Credit: Polycom
Singapore workers lead the region in the use of technologies to improve collaboration (77 per cent), transfer knowledge (74 per cent), increase productivity (70 per cent) and enhance innovation and new idea generation (56 per cent).
That's according to findings from Polycom, which reports that only 41 per cent of small meeting rooms or ‘huddle’ spaces in Singapore are video-enabled, compared to 77 per cent in India and 74 per cent in China.
Such findings suggest significant opportunities for Singapore’s IT decision-makers - and resellers - to improve collaboration experiences and adopt current well-rounded technology-enabled environments for their businesses.
Half of the Singapore workers (49 per cent) use small meeting rooms only one to two times per week, while one out of three workers used it almost every day (3 to 5 times a week), predominantly for internal meetings, followed by customer meetings and brainstorming sessions.
“Huddle rooms or workspaces are exactly what they sound like – small areas typically designed to accommodate no more than six people," said Mei Lin Low, director of APAC solutions marketing at Polycom.
"Modern workplaces are incorporating more huddle spaces over larger conference rooms to encourage frequent team meetings and offer quiet focus areas in open environments."
According to Low, today’s digital workers want to work "smarter, connect and interact spontaneously, produce outcomes and drive results quicker".
"Technology-enabled huddle rooms satisfy this need for real-time, productive collaboration and are now, more than ever, an important component in an organisation’s digital transformation journey," Low added.
“While you do not need expensive equipment to make great collaboration happen,” said Low, “a huddle room has to serve its purpose in enabling team meetings across any distance.”
Low further quoted a Frost & Sullivan study highlighting that the majority of small meeting rooms globally are audio-visually challenged, suggesting this leaves considerable opportunity for organisations in Singapore to create smarter huddle spaces.
The study also found that 96 per cent of respondents in Singapore and APAC found that collaborative technologies help them to be more productive and to work smarter.
What do Singapore respondents primarily use collaborative technology for?
The study found that 84 per cent use collaboration solutions to conduct team meetings with colleagues in other locations, while 70 per cent of them use it for workshops, brainstorming or problem-solving sessions with remote participants.
“Creating intelligent workspaces like the huddle room, is the future of work,” said Audrey William, senior fellow and head of research, Frost & Sullivan Australia and New Zealand. “Small meeting spaces are fast becoming smart workspaces where high performance collaboration like problem solving and idea generation are taking place.
“Over time, expect that collaboration technologies like video will evolve even further with many already starting to include the integration of smart devices and voice activated speakers powered by artificial intelligence technologies.”
More than 2,000 workers across APAC were surveyed as part of this study, including 202 respondents from Singapore.
