Jan. 18, 2022 - Barco is running series of interviews with Key Opinion Leaders about market trends on Workplace Visualization. This is the latest interview in the series with Ta Loong Gan, VP of Immersive and Large Video Wall Experience for Asia Pacific and Managing Director for Barco Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

As businesses are starting to reshape their workspaces to support hybrid working both in the office and remotely, employers are reinventing office and corporate spaces, allowing people to engage and collaborate. A strong trend for large video walls in the workplace is being driven by the pandemic environment.

Ta Loong Gan, Vice President of Immersive Experience for Asia Pacific and Managing Director for Barco Southeast Asia and Taiwan has almost three decades of experience in the industry. He is excited about the current transformation around workspace technology. "The pandemic has shaped the workplace itself", he says. "It will never be the same in the so called new normal. Despite the sudden uptick in working from home and hot desking, many multi-nationals have been embracing this concept already for decades. What has changed, however, is that everyone now appreciates and values being able to see each other, virtually or physically speaking."

The pandemic may have pushed workers apart, but it has reinforced their need to come back together again. This has even seen hybrid collaboration happen through large video walls where life-sized projections of remote participants, provide a level of interaction and connection similar to being in the room together.

Bigger and better visualizations

Such emerging trends are leading to physical workplace changes where the focus is shifting from floor space to maximizing productivity, flexibility and decision making. As a result, the incorporation of bigger and better visualization solutions is needed. Larger video walls are purposefully built to communicate and project content enabling audiences to make informed decisions through the optimal visual experience they provide. "We see a rapid trend whereby ‘size' does matter", confirms Ta Loong. "At the end of the day, display technology is about outcome. Humans are highly visual creatures. You need to be able to correlate images, data, infographics, to drive discussions and decisions."

There is a rising demand for multiple levels of data to be displayed while presenting. On the display multiple data points can now be presented in a meaningful way to make informed decisions. Enterprises may talk about cloud and visualization of data, but they need to have the right display size that can visualize data or to realize the power of remarkable story-telling.

This includes those organizations that have chosen to embrace working from home and downsize their office space. The remaining office space combined with digital communications are two key elements that must work together to engage and inspire employees.

Downsizing the office means that the remaining spaces need to be optimized taking on different uses. For that, large video wall displays start playing a more relevant role by making lobby spaces or town hall areas more versatile supporting multiuse applications, it makes the entire office space layout more efficient and appealing. The same goes for the impact of lobby experiences when receiving customers, especially when customer footfall has been reduced due to Covid, we now want to inspire them and welcome them back by providing new and unique experiences.

"The future workspace that we envision is not only empowering employees working from home, but also wooing employees and visitors back to the office, to enjoy the office environment that they have missed out on in the past 18 months of Covid", explains Ta Loong.

Transforming workspace technology for today and tomorrow

Another trend is about having more diversified and interactive content. Businesses are looking into multisensory installation, incorporating a multi-touch solution for the customers and employees to empower what they want to see rather than what the business wants them to see. With true interactivity and multi-touch capabilities, the viewers are in control. This could be in a lobby space for visitors to interact with the screen, or content that follows viewers from one end of the video wall to the other. This can be integrated to better curate the viewer's experience in those multi-purpose workspaces.

"Businesses are looking into multisensory installation, incorporating a multi-touch solution for the customers and employees to empower what they want to see rather than what the business wants them to see," Ta Loong Gan, Vice President of Immersive Experience for Asia Pacific and Managing Director for Barco Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

Creating a culture that inspires, motivates and engages

Having a flexible workforce, allowing agile workstyles, and optimizing workspaces will help companies grow and achieve the best possible business outcomes during the current and future uncertainty of the pandemic. The goal is to continuously improve productivity and communication. By transforming the way your workplace operates and developing a communication strategy centered around powerful visual content, a lasting impact anywhere in the workplace can be achieved. The end result? An inspired, motivated and engaged workforce.

The goal should always be to deliver ‘wow' experiences to your employees and visitors in a lobby, multi-purpose auditorium, experience center or townhall meeting room with the finest image quality and highest reliability. Visualization technology should also match with what your IT department is looking for: connected, easy to set up, monitor, manage and maintain.

"Barco offers end-to-end solutions from lobby display to unified communications and e-learning platforms", says Ta Loong. The benefit of having an integrated solution can be translated into a seamless customer experience and maximum service and support to the end user, at every stage of the process.