OREANDA-NEWS. April 1, 2016. At the end of 2015 CEO and Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg claimed that we are entering 'the golden age of video'. Findings from a landmark piece of research by Cass Business School ("Cass"), City University London, support this view, with clear indications that video will dominate internet usage in the years to come, with it increasingly being adopted not only by individuals, but importantly also by businesses.  However, although seen as the most engaging communication tool for the 'socio-businesses' of the future, they lack the expertise and systems to cope with increased demand.  This explosion of video and the appetite from businesses to be ahead of curve will lead to significant investment into video and video related services over the course of next year, with serious consequences for businesses that don't effectively manage the transition.

The first study of its kind focussed on video usage in business, Cass's research on The Future of Video, in association with video management company Imagen Ltd, shows that a range of technological innovations (smart phones, digital cameras), advances in infrastructure (broadband, wireless networks), and platform developments (YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Amazon, and Netflix) are collectively transforming the way video is produced, distributed, consumed, archived and, importantly, monetised.

Cass' study, supported by a survey of over 1,000 SMEs and large businesses, shows that video is making our society more connected than ever before with profound social, political and economic implications for everyone.

Some of the major findings include:

Video usage is set to explode in the coming years

·      Video is forecast to become 80-90% of all consumer internet traffic by 2019 - a staggering one million minutes of video a second. [1]

·      The tech shift to mobile means video is increasingly moving from a 'static' asset to a key form of communication. The number of mobiles and tablets is projected to grow from 4.5 billion in 2015 to 9.6 billion globally by 2018; on demand video is projected to continue to rise rapidly. [2]

·      The arrival of 'social-businesses' with video-dominated social media fundamentally transforms workplace communication across business functions, organisational boundaries, geography and culture.

·      Video is considered to be the most cost effective and impactful communication channel for both internal (36%) and external (43%) purposes, significantly higher than all other communication mediums assessed.

Businesses are not ready or able to cope with a boom in video usage due to its data intensive nature and the problems that arise from managing digital assets

·      Infrastructure is the big forgotten issue, with the majority of video still stored on premise rather than on the cloud.  As the volume and variety of digital assets keeps growing, general purpose management systems don't have the capacity, process power, or functionality to cope with all the video.

·      In developed markets alone it will take 20-25 years to meet total unicast video demand, with current supply only able to cost effectively provide 15-20% of total viewing.

·      The top three concerns on the minds of decision makers in SME and large organisations relating to management of video content are around security (53%), followed by managing high volumes of content (39%) and controlling access to videos (34%).

·      Effective control of video assets is becoming increasingly important, with rights infringement of copyrighted materials rampant on the internet and DRM platforms and software only partially able to address these.

·      89% of websites featuring videos use third party solutions, rather than self-hosting, with serious security ramifications.

Businesses that don't invest and manage the transition to video effectively risk being left behind.

·      80% of businesses believe video content provides a competitive edge over competition.

·      85% state that the use of video content in organisations will grow in the next 12 months.

·      Just 38% of SME and large organisations have an effective video management system to store and search video content, while a further 39% consider their present system is ineffective or they at least need to have one.

·      79% of UK based SMEs and large organisations will invest in video content in the next 12 months - whether for marketing, R&D, production, recruitment, training, meetings or the swathe of other usages.

Tom Blake, CEO of Imagen said: "The democratisation of video production will continue to have profound consequences for business communication and operations.  In the right hands, video is the most engaging and powerful medium for process management, marketing and knowledge transfer. However, it needs careful management and security controls, with an IT infrastructure fit for purpose.  YouTube, Vimeo and others set a high bar for the user experience of online video.  Businesses need to meet these established expectations, with controlled access and intelligence about the user engagement, in an environment which can cope with massive volumes of data."  

Report author Professor Feng Li, Cass Chair of Information Management, said: "Much of the recent attention on video is about user generated content and how to monetise such content primarily through advertising. However, what have not been examined in detail are the opportunities and challenges for business use of video beyond advertising, such as the growing use of video in everyday communications within and between organisations, and the rapid development of video based operations and new business processes in different industries. How to use and manage video effectively has become a strategic issue for a growing number of organisations."

A link to the video summarising the findings can be found at: http://imagenevp.com/the-future-of-video-a-report-by-cass-business-school-in-association-with-imagen/

[1]Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology.  http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.pdf

[2] Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2014-2019. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.pdf