Have you ever heard about a company spending large amounts of money for videoconferencing equipment and it gets underutilized? In one case a company spent more than one half million of their capital budget to deploy videoconferencing on their worldwide network and ended up with less than 5% utilization. Needless to say, there was no return on investment. There are basically 3 reasons for this failure – (See the article in this web site: “3 reasons why videoconferencing fails or falls short after a deployment
“).
There is however an overall problem with a very simple solution. Have you ever walked into a conference room and seen a speaker phone on the conference table — One that you have never seen before? Chances are you can make a call from this speaker phone immediately, only asking if you need to dial 9 for an outside line. Maybe there was a laminated reference card on the conference table that included dialing instructions and phone extensions to key personnel in the company. In any event more often than not there is no need to call a technical person to make a simple conference call with just about any speaker phone. Videoconferencing in a conference room should be exactly the same. Anybody should be able to walk in, pick up the remote and connect a videoconference call from the system’s phone book or easily dial a videoconference IP number.
We offer a bundle program whereby we combine the circuit with the hardware. The client does not have to spend any capital budget on the equipment. It’s all consolidated into one low monthly fee. The package makes videoconferencing simple and reliable because it does not touch the client’s existing network. (See Reason 1 – in the article “3 reasons why videoconferencing fails or falls short after a deployment“). We specified a simple yet robust videoconferencing CODEC. They can connect a computer into the back just like an LCD projector and present from a distance easily with the push of one simple button on the remote. In the event someone needs help, we prepared a laminated remote reference chart for each deployment. There are also 800 support numbers for both the network and the system — We are still waiting for someone to call us. Now we know what the “Maytag Repairman” feels like. So far nobody has needed to refer to the plastic remote reference chart. This is good news for this particular product — Videoconferencing should really be that simple.
The hardware deployment failed if you needed to call tech support to make a videoconference call. This is a “failure to launch” — This is inexcusable. Videoconferencing should be simple and easy just like a speaker phone. The next challenge is the other annoying office appliance, the copy machine! — But that’s another story all together.
(Solve the problem with “Worry free videoconferencing“)
J.W. Hornyak Videoconferencing & Telecommunications
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