Customer Story: NEC Europe
NEC Philips Unified Solutions has integrated a Europe-wide collaborative conferencing solution for NEC Europe, the regional headquarters of NEC. The solution combines a 360-degree view of the conference room, high-quality audio, and video that tracks the flow of conversation, with presence, Instant Messaging and other collaborative features for the ultimate user experience. Deployed across 14 NEC locations throughout Europe – including Sweden, Netherlands, Poland and the UK – this state-of-the-art conferencing solution is expected to significantly improve business efficiency as well as providing major time and cost savings by removing the need for outsourced audio conferencing services. It will also substantially reduce business travel time and the carbon footprint for the NEC Europe executive team.
Prior to the installation, European monthly management meetings took place in London, resulting in very high travel costs and sub-optimal use of working hours. In addition, the excessive travel time provided a poor ‘work-life’ balance that did not match the company’s ethos. The organisation is now reaping both the cost and efficiency benefits resulting from the deployment of the new collaborative conferencing solution.
Sejal Shah, Technical Consultant NEC Europe explains, “By implementing this new solution we have managed to reduce the number of face-to-face meetings the management team are having to one every quarter, which has dramatically improved our efficiency and must have an effect on our carbon footprint.” The solution uses one centrally located server from which the 14 client devices in the various countries work, simplifying the administration and management of the solution. Meetings are scheduled through the Microsoft Exchange email system although the virtual meeting environment is powered by a combination of Microsoft Office Communications Server, RoundTable and LiveMeeting.
The solution integrates voice, video and instant messaging technologies into a collaborative virtual meeting space that offers users the ability to present, whiteboard, as well as share and manipulate documents in real time. There were several complexities that needed to be considered before the installation could be completed, including the integration of the solution into the existing communication and email system. Sejal Shah continues “The project management was exemplary. Knowing that we wanted to deploy the system simultaneously throughout all participating countries presented a major logistical and planning challenge. The team from NEC Philips not only delivered this detailed plan, but delivered exactly against the plan they presented.”
Sejal Shah continues, “NEC Philips anticipated every potential problem and combated it with extensive training prior to the install, which was then followed by tailored instruction to ensure that everyone had the required knowledge. For an international roll-out by a multi-language team – where for many of the users, English is not their first language – it was potentially fraught with problems. With meticulous planning the NEC Philips team pulled it together with ease.”
Following the successful rollout of the new solution, NEC Europe has an ideal foundation to develop its Unified Communications strategy going forward by adopting other IP based technologies, including the potential of integrating with NEC’s portfolio for unified communications. NEC offers a complete portfolio for UNIVERGE unified communications, wireless, voice, data and managed services, as well as systems integration and application development. Sejal Shah concludes, “The conferencing solution is potentially just the tip of the iceberg. It has provided us with a solution with very clear and instant benefits, but also a basis upon which we can expand into the future.”
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