businessinfomag.uk
magazine
18
The Sennheiser SC 660 is a premium
wired headset for all-day use in busy call
centres or offices. Designed for use with
deskphones, it provides HD voice clarity,
durability and all-day comfort. Patented
ActiveGard technology protects against
acoustic shock and sudden sound surges.
Paul Dunne,
Head of Channel
Sales, UK & Ireland,
Plantronics
organisations are failing to make
the most of. The Leesman Index, an
independent measure of workplace
effectiveness based on 110,000
employee responses, shows that only
54% of office environments are able
effectively to support modern work
styles. Almost half (46%) of contributors
specified 10 activities as important
to their everyday work. This is clearly
more than a single desk can support.
Yet still too many employers are failing
to provide the social, informal and
collaborative areas that are needed for
employees to work productively.
Technology, too, has a role to play in
helping office workers avoid distractions
– from notebooks, tablets and
smartphones that let employees work
anywhere to unified communications
(UC) clients that support remote
collaboration with colleagues.
Headsets are an important part of
the solution, too, and manufacturers
like Plantronics, Jabra and Sennheiser
have done much to raise awareness of
the consequences of unwanted noise in
offices.
Next year, for example, Plantronics
is opening a new HQ near Amsterdam
designed in conjunction with the
Leesman survey to support activity-
based working. The Soundscape Building
also uses soundscaping – the design of
internal and external acoustic zones – by
Julian Treasure to remove all sounds that
don’t support productivity. The Noise
Abatement Society (NAS) has already
awarded Plantronics The John Connell
Soundscape Award in recognition of its
use of Soundscape principles.
Well-being and mobility
Paul Dunne, Plantronics’ Head of Channel
Sales for the UK & Ireland, told
Business
Info
that there were two main reasons
why office workers might want to attach
a headset to their office phone.
“One is around well-being.We find
time and again it is good for people’s
health for them to stand up and walk
around when they are in the office.We
did a case study with Sage and saw
what an impact wireless headsets had
on their sales teams. The closure rate,
which had tended to decline in the
afternoons as sales people got tired,
remained very high throughout the day
when wireless headsets were used,” he
said.
“The other reason is mobility. If you
are surrounded by noisy colleagues or
need privacy, you can just walk away.
And if someone in the office has a
particularly loud voice, they can get up
and go somewhere else to make a call
so that they don’t disturb other people.”
Dunne added that hands-free
headsets also make it easier to multi-
task and are essential for mobile workers
equipped with laptops or other devices
running softphones.
“A headset tends to be seen as
an accessory if you attach it to a
handset, because you can still use
the deskphone. But in a softphone
environment, because shouting into
a laptop microphone in a coffee shop
is a poor experience for everyone,
headsets are viewed more as a system
component than an accessory. Our sales
have been really, really good for the last
few years, as more and more companies
look to support workers who collaborate
remotely.”
Another factor that Dunne says
is helping to generate interest in
headphones is on-going product
innovation including context-based
intelligence.
“We have put prototypes on the
market that can track head movements.
They are able to detect where you are
and what you are looking at. And our
products show whether they are being
worn or not. My headset is set up with
my PC, and if I stand up and walk more
than 10 metres away with my headset
on, my PC automatically locks down,”
he said.
Innovation is also evident in the
company’s consumer products. To
preserve battery life on the new
BackBeat SENSE smart wireless
headphones, built-in sensors
automatically pause music when the
headphones are taken off and gently
fade the music back in when they are put
back on again.
Whether their impact is greatest on
productivity or staff well-being, there is
little doubt that the interruptions and
distractions associated with open plan
offices need to be addressed. Headsets
are an important part of the solution.
Headsets
It is good for
people’s health
for them to
stand up and
walk around
when they are
in the office.
The global contact centre and office (CC&O)
headset market is on the cusp of rapid growth
driven by the expansion of software-based
communications clients, claims Frost & Sullivan
in a new report,
Analysis of the Global
Contact Center and Office Headset Market
.
In the next six years, CC&O revenues
are expected to double from $1.20 billion
in 2014 to $2.60 billion in 2021 as growing
awareness of the productivity and well-being
benefits of headsets and hands-free calling
drive greater adoption in enterprises.
Frost & Sullivan expects cordless headsets
to make up 31.2% of unit shipments and
58.2% of total CC&O headset revenue by
2021.
Unified Communications-enabled headset
revenue is expected to reach $1.51 billion
at the end of the forecast period, with a
compound annual growth rate of 19.4%
between 2014 and 2021.
Frost & Sullivan says demand for enterprise-
grade CC&O headsets will be restricted by
global macro-economic conditions that
limit investment in new communication
technologies and by the consumerisation of
IT and PC-based communications, which is
encouraging the use of cheaper consumer
headsets in the workplace.
...continued
Heading for growth
