Putting telepresence to work

Ben Hobby, General Manager of BT Conferencing Video Unit, discusses how to find a virtual meeting solution that is both technically sophisticated and cost effective.

“Global and dispersed workforces, minimised budgets, and increased corporate social responsibility have positioned video as an obvious and necessary communications tool”
-Ben Hobby

Finding the right solution to meet your business goals is critical. It is important to start with your business needs and objectives and build a solution from there. For example, researching and understanding how many meetings can be replaced with conferencing and the number of people that need access to facilities. These key factors along with overall business objectives such as cutting carbon emissions and travel costs will help determine the right solutions for you. Travel costs for face-to-face meetings are a major avoidable cost, but only if the alternatives to doing business are economically viable, user-friendly and business quality. Audio, web and videoconferencing offer such solutions and increasing numbers of organisations are discovering the business benefits they can help deliver. These solutions are the means by which people can experience effective, unified and real-time collaboration. As an example, experience with our customers show that for an organisation of 10,000 people, typical travel costs for face-to-face meetings is approximately €117. Conferencing typically replaces 52 percent of face-to-face meetings, yielding a €1.33 million P&L saving.

Carefully matching the communication medium to the message is critical to the success of communication. Nonverbal cues delivered face-to-face (in person or over video) can determine the success or failure of communication. Video allows full interactivity and immediate feedback. Telepresence takes this to the next level with life-size, crystal clear images, as well as rooms built to give you the experience of being in the same room. In today's business landscape, factors such as global and dispersed workforces, minimised budgets, and increased corporate social responsibility have also positioned video as an obvious and necessary communications tool. With video, the ROI benefits commonly identified as having the most immediate impact are the efficient use of executive time and reduced travel. However, video also serves as a critical communication tool in preserving the face-to-face phase of relationship management, across departments, business-to-business and between partners.

Investment in video systems is one thing, but investment in managing those systems and full usage and adoption is another. The financial and environmental benefits from increasing use of conferencing can be quantified. However, it is easy to overlook the human factor issues when trying to change the meetings culture. To get widespread adoption, you have to get people using the technology, and experiencing how valuable it can be. A significant amount of effort and ongoing user support is required to maximise the use of audio and videoconferencing. Such as experience in driving and setting up adoption programmes, training, helpdesk support and proactive service monitoring. 

BT Conferencing provides tools that track usage of systems and calculate the savings, not only in numbers of flights and miles, but also, using your metrics, the amount of money and CO2 saved. Using these tools you can show figures on the ROI in video. A major electronic manufacturer has saved itself over €1.7m over eight months by utilising a fully managed Cisco Telepresence solution.

In today's uncertain environment it is very important to keep your key employees and business functions working effectively. Establishing a conferencing culture, whether this be audio, web and/or video, means that when there are obstacles to working, whether they be adverse weather conditions or a power cut in your office, your business is ready to communicate effectively through this, wherever your employees may be. The key element is making sure this is in place before a crisis takes place. When looking to implement a conferencing solution, there is no 'one size fits all approach'. The right solution, that will give you maximum return, will be dependant on your individual business needs, objectives and budget. This is where BT Conferencing and Cisco can work with you to establish what is right for your organisation. With more reasons to implement a solution, why not contact us for a free consultation.

Ben Hobby leads the video product, service and marketing operations for the EMEA region and has been in the conferencing industry for 12 years. Prior to BT Conferencing, Hobby was with Wire One where he focused his efforts on managing and driving international sales efforts. He holds a degree in Management Studies from Reading University.