Many companies are talking about the advantages of video conferencing. But what results can you expect? How much more productivity will you see? What does the boost to collaboration look like? Which business units benefit most? Get the answers here.
W H I T E P AP E R S e e i n g I s B e l i e v i n g : T h e V a l u e o f V i d e o C o l l a b o r a t i o n Sponsored by: Polycom William Stofega April 2007
I N T R O D U C T I O N More than just a buzzword, collaboration has become a key and much sought after moc competitive differentiator. Enterprises seek to harness the power of collaboration to .cdi extract the benefits that can be derived from interunit relationships. In some cases, .ww these benefits can be characterized as internal, including cost savings and the ability w to bring products to market faster. Collaboration is especially valuable for large global 51 corporations with offices that are dispersed throughout the world. Although these 04. remote offices are part of the same company, geographic isolation creates silos of 539. expertise that often go untapped, affecting competitive advantage. In other cases, the 805 benefits of collaboration move beyond the internal boundaries of the corporation and .F create integrated and tighter relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners. In 00 some cases, collaboration helps companies incorporate customer feedback into the 28. product design process, enabling products that better fit expectations and purpose. 278. Whether external or internal, collaboration enables companies to extend the value of 80 their products or services to their customers and positively affects the top and bottom 5.P lines. ASU Of course, simply fashioning a corporate policy that promotes collaboration does 107 little to realize the benefits. In fact, the value of collaboration as a competitive 10 advantage resides precisely in the challenge of executing it and creating a corporate AM environment and ecosystem that allows its advantages to take root. Part of the ,ma challenge resides in giving employees the tools they need to set up a collaborative hg environment and in offering training so they can benefit from these capabilities. nimarF Videoconferencing has emerged as an important collaborative tool that can remove te geographical boundaries, encourage frequent discussions between disparate ertS business units, increase productivity, and deliver a competitive advantage. neepS Videoconferencing and collaboration have become indispensable tools for doing 5 : business, according to IDC's interviews with end users. All respondents stated that sretr video had become a critical communications tool. In fact, video had become so au important to corporations that the business case for purchasing and deploying a new qda system often was no longer necessary. According to an interview with the TÜV NORD eH l Group, a testing and standards company based in Europe, the value of its new IP-abol based videoconferencing system was so well established that it no longer needed to G capture usage metrics to cost-justify the purchase of the system. In addition, the TÜV NORD Group reported that its usage of videoconferencing is less about cost reduction and more about collaborative opportunities that are enabled by videoconferencing. Videoconferencing historically had been used as a tool to reduce
travel time and costs; now, however, corporations are beginning to utilize videoconferencing to increase productivity and business process efficiencies.
Also, the introduction of videoconferencing can have positive, unforeseen benefits. For instance, simply assembling all the individuals responsible for a particular project can help bond team members and give them a boost in morale. Involved in a corporate makeover, TÜV Nord felt that the installation and deployment of videoconferencing enhanced its company image, projecting a more modern and technically savvy company to potential customers. Although not a multinational corporation, TÜV Nord felt that videoconferencing enabled it to project a larger presence into markets than it had previously.
O V E R V I E W O F I N T E R V I E W S
Our interview process focused on understanding how enterprises are using video to move beyond mere cost savings to collaboratively enable efficient product development cycles as well as gain competitive advantage. IDC found the impact of videoconferencing to be widespread from corporate to v... [download for more]
