Unified Communications major Polycom said beer major HEINEKEN is using Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions.
Polycom video has enabled HEINEKEN’s London and Edinburgh offices to reduce travel costs by over £250,000.
HEINEKEN also reduced travel of its field sales people across the UK. The beer major also increased communication between the London office and the head office in Edinburgh, increased communication between manufacturing sites.
Polycom assisted HEINEKEN to save 160 tons of CO2 in 12 months – the equivalent of 1,270 car journeys between Edinburgh and London or 752 return flights between Edinburgh and London.
HEINEKEN wanted to increase communication between the UK head office in Edinburgh and its offices and manufacturing sites situated throughout the UK, while reducing the amount of travel its field sales force of over 500 people undertake.
HEINEKEN has over 11 video-enabled rooms in the UK to complement the existing 160 units installed in over 50 countries across the world including the Netherlands, Mexico, Romania, Poland, and the U.S.
The new UK solutions include Polycom RealPresence Immersive video suites and Polycom RealPresence Room video solutions.
Polycom CMA Desktop enables HEINEKEN’S workforce to use the concierge service from Talk and Vision to participate in any of over 8,000 video conferences held across HEINEKEN globally every year.
The Polycom OTX Room video solutions are being utilized for a wide variety of meetings – from board meetings to interdepartmental meetings and HR interviews. Additionally, people in Edinburgh can easily assess individuals in London without the need for travelling.
“The high-definition quality, ease-of-use, and the almost life-like realism of people at the other end of the Polycom video conferencing system has led to larger usage demand for video conferences, with people booking repeat meetings much more frequently,” said Brendan Rafferty, IT Architect for HEINEKEN.
Through the use of the Polycom RealPresence Platform, HEINEKEN has a unified video conferencing collaboration solution that combines multi-party voice, video, and content collaboration sessions together. And they are looking to continue to promote video conferencing through virtual meeting rooms, whether voice or video.
As usage continues to grow, HEINEKEN is investigating Polycom RealPresence Mobile software running on iPad’s to enable staff to make video calls and conduct face-to-face meetings into the video collaboration suites easily in the future.
“We have a distributed workforce across a number of different types of sites, head offices, call centers, and manufacturing facilities. I think it will be powerful when all employees can from their PC simply look to see who’s available, invite them into a voice call, or even bring them straight into a video call or room system all at the click of a button,” said Jem Anderton, IT Innovation and Solution Development Manager for HEINEKEN.
