Cut the Commute & Help the Environment
A great deal has been debated over the years about the commercial benefits of Video Conferencing (VC). While manufacturers have become more excited about savings gained in management time and the cost of travel, the real benefits of video conferencing to the wider community are only just starting to be realised.
It is somewhat surprising to find that organisations are only just starting to consider the green agenda, and how they can help reduce their carbon footprint, but haven’t realised that VC can help them achieve just that. The underlying arguments are no longer just in the commercial gains for a company that uses the technology, but their approach to adopting collaborative working practices and how they can reduce carbon emissions.
The Benefits
Any organisation that can demonstrate, a 20% reduction in executive travel time because they have invested in ‘worthwhile technology’ has more to shout about than one that says ‘technology has put an additional 20% to my bottom line’. Being conscious of carbon emissions has definitely become a consideration for most senior management. Add to this a degree of growing employee demand for desktop collaboration tools such as Video Conferencing, makes interactive communication a much more viable approach to meeting a green agenda whilst human contact is kept personal.
Nigel Williams, Sales Director at Voyager comments “In today’s workplace, an entirely new generation is demanding far more accessible, interactive digital content. In particular demand for video content through social networking sites, webcams and mobile phones is undoubtedly driving this trend and impacting the technology and communication tools that employees expect to be present within today’s working environment”.
From a technology perspective, the underlying cost of implementation and operating a professional Video Conferencing solution is declining as infrastructure costs for core components and high quality display screens are reducing. However, the greatest impact on cost is the shift from ISDN to IP as the backbone of most systems now being installed.
However, even with changing employee attitudes, pressure on senior management for reducing carbon footprints, the development of IP based Video Conferencing technology and IP implementation costs reducing; only a relatively small percentage of companies have invested in the technology. This that the opportunity for organisations to gain competitive advantage is huge.
Changing business behaviour
Business travel is clearly a major part of company carbon emissions. Whether the journey is a long-haul flight or a 50 mile drive to the office and back, technology offers ways to cut down on the need for physical presence, without losing the human contact that remains an essential part of doing business effectively.
Cisco, for instance, has a highly mobile workforce. In 2006, company employees flew a billion miles. Under the Clinton Global Initiative on Climate Change, Cisco’s chairman and CEO, John Chambers, announced that Cisco would slash its carbon footprint over 2007, largely through a cut in the number of air miles travelled.
To make this possible, new organisational and collaborative models were developed in order to achieve this objective. The project was part of a $20 million investment in Cisco Unified Communications collaborative technologies called “Carbon to Collaboration” that aims to reduce the need for physical travel at Cisco by 20 percent, thereby reducing carbon emissions by a minimum of 10 percent and saving over $100 million.
The new collaborative model is also having a dramatic effect on some of Cisco’s employees. Based on an internal case study, calculations by a Cisco Vice President represent a carbon reduction of 57 percent in air travel-related carbon emissions for FY 2008 compared to those of FY 2006.
Cisco Unified Videoconferencing solutions are enabling their partners and customers to improve their connectivity and collaboration with a broad range of room and desktop video systems, including Cisco Unified Communications Manager, video telephony, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace and Cisco TelePresence.
TelePresence conferencing.
These products along many other vendor solutions are providing high performance, flexible, and scalable video conferencing solutions for small
and large organisations.
Video Conferencing and Random House Group
As such one of Voyager’s longest standing customers The Random House Group has been using video conferencing since 2006. The Tandberg VC system has been implemented during several phases of their IP implementation at their Vauxhall Bridge Road, Frating, Ealing, Virgin Books and Dublin sites. The solution was installed to reduce the amount of trips that various employees were making to New York to visit their American Head Quarters. The solution which is based on a IP infrastructure but also has the capability of using ISDN.
Alan Henderson, ICT Director at Random House comments “The new video conferencing system installed by Voyager has had significant benefits to Random House. We have saved valuable time and money on overseas travel as we can now simply set up a video conference with our colleagues at our New York office. Not only this we have also been able to cut the amount of trips our staff undertake in the UK which has meant more effective use of their time by cutting travelling times. We are of course fully aware of the green issues that face us in today’s global marketplace and are confident that if Random House can make this step for a greener approach to travel that other companies can too”.
Nigel Williams, comments further “We believe the investment that we have made in Cisco Unified Technologies and the incorporation of Polycom and Tandberg brands into Cisco infrastructures are contributing to customers’ communications strategies, as well as contributing to lowering carbon emissions and we are happy to advise and play our part in changing business behaviour when tackling the green issue”.
