A global meeting place

Telepresence is a new era in videoconferencing that attempts to put people from all over the world in the same room. To discover more, we hear from Odd Sverre Østlie of Tandberg.

“There are also productivity benefits that can be gained with telepresence. For example, the time saved and confusion eliminated by replacing phone and email communications with face-to-face video collaboration”
-Odd Sverre Østlie

How can telepresence deliver tangible benefits and even a competitive advantage for organisations today?
Odd Sverre Østlie. Organisations that have greater access to experts make quicker decisions and those who work closely with customers, suppliers and partners are more likely to be successful. Telepresence makes this all possible. It enables people to collaborate face-to-face regardless of distance, resulting in reduced travel and costs; all whilst unifying the organisation and increasing productivity. Its visual collaboration taken to an entirely new level, where thousands of details seamlessly work together to provide an immersive, natural forum that helps ensure everyone is on the same page. Research from the Aberdeen Group demonstrates that telepresence helps build customer relationships by enabling a 21 percent faster response time. This also helps to generate 22 percent more revenue from existing customers. Moreover, the instant face-to-face collaboration with experts and decision-makers anywhere in the world that telepresence enables helps speed up decision making and time to market.

What are the main drivers behind the adoption of telepresence? Is it cost savings, fluctuating fuel prices and meeting 'green' targets or are there other reasons?
OSØ. Costs savings, fuel prices and green targets are all drivers in the uptake of telepresence. Cost savings deliver the clearest ROI for telepresence and are typically measured as the money saved on the transportation, hotel, food and incidental costs associated with in-person meetings. A Forrester Research report published in February found that companies using telepresence save about 20 percent on travel annually. Moreover, a strategically placed telepresence implementation can pay for itself in a year or less.

In tough economic times, cost savings from travel reduction alone can justify new technology deployments, but many innovative companies have had the foresight to implement telepresence as a way to help achieve their environmental sustainability goals, such as TNT. The global express delivery company implemented telepresence as part of its 'Planet Me' programme and estimates a 20 percent reduction in travel, which has significantly reduced carbon emissions.

There are also productivity benefits that can be gained with telepresence. For example, the time saved and confusion eliminated by replacing phone and email communications with face-to-face video collaboration. Who hasn't been on an audio conference call wondering who – if anyone – was listening to them, or struggled to be heard while others talked over them? In addition, replacing an in-person meeting with a videoconference can save hours or even days in travel time. That is time that can be spent working more productively or even at home with family and friends.

Can you recount a recent solution you provided for a client and how it created better efficiencies?
OSØ. Mobile operator Vodafone started using TANDBERG video conferencing in 2006 and it has transformed the way they do business. Vodafone introduced a company-wide video conferencing programme that included 'VC lounges' and rewards for using video to incentivise employees. The programme has been a huge success. Their employees have fully embraced visual communications and the company has saved over 80,000 business trips during a three-year period. Vodafone has also saved more than 17,000 tonnes of CO2 from a reduction in business travel.

As technology evolves what does the future hold for telepresence?
OSØ. The future for TANDBERG telepresence is focused on making the experience more accessible and easier to tailor to any organisation's unique setting. One size does not fit all for telepresence; that's why we have already created options that scale to the scope of a deployment. As we move forward expect to see telepresence develop into two main streams; the traditional formal, fixed-format (for generation X), and a more fluid, informal style (for generation Y). For the latter expect to see increasingly immersive display types, interactive and touch-sensitive technologies and closer integration with advanced collaboration tools for people who are comfortable with technology. The future of telepresence will take the new way of working to the next level.

Odd Sverre Østlie, Vice President, Telepresence and Advanced Solutions Group, TANDBERG, is responsible for go-to-market strategy, overlay sales and integrated solutions for telepresence and unified communications including PC-based video. Prior to TANDBERG, he worked with Microsoft and McKinsey & Company. He holds a Master's degree in Industrial Economics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.