaders are forced to be on stage, to perform, to convey a compelling message. We see that managers are appreciating the feedback they get from employees through chat and other channels. A lot of feedback we get from customers concerns leaders and presenters – they crave real-time feedback to the message they’re putting out.  

Dan: How can we solve meeting fatigue? What are some best practices to get around it?  

Eric: Meeting fatigue comes from talking at the audience. New technology is giving us more interactivity, like sentiment emojis, live Q&As, and other features that create a dialogue which in turn alleviates a lot of meeting fatigue. People are tired of having leadership talk at them. 

According to a live poll conducted among the panel’s audience, the number one concern when it comes to using video for communications is the fear that it won’t work.  

Johan: We as a supplier must provide tools and services to make sure everything will run smoothly – prior to the actual event. And we have those tools, which are in frequent demand. We get requests from customers to help them identify things that can go wrong and alleviate any potential issues. Addressing things that are not working in advance is a key – as we now know, it’s not only about optimizing the bandwidth load.  

Dan: What is an eCDN and why do you need an eCDN provider?  

Eric: An eCDN has two purposes:  

• To be able to scale communications.  

If you’re using a live webcasting solution, you want employees to have a consistent and optimal video experience, regardless of their individual technical infrastructure (for example, at home or in regions where infrastructure tends to be less advanced). An eCDN provider helps leverage various delivery capabilities to make sure leaders can get their message out in optimal quality, regardless of infrastructure limitations.  

• Analytics and feedback.   

After each event, the question is: Did everybody did get that optimal experience? Analytics can help confirm that the event did, in fact, work. As the broadcaster, you want to make sure people can concentrate on the content and fully engage with it, not be distracted by production errors or poor QoE.  

Dan: Suppose my office has fantastic bandwidth. Why is it that even with advancements in connectivity having an eCDN provider is still important – possibly more so than before?  

Johan: Streaming and webcasting – from a technology perspective – is very different from real-time meetings. Over the last two years, real-time platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and others have worked perfectly fine for audiences that are watching from home in most cases. Network offloading isn’t necessary when everyone is at home. Real-time meetings work fine, even for large audiences. 

However, things get more complicated in a hybrid workplace, where people can choose whether to work from home or from the office. How can you then predict which technology to pick? The answer is, quite simply, you can’t. The situation is changing all the time.  

Today, the only solution you can use to still guarantee that high reach and excellent event quality you strive for is an eCDN. It’s the only solution that guarantees success and the ultimate reach at the highest possible bitrate. My assessment is that an eCDN provider will become even more relevant now with hybrid workers.  

Dan: At this point, we simply don’t know whether employees will come back to the office for one, three, or five days a week. This unpredictability means that you are about equally as likely to have either 5 or 500 people in the office on the same day. This unpredictability is a big challenge from a technology standpoint. 

With uncertainly of hybrid work, you can’t know whether 5 or 500 employees will be at the office the same day  – and suddenly, you can be critically impacting network traffic. 

Eric: IT teams will not want to configure on the fly to deliver optimal performance. With uncertainly of hybrid work, you can easily get hit by a storm if the majority of employees decide to come to the office that day – and suddenly, you are critically impacting network traffic.  

Dan: Exactly. If you’re in a meeting with five people and it suddenly cuts out, it’s no big deal – you can message each other and quickly get back on the call. But if you have 400 people watching a live event and suddenly lose connection, you simply do not have that flexibility. A few moments after the broadcast is interrupted, all 400 attendees are probably already gone. That’s why it’s so important to understand the difference between meeting technology and broadcasting.

If a meeting of five people suddenly cuts out, it’s no big deal – you can quickly get back on the call. But with 400 people watching a live event, suddenly losing connection means losing the entire audience for good. 

Dan: In your opinion, has video communication technology become easier to use or did we simply become more familiar with it throughout the pandemic?  

Johan: We had many of the current features even before pandemic, so I believe it’s more a matter of becoming more familiar with them, since it hasn’t really become more complex. In the meantime, big providers do keep adding new features. I see the next advancements as making things even easier and simpler to use.  

Early on, there were many concerns: would the Cloud scale, would our platform scale? We now know that in most cases, they did scale. We got ushered into a new era where video is used on a daily basis. We then got used to handling various apps, too.  

And we do see a trend of new players entering the space – video communication isn’t necessarily limited to Zoom or other big players only.  

Eric: Consumer-facing tech continues to get easier to use. The next question is, how do we make eCDN just as easy? How can IT make something very complex as easy to use as consumer software? To draw a parallel, remember how complicated it once was to set up your home theatre, and how seamless it is today. As an eCDN provider, we strive for the same ease of use with eCDN.  

Dan: What are your predictions and advice for the coming 12-14 months within video communication? 

Johan: Keeping the flexibility will remain a priority. We shouldn’t make the unknown a problem. You don’t want to end up in a situation where a company has to mandate that employees only come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example – no company wants to be this limiting towards their people. Strive to keep that flexibility. It’s the software and applications you use that need to adapt to new way of working, not the other way around. Push for solutions that will allow you to dynamically adapt to any circumstances.   

Eric: Organizations want to be able to connect to their workforce at any given time, at a small or large scale, at a moment’s notice. Organizations need to be able to pivot quickly to respond to the market’s headline news. If something big hits the news – can we communicate and realign the workforce quickly? Do we have the right technology to do so?