The future of meetings: creating a better experience for everyone

The future of meetings: creating a better experience for everyone

Mike Moore shares how HPE's Modern Workspace solution is simplifying meeting room collaboration

Rebecca Gibson |


This article first appeared in the Winter issue of The Record.

A 2016 study from TLF Research and eShare revealed that the average UK employee spends nine hours and 18 minutes preparing for, or attending meetings each week. Given that employees worldwide are spending more time than ever at meetings, companies need to significantly improve the meeting experience, says Mike Moore, director of collaboration and productivity services at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

“We’ve all experienced problems trying to book a venue, or find the cable to link laptops to large screens, or struggled to connect to remote colleagues,” he comments. “Today’s workplaces must support an expanding millennial workforce, drive employee productivity and optimise real estate use. Consequently, they need smart conference room services that harness new digital collaboration, mobility, wireless networking, and smart building technologies.”

This September, HPE introduced Modern Workspace, an end-to-end smart conference room service that combines multiple technologies to simplify meeting management and transform the end user collaboration experience.

HPE’s Modern Workspace service enables employees to reserve a meeting space within seconds using a cloud-based mobile app or a touchscreen kiosk. Reservations immediately sync with Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange to alert invited employees, who receive step-by-step indoor directions to the venue via the HPE Aruba Meridian navigation feature. When participants arrive in the room, Modern Workspace activates the integrated Microsoft Skype for Business Room System device, enabling the leader to start the meeting by touching one button. Within seconds, the leader is connected to in-room screens and audio/visual accessories, allowing them to wirelessly share content and seamlessly connect to remote participants.

“Pilots at HPE shows that these capabilities can save attendees up to 15 minutes before arriving at the conference room, 10 minutes at the start of each meeting, and most importantly, a lot of frustration,” remarks Moore.

According to Moore, the real magic takes place behind the scenes with Modern Workspace’s intelligent reservations function.

“Companies are trying to fit more employees into their existing office spaces and real estate teams are under pressure to provide conference room facilities for all of these workers, so the intelligent reservations function detects actual room use,” says Moore. “It automatically schedules meetings in the most appropriate unreserved rooms and cancels reservations for no-shows, improving room utilisation by 35-50%. Analytics can also be used to tailor room sizes and types driving better space utilisation.”

Certainly, claims Moore, HPE’s Modern Workspace helps companies to reduce costs while leveraging new technologies to significantly boost employee productivity and collaboration.

“HPE Modern Workspace combines all the complex individual processes and technologies needed for hosting a meeting into one easy-to-manage and automated solution,” Moore says. “It’s particularly beneficial for industries where fast and agile collaboration provides a competitive differentiator, such as in the financial, healthcare, retail and public sector markets.”

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