Located at the stunning Mythenquai on Lake Zurich, Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich)’s redeveloped global headquarters the Quai Zurich Campus has recently been redesigned to bring together heritage properties and state-of-the-art new buildings. The campus provides Zurich employees with a modern and inspiring environment to foster creativity and support new ways of working. Avocor displays, designed for collaborative working, are installed in over 150 rooms across the Quai Zurich Campus.

“For the meeting rooms in our new corporate headquarters, we were looking for a high-quality touch screen ‘family’ ranging from 55 inch to 86 inch diagonals. Avocor’s offering met our expectations on haptics, speed, accuracy and versatility, without breaching our high standards on sustainability. Their reliability and their support service, based on a year of operation, is amongst the best we have seen.”

– Oliver Tschichold, Project Director, Quai Zurich IT/AV

The Avocor interactive display solutions have been rolled out over more than 150 rooms across four buildings, with Avocor G-Series in both large and medium-sized meeting rooms, as well as some of the open areas, and Avocor E-Series across smaller meeting spaces and 2-4 person offices.

Read the full Avocor success story >> 

What challenges were you looking to solve with video conferencing?

As our team grew, we needed a more efficient way to maintain vital face-to-face communication. This was particularly important for our leisure business, FNTC, as maintaining regular contact was a challenge with clients located thousands of miles away.

Why did you choose Lifesize for team collaboration?

Historically, we used cumbersome, labor-intensive, on-premise solutions that were tricky to navigate. Our last system required us to upload firmware updates and make changes to the directory manually, which was time consuming. Lifesize, on the other hand, is a robust multipurpose collaboration tool that caters to day-to-day and ad-hoc use and is simple to use from an office or on the move. Another factor was that Lifesize has a local supplier in the Isle of Man, which made the transition particularly smooth. Having a network of local support professionals available to help with training and installation was a strong selling point.

How was the enablement handled?

We worked closely with our partner during the initial rollout. One-to-one training was delivered to key personnel as each account was created, and there were free onboarding sessions available from the Lifesize Community, where I recently became Member of the Quarter.

The Lifesize Community is a great site that offers help and advice to everyone from vendors to administrators and end users. I have been able to download useful how-to guides and quick reference cards that we display in each of our boardrooms across the Group.

Which features do you use most and why?

The latest Amplify feature is something we see being used to great effect by both the marketing and training teams. We run a leadership program, and the use of face-to-face video helps us create more meaningful managerial training as employees progress and develop their careers.

How has video changed the way your business operates?

Video conferencing is a fantastic tool that enables our team to hold meetings regardless of the weather, transport delays or other scenarios that prevent face-to-face communication. We no longer need to take unnecessary time away from our desks and can avoid lengthy meetings when ad-hoc discussions suffice. The flexibility is a real benefit and provides a welcome boost to morale by reducing travel and empowering our team to fit their meetings around their own schedules. First Names Group is spread across the globe, and the ability to bring people together in one meeting has a massive impact on our team.

More information?

• Read the Q&A as a PDF here

“Although our departments are spread over many locations, we must all work closely together to make decisions. We need to be in regular contact to discuss important, time critical topics. And we also use WebEx for application support and to deliver training.”

Andreas Moch, technology engineer at DVB Bank.

The bank responded by launching a transformational IT project with the aim of optimizing its business processes and its collaboration capabilities. With only a small team to oversee IT operations worldwide, the bank also needed an open platform that would be low-touch from a management point of view.

Solution

As part of a formal tender, DVB Bank compared a variety of video and unified communications solutions before deciding to partner with Cisco. The bank was also eager to reduce complexity and integration requirements. Having been a Cisco voice customer for many years, it saw the administrative and management advantages of maintaining a homogeneous IT environment.

DVB Bank selected the Cisco® Business Edition 6000 to provide its unified communications and collaboration foundation. Because its software is virtualized on the powerful Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS®) C200 Series Rack Server, Business Edition 6000 immediately reduced the bank’s hardware footprint and heating and cooling costs with a centrally managed platform that’s simple to manage and highly resilient with easy access to major upgrades.

