More than half of CIOs say that video is 'core' to their business service

Video is important, but technical complexity and cost hold people back from investment

Embedded video specialist Vidyo, with WebRTC, has released the results of a survey it conducted around the use of video in businesses, concluding that - despite complexity and cost barriers - adoption is climbing.

Vidyo surveyed more than 150 business leaders this summer, including CIOs and CTOs, from 48 countries. More than half (53 per cent) are already using some form of video chat in their company. 60 per cent of of these said that video is ‘core' to their product or service offering and 34 per cent said that it was the most important capability.

Of the 47 per cent remaining, over 30 per cent said that there was no use case for them, with around 20 per cent saying that it is not a business priority; and the same naming technology limitations as a drawback. High cost was the next most-cited reason for not using video.

Delving into the technology issues, Vidyo found that respondents were concerned about their network being unable to provide a ‘good quality' video experience. Organisations believe that they need to make significant infrastructure and connectivity investments to make video worthwhile.

Of the respondents who were already using video, almost two-thirds were mitigating up-front costs by using open source and communication-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) approaches. CPaaS use is expected to continue to grow, as it can be be used to quickly add communication capabilities to third party apps. 78 per cent of respondents who were not using video said that they eventually planned to use CPaaS, and almost half (49 per cent) intend to start doing so within the next 12 months.

The top use cases for video were named as telehealth applications (video is being used to lower the cost of providing healthcare); collaboration; and customer engagement.