Polycom Introduces Adoption Services For Video Collaboration In Enterprises

Polycom, Inc., an open standards-based unified communications provider, has unveiled Polycom Adoption Services, four new services designed to help enterprises rapidly accelerate user adoption and the returns on their investments of Polycom RealPresence video solutions, whether on the go or in a home office, work office, conference room, or immersive telepresence theater.

Polycom Adoption Services are built around an innovative adoption methodology developed by Polycom. The services incorporate best practices that have been proven to broaden adoption of Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions among customers, partners and employees.

For organisations looking to accelerate their rate of return from any enterprise deployment, including video collaboration solutions, widespread user adoption is essential. Surveys have found that user adoption is far and away the most important factor for realising value from an investment in any enterprise solution.

Once video collaboration becomes part of a company’s daily workflow, bottom-line benefits, such as increased productivity and reduced travel and op-ex, add up quickly. In fact, customers report that Polycom video collaboration saves them an average of 24 percent in sales-related costs and 30 percent in travel costs, while accelerating time-to-market an average of 24 percent. These and other benefits typically pay for a Polycom solution within a year or less. At the same time, users themselves quickly discover that embracing video collaboration saves them time, reduces their business travel, enables them to communicate more effectively and make more informed decisions, and allows them to achieve better work-life balance by reducing time spent away from home.

Enabling A Cultural Shift By Focusing On The User Experience

Polycom Adoption Services address essential aspects of adoption to deliver an optimal user experience from the first moments of planning through implementation and widespread use. The new adoption services are:

• Adoption Consulting: To establish a framework for adoption, Polycom consultants conduct surveys and interviews to assess business needs, objectives, and the technology environment, as well as individual user needs to help create the solution design that enables a simple and reliable user experience that is essential for successful adoption.

• Adoption Portal: This service offers a scalable, cost-effective, and user-friendly alternative to expensive and unwieldy on-site training. Adoption Portal is a turnkey package for creating a customised online user resource that features an array of video tutorials, how-to’s, FAQs, and other content illustrating how users can make video collaboration part of their everyday workflow.

• Adoption Campaign: Enterprises can accelerate adoption by engaging users with a promotional campaign that reinforces the value and advantages of video collaboration. Polycom provides customisable banners, posters, videos and email communications – all echoing a “Go Video” theme while directing users to the company’s video portal.

• RealPresence Analytics: This cloud-based service is built around an easy-to-use reporting solution that helps accurately gauge adoption through in-depth measurement and analysis. Easily customised reports track adoption across several metrics, and advanced analytics help inform ongoing planning and resource allocation plans by enabling customers to identify usage patterns, service quality and cost trends.

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A Holistic Approach to Adoption Across the Enterprise**

The four new services augment Polycom’s existing technology optimisation services, which help customers, ensure that their network, infrastructure and video environments are capable of meeting the needs of users .By engaging expert support from Polycom or one of its partners, customers can achieve a 360-degree approach to adoption across the enterprise. Polycom’s Global Services organisation also offers a full range of services to maximise customers’ ROI throughout the product lifecycle, from design and deployment to maintenance, management (including managing integration with Microsoft Lync, IBM Same time and other UC platforms) and optimisation of existing solutions.

“Today, Polycom sets a new standard by introducing new services specifically devoted to helping customers create a culture of collaboration across their enterprise and, in doing so, accelerate user adoption and their ROI from Polycom Real Presence solutions,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom’s President of Products and Services. “Polycom Adoption Services, and the methodology on which they are based, focus on the user experience from the earliest planning phase through implementation and beyond.”

PolycomRealPresence video solutions – which range from mobile apps and desktop software to group video systems and immersive theaters – are powered by the PolycomRealPresence Platform. The RealPresence Platform provides robust provisioning, management, scalability, reliability, flexibility and security. Because of Polycom’s focus on interoperability, the Real Presence Platform transforms islands of fragmented communications systems into a seamless culture of collaboration, with enterprise-grade video easily and securely accessible to all authorised personnel whether they’re mobile, remote, or on-site.