In addition, DVB Bank implemented a range of Cisco Collaboration applications, video being a principal component, combined with Cisco WebEx® and Jabber™ for extension to videophones, desktops, and mobile devices.

“We primarily use Cisco TelePresence in our video conference rooms. In the last few months we’ve installed many Cisco videophones so people can take part in video calls, or dial in to telepresence sessions. And with Cisco Jabber they can take part in a video call from their PC when at home or a remote location, making the interaction richer and more personal.”

Cisco Jabber has been deployed to 600 users. This unified communications client application delivers a range of services including presence, IM, voice, access to voice messages, video, and desktop sharing.

“Jabber is helpful for everyone. With the presence status, we can see if a colleague is in the office, in a meeting, or on a telephone call. If it’s a simple question, we can use IM to get a response in seconds. We no longer have to write a long email, or leave a lengthy voicemail.”

The telepresence components include 11 Cisco TelePresence System Quick Set C20 and Codec C40 systems deployed worldwide. Cisco Video Communication Server (VCS) Expressway securely delivers video conferencing with external parties, while Cisco TelePresence® Management Suite provides complete control of multiparty conferencing infrastructure and endpoints. Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Control Unit forms a conferencing bridge and ensures optimal high definition (HD) multimedia experience.

Cisco WebEx Meetings is used company-wide for web conferencing, team meetings, and training sessions. Since participants may be using devices with small screens, DVB Bank prefers to use the solution mainly for meetings where presentations have to be shown onscreen and for desktop sharing, rather than for video. Finally, the integration of Cisco Unified MeetingPlace with WebEx has helped the bank reduce audio conferencing costs.

Finally, the bank decided to purchase its collaboration products using Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing.

“With Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing, we now have a scalable, pay-as-you grow strategy approach and access to the solutions we needed to meet our current and future needs. That solution was both financially and technically attractive.”

Results

DVB Bank has replaced disparate communication systems with one global communications platform, and introduced new collaboration tools, resulting in smoother business processes and increased efficiency and organizational agility.The bank has made video pervasive and accessible to more people on more devices. DVB Bank continues to embed video within its business processes and come up with innovative use cases.

With Cisco Jabber, staff can always see the real time status of colleagues and their preferred method of contact (telephone, mobile, IM, and so on) using softphones and click-to-dial features to initiate a call, WebEx Meeting, or video session. No more leaving messages and waiting for people to call back, which means faster and improved decision-making.

HR specialist Monika Ritter describes her experience:

“I use Jabber for quick IMs and for calls using click-to-dial. Cisco TelePresence and WebEx are very useful tools that were tested to deliver presentations from department heads as part of an induction program for new joiners. And we’ve used WebEx to record and make training available to people who were unable to attend live events.”

Ritter has also seen the benefit of having faster, simpler methods to communicate with colleagues

“You can discuss more information, review presentations, and share your desktop, so it’s much more interactive than just speaking on the phone. With WebEx, we know that everyone in the meeting is looking at the same page or document. I also find it very useful to have a list of favorites in my Cisco Jabber so I can see if colleagues are at their desks or not. I use this function a lot. It comes in handy!”

Product List

• Cisco Business Edition 6000
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 9971
• Cisco Unity Connection
• Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing
• Cisco Jabber for Windows 9
• Cisco WebEx Meetings
• Cisco Unified MeetingPlace
• Cisco Unified Presence
• Cisco Telepresence system C20 and C40 Codecs
• Cisco TelePresence Management Suite
• Cisco Video Communications Server Control & Expressway
• Cisco Unified Communication System C200 M2 Rack Server

See the full PDF case study here

To discuss your Unified Communications Requirements, please contact VideoCentric.

BBVA is a global institution spread across 30 companies, and required a solution to enable employees to communicate on-the-go, and in the conference room, with emphasis on security and interoperability. Find out more about the challenge, solution & results here.