Video Conferencing and Telepresence ROI

Polycom® High Definition (HD) video and telepresence solutions give organizations a rapid Return On Investment (ROI) and can quickly deliver real cash savings.


Why HD Video Conferencing and Telepresence?

In the current tough economic environment, as executives tackle the challenge of reducing and containing costs, HD Video Conferencing and telepresence solutions have emerged as an easy answer. With increasing global economic uncertainty and constant change, more and more organizations are cutting travel budgets. Now it's easy for companies to get a rapid return on investment when they implement Polycom HD Video Conferencing and telepresence solutions due to the quick reduction in travel expenses, but even more beneficial is the time and productivity gains that are made by reducing constant travel.

Increasing Productivity

According to an IDC Research Survey, "Travel savings are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to telepresence ROI." Respondents to the survey cited up to a 30% increase in productivity after deploying video communications in their companies. The cost of hours and days wasted in transit can equal or exceed the actual cost of the travel itself. Companies also increase employee roductivity by using HD videoconferencing and telepresence solutions as part of a total unified communications environment.

Achieving an Agile Enterprise

When employees have collaboration tools like Polycom's HD video conferencing and telepresence solutions, tools that are easy to use and allow on-demand interaction, their enterprise experiences two fundamental changes:
• The business can "sense and respond" more quickly
• The quality of business decisions improves with "anywhere access" to vital information and key personnel

In fact, enterprises use Polycom collaboration solutions to achieve significant gains with mainstream business processes and workflows that involve fixed location employees as well as mobile and virtual workers.

Lowering Overhead Costs with Collaboration Tools

When fewer employees and contractors need to report to a centralized work location, your company has the opportunity to reduce its cost structure, both immediately and over time. This translates into consolidated real estate holdings and savings from lower energy bills and reduced spending on office furniture, parking spaces, security, and food services.

How Polycom Delivers ROI

Cut one business trip for a few employees who either travel across the U.S. or to Europe or Asia and you've paid for a Polycom telepresence system. Polycom customers — such as Deloitte, W.R. Grace, CoStar and the Virginia Supreme Court — are saving millions of dollars per year thanks to Polycom telepresence and HD video solutions. Many Polycom HD video conferencing and telepresence customers see a complete ROI for their investments in as little as one to six months. Travel savings are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to telepresence ROI. Polycom customers tell us that the time they save by not travelling is more valuable than the dollars saved.

Gaining Affordable Training with Collaboration Tools

Traditionally, a significant amount of business travel involves employee training, conducted internally and with partners and suppliers. Using HD videoconferencing and telepresence collaboration tools, companies now train new employees at dramatically reduced expense. Allstate Insurance, for example, annually trains an averageof 2,000 new agents. Today they train on a video conferencing network so students can fully participate remotely without having to travel to the physical center. Another example is Owens-Illinois (O-I) who now offers government-mandated training using a distance learning video application. This training once required participants to leave their manufacturing locations for an entire week. With savings on airfare, hotels, meals and employee productivity, O-I is conservatively saving half a million dollars a year.

Streamlining Interviews and Hiring with Collaboration Tools

In HR, the use of Polycom HD video conferencing and telepresence solutions is being broadly adopted because it speeds the entire recruitment, interviewing, and hiring process and reduces travel-related expenses. Polycom solutions help cut hiring timelines and associated travel costs by streamlining the interactions between HR, executive recruiters, and candidates. By holding interviews remotely, organizations can also record and archive sessions, so other stakeholders can review them and help ensure the best possible hiring decisions. Faster placement of a key individual has competitive implications, as well. Beyond “scooping” rival companies on a valuable resource, with shorter recruitment intervals, the new employee can make productive contributions sooner. Overall, the increase in productivity and the savings in time and costs are huge.

Using Collaboration Tools to Speed Time-to-Market

Using Polycom videoconferencing and telepresence tools to accelerate the pace of business can significantly impact other key business workflows. For example, your company can use them to tighten the links between departments, groups and key partners and suppliers to reduce product development cycles. The entire lifecycle schedule can be cut—from upfront needs assessment, validation and design, to testing, quality assurance and market introduction—using integrated collaboration tools. And your company benefits by getting your offering out the door faster.

Opening New Doors with HD Video Conferencing and Telepresence

One of the most significant benefits of telepresence and HD video conferencing is that it allows organizations to do things that were previously impossible. Innovative applications include remote quality assurance, telemedicine in prison systems, and telejustice systems that improve public safety by allowing prisoners to be arraigned without leaving jail facilities. And every day the list of uses grows as businesses discover productive—and lucrative—ways to use video communications.

Lowering Your Corporate Carbon Footprint

Finally, with the growing emphasis on energy efficiency and “green” policies, video conferencing is a way to directly lower a company’s carbon footprint. Less time traveling by plane or car means fewer carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Polycom customers use telepresence and HD video systems to meet their green initiatives. Often, the carbon reductions are immediate and impressive (one company reduced its costs by 41 percent in France and 49 percent in the UK in the first three months of use.)

Find out more.

Explore how Polycom solutions can help you be more productive while reducing costs. Call Platinum Cerified Polycom Reseller, IVCI at 1-800-224-7083, or visit us online at www.ivci.com today.