Amber Hickman |
Organisations around the world are navigating changing work trends and establishing environments that allow their employees to be productive in a way that suits them. But what does this entail?
“The return to the office has been a big focus lately, and we’ve seen a lot of companies asking their employees to start coming back into the office,” says Tyler Troutman, manager of strategic market development at Shure. “But this doesn’t mean the hybrid experience is going away and there is a big focus on making sure that both in-person and hybrid employees have an equitable experience.”
Virtual conferencing over platforms such as Microsoft Teams is a vital part of creating a hybrid work environment. However, employee efficiency is diminished if organisations use low-quality audio technology that results in unclear voices, poor connectivity and inaccurate transcripts.
Shure aims to solve this issue by providing a full ecosystem of audio solutions, including microphones, digital signal processors and loudspeakers, that fit the needs of businesses wherever they are on their hybrid journey.
“Employees want to be able to collaborate and engage as a team and high-quality audio solutions are key to this,” says Troutman. “We work to ensure that audio pickup with our devices is the exact same for every single person in the room, wherever they are sat. This makes it so everyone is heard on the exact same level by external participants.”
Shure’s latest offering, an audio conferencing kit for small and medium conferencing rooms, is one such solution. The kit contains the Shure MXA902 Ceiling Array Microphone with built-in loudspeaker and the ANIUSB-MATRIX Audio Network Interface, which provides seamless connectivity to conferencing platforms like Teams. The devices are pre-routed and paired for user convenience.
“The main benefit of this kit is that it’s really a touchless system,” says Troutman. “In the past, a setup like this would require more configuration on the user side. Now we are doing that work for them. All the user has to do is pull it out of the box, plug it into the network and everything is ready for them to use.”
The out-of-the-box functionality makes it ideal for businesses just starting to establish hybrid workspaces, or those that don’t have the budget or time to invest in external sound engineering. Furthermore, by working with Microsoft to ensure the devices are Teams-certified, users don’t have to worry about compatibility issues and can get to work quickly.
According to Troutman, collaborating with Microsoft and ensuring smooth functionality with Teams is an important part of Shure’s mission to providing value for organisations.
“As the world is progressing more towards virtual Teams Rooms, developing our partnership with Microsoft is more valuable than ever as it is shaping the future at the application layer,” he says. “We are excited to continue working to provide audio solutions that optimise the tools they deliver and improve value and productivity for our joint customers.
“For example, those who are trying to understand how to maximise their return on investment with tools such as Copilot in Teams may face challenges. If they are getting poor transcription results because of poor audio, then they won’t recognise that return.”
Shure exhibited the MXA902 + ANIUSB-MATRIX Audio Conferencing Kit at Microsoft Ignite 2024, which Troutman says was a great opportunity to reach more customers and make them aware of how they can upgrade their collaborative spaces and assist Copilot performance by improving transcription accuracy with better audio.
Shure's new audio conferencing kit was exhibited at Microsoft Ignite 2024
“Microsoft Ignite is such a big show, and Teams only takes up part of that space, but we saw a lot of great traffic to the booth from existing customers, people who recognise our brand from the other industries we work in as well as those who have never heard of us before,” says Troutman. “We want people to get the most out of their Teams experience and so it has been great to show the potential of the new MXA902 as well as our other solutions.”
Discover more insights like this in the Winter 2024 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox!