Professional Documents
Culture Documents
country:
Worldwide
business challenge:
Dispersed geographical spread,
yet a culture of face-to-face
collaboration, created the need
to reduce travel costs and boost
productivity.
Existing videoconferencing systems
werent open standard and
couldnt interoperate with internal
and external systems.
BAT became the first company
in Europe to install Ciscos Active
Collaboration Room (ACR).
solution:
Converged communications insight,
experience and project management,
coupled with global supply
chain management.
services:
Professional services, consulting,
supply chain management
results:
Videoconferencing infrastructure
was replaced at 25 BAT sites across
five continents in only six months;
reducing cost, risk, and business
disruption.
Videoconferencing options
included meeting room systems
and audio visual functionality.
The speed and precision with
which the range of technologies
was deployed to locations around
the world reduced the risk of
replacing BATs entire estate in one
project.
Simultaneous deployment of
multiple technologies throughout
BATs organisation also ensured
that the collaborative workstyle
wasnt disrupted, but pro-actively
enhanced