Sharp shows that companies are more productive if they use collaborative technology

According to a survey conducted by Sharp, a large part of the European offices do not have the right technology to make meetings more productive, as most of them do not take sufficient advantage of opportunities for collaboration between team members.

The multinational Sharp has commissioned a survey from the consultancy Research Now, held in January 2014 to different employees of European offices, specifically to 2.163 UK office workers (369), Spain (361), Sweden (355), Germany (360), France (360) and The Netherlands (358), to learn if companies and teams use collaboration technology in their work meetings.

The data from this survey indicate that a 51% of employees in the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Germany, France and the Netherlands say they do not have the right technology in their workplaces to get the most out of meetings. About a third of respondents acknowledge that they have had some technical problem during a presentation and a 29% it has found that the technological equipment it was going to use was not working.

As Christian Schwaiger has pointed out, Vice President, Sharp Visual Solutions Europe, "Every meeting that is held without adequate technology leads to the loss of opportunities for teams to perform their work optimally. Most meetings held today do not favor dynamic and teamwork, by not using the most innovative technology that is available for it. In sharp's case, Big Pad screens have become one of the favorite products of our customers, since they were presented in 2012, because they fit in with the way people want to work, share ideas and solve problems together".

share, collaborate and discuss

The use of technology in work meetings is not as widespread as one might think. Only about half of the workers surveyed use laptops or projectors during their meetings to share content. Most workers (89%) does not have access to interactive whiteboards that allow you to better capture the attention of attendees, disseminate audiovisual content and facilitate the contribution of several people in the same work at the same time.

Based on data collected in sharp's survey, the equipment and technologies used in the working meetings is as follows::

• portable (56%).
• projector (49%).
• Whiteboard (43%).
• Flipchart (37%).
• Conference call (20%).
• Touch screen/tablet (19%).
• videoconference (17%).
• Interactive whiteboard (11%).

For those responsible for Sharp, technology that facilitates collaboration in meetings can also make it easier to present to other attendees. one 40% of the survey says they do not enjoy making presentations and a quarter of that percentage says it is because they find it difficult to maintain the interest of attendees. one 7% states that the main reason they do not like to make presentations is because they find it difficult to explain their ideas using the technological equipment available to them in their offices..

When asked about the recent presentations they have attended, one 43% of the workers claims that the content of it was very boring and a 17% which were presentations without any visual element.

New Generation Big Pad

how Digital AV Magazine picked up on his 'ISE Special 2014', Sharp has presented in the recent celebration of this contest in Amsterdam the second generation of its collaborative touch screens Big Pad, with improvements in ease of use and incorporating new features to make meetings more productive, more participatory presentations and ideas are shared in a more attractive way.

The new Big Pad offer a wide range of new features, such as the option for up to four people to write at once and exchange data remotely on the same screen, so they become an ideal tool for groups to collaborate and share ideas in meetings.

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