Barbeque Downs, Johannesburg -- (SBWire) -- 08/20/2015 --Latest technology is evolving the business meeting, enabling a more efficient process with a wider opportunity for communicating, brainstorming, creating and decision making far beyond the four natural walls of the meeting room
According to latest research, the average manager spends at least a third, or sometimes even over a half, of all their time in meetings, and over two thirds of meetings are unproductive.
Modern meeting room software solutions and other technologies like video conferencing and video signage can ensure that business meetings are better arranged, managed and effective for the benefit of the employees and business as a whole.
Here's six ways technology can instantly help a meeting to run to time for the benefit of all who attend.
1. Reception Meet and Greet
Even before guests enter a meeting room, they expect to be greeted in the most efficient way possible, to ensure there is no time wasted on their visit.
Companies must have the right personnel in reception, alongside the right technology to ensure visitors can be seamlessly welcomed, presented with an ID badge where appropriate and directed to the right meeting room.
2. Meeting Room Signage
Once the visitors are on their way to the meeting room – make sure the meeting information as well as path finding and room level meeting details is clear and easy to find, in digital format using latest AV/signage technologies.
This can also be beneficial once the meeting is in progress and breaks taken, so guests can quickly and efficiently find their way back with minimal disruption to the meeting.
3. Meeting Room WiFi
In today's business environment, laptops, smartphones and tablets are crucial to productivity, so it's only logical that your meeting room equipment is advanced enough to be able to be integrated with them.
Presentations are now a common occurrence during meetings, and often include image and video footage to highlight key points alongside direct links to external sites and social media. Presentations must also be easy and quick to share, regardless of device or location.
This all means meeting rooms must offer quality wi-fi services to cater for as many devices as meeting room capacity (at least one device per person!) to enable a smooth running meeting without any interference, due to drop in technology.
4. Out of Office Attendees
With the increasing trends towards more flexible and home working, meetings must be planned and set up to enable attendees via video conference technology, who must still have full view of all the attendants and presentations.
To enable this, companies need to think of the user experience that will encourage the best adoption in every meeting setting and use of these technologies to gain the best return on investment.
5. BYOD can boost productivity
BYOD policies and mobile devices make the workforce more flexible, more efficient and more agile, but in a meeting room environment, smartphones, tablets and laptops that all have different operating systems represents a significant logistical challenge.
By using wireless or USB technology and a shared screen, your meeting room can support all operating systems without the need for cables, connectors and specialized adapters, or the reconfiguration of settings.
By introducing BYOD and modern wireless technology into the meeting room, employees can use smartphones and tablets to give their presentations, and use mobile apps from AV specialists to project their presentations wirelessly on to a single monitor, allowing presentations to run more quickly and smoothly.
6. Catering Requirements
If the meeting is scheduled to run over lunch, then catering must be seamlessly arranged into the agenda, with due consideration to dietary requirements of meeting guests, including vegan and vegetarian, but also increasingly lactose, gluten and nut intolerance.
Overall, meeting room technology should also be easy to use and maintain, so there is less of a reliance on the IT department, with the potential to delay meetings.
About Rendezvous software
Rendezvous software is an important part of meeting management but the integration between room booking and space planning, operating as a single integrated system provides the greatest efficiency in terms of delivering a great meeting experience.
Just these few examples show how the meeting has evolved in today's workplace. Specialist solutions such as NFS Technology's Rendezvous software has been designed especially for the modern day workplace to offer a total solution to ensure a meeting can run smoothly and efficiently, without the need for IT back up.
PR Contact:
Company name: NFS Hospitality
Tel: 011 394 9554/6/7
Website: http://nfs.co.za/
Contact person: Deep
Email: info@nfs.co.za
Address: Cube Workspace
134 River Road
Barbeque Downs
Kyalami
How Modern Technology Is Reinventing the Meeting Room