Market Overview

As the state of emergency was lifted in April 2020 over the COVID-19 crisis, many companies and organizations in Japan introduced telework.
In this research, online survey was conducted on 500 male/female workers of offices in 7 prefectures for which the state of emergency was declared on April 7. Of 4 types of online tools (web conferencing systems, live chat tools, online storage, and task/project management tools), use of video conferencing systems scored a highest ratio, almost reaching 80%, followed by live chat at about half (46.2%). On the other hand, task/project management tools was at lowest, 8.4%. The result demonstrates that the use of online tools increased significantly in a very short term, as many users responded that they had never used video conferencing system or live chat until telework was introduced because of the outbreak of COVID-19.

Noteworthy Topics

Domestic Demand for Video/Web Conferencing Systems Market Expected to Grow Significantly in FY2020

According to the survey on the trends among IT vendors on telework related solutions, the video/web conferencing market attained 4.05 million yen for FY2019, increasing by 4.7% from the preceding fiscal year (based on the sales at businesses).
In FY2019, introduction of video/web conferencing system was encouraged by the investments on telework environment in preparation for the opening of the Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games scheduled for July 2020, the viewpoint of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) among businesses as countermeasure for natural disasters like typhoons/earthquakes, and the penetration of work-style reform. For FY2020, demand is increasing tremendously especially for video conferencing systems as a response to the Coronavirus outbreak, thus the market is projected to reach 4.875 million yen, 120.4% compared to the previous fiscal year. As the result of the survey showed almost 80% of teleworkers used video conferencing systems, it is assumed to be playing a significant role as facilitator of telework.  


 

Future Outlook

Online tools of teleworking solutions are expected to pervade hereafter, as a great number of workers (management level and general workers) that had no use experience till then discovered its convenience during telework due to COVID-19.
Typically, as web conferencing systems can dramatically streamline with no geographic or time constraints, its use is expected to rise not only as a substitution for face-to-face meetings but also for a wide range of usage, including events like seminars, sales activities, and job interviews. Live chat tools are also projected to increase as handy replacements for emails and telephones. Nevertheless, instead of being two separate tools, live chat tools and web conferencing systems may be combined into a single communication tool. 


 

Research Outline