Kortrijk, Belgium, 1 July 2013 - Visualization expert Barco has released the results of its recent 'Meeting room of the future' survey, jointly organized with InAVate and PFM magazine. Via this research, more than 300 senior business managers in the EMEA region expressed their opinion on collaboration and knowledge sharing and the environments and tools that support these behaviors. One of the major results is that 59% of the respondents believe that the meeting room of the future will be fully digital by 2014, with 94% believing this will be the case by 2020.

During the month of June, InAVate, PFM and Barco launched an online survey in which respondents shared their vision on the meeting room of the future and the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing in those meeting spaces. The survey provided important insights into how organizations are dealing with today's changing work environment and culture and how this affects the technology needs for meeting rooms. 59% of the survey respondents expect their meeting rooms to be fully digitally equipped by 2014, 25% expect this by 2016, and 9% by 2020.

Mobile workplace
When sounded out about how often they and their colleagues work remotely, 91% of the survey respondents stated that they work remotely on a regular basis, with 27% working remotely almost daily. The future is mobile - and as increasing numbers of employees are working remotely, meeting spaces must become more flexible and support a greater range of technologies and demands for virtual conferencing. When attending a meeting, 82% bring their own device (the majority of these are laptops, but other mobile devices are on the rise).

Multimedia
While meetings are still largely presentation-driven - 92% of the respondents cite support for presentation software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, as the main priority - there is a growing demand to provide support for additional digital media. 59% of businesses are now using photos and video to deliver better meeting performance, as digital media drive the push to improve the effectiveness of corporate meetings.

Investing in meeting room equipment
When organizing or attending a meeting, the survey respondents are most frustrated by long setup times and technical issues. That's why the main objectives for investing in new AV equipment are to: improve meeting dynamics (47%), reduce meeting setup times (41%) and improving the reliability of technology (40%). When investing in meeting spaces, the three most important technology priorities are: presentation tools, remote conferencing technology, and audio reproduction systems. In the respondents' organizations, the IT Manager (47%), CIO (30%) and Facilities Manager (28%) are the main decision-makers for investing in AV equipment and the average budget for meeting room technology is €10,000.

Shaping the meeting room of the future
Barco is at the forefront of developing state-of-the-art meeting room technology and we are committed to shape the meeting room of the future. Our full range of visualization and collaboration technology meets the challenges of today's changing work culture and improves efficiency and productivity in meeting rooms, board rooms and auditoriums. With our Collaborate projectors multiple participants can be on screen simultaneously and can present their content in excellent image quality. And as the ClickShare wireless presentation system improves meeting dynamics and reduces setup times, it truly makes collaboration easy. ClickShare is also compatible with mobile devices and thanks to our networked visualization technology, people can work and meet remotely. Barco offers a wide variety of products for the Corporate AV industry - ranging from compact 1-chip and 3-chip DLP projectors, to the ClickShare presentation and collaboration system, to eye-catching digital signage, video walls and LCD displays.

Download the full report
For more information, and to read the full results of the 'Meeting room of the future' survey, please click here.

About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3,900 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of 1.156 billion euro in 2012.

© Copyright 2013 by Barco
Per ulteriori informazioni, contatta

Lynn Ryon
Press & PR contact EMEA & LATAM
Barco NV

Telefono +32 56 36 81 66
lynn.ryon@barco.com

Alison Maxson
Press & PR Contact US
Barco NV

Telefono +1 678 475 81 83
alison.maxson@barco.com

Li Shen
Press & PR contact Greater China
Barco NV

Telefono +86 10 5650 2288
li.shen@barco.com

distributed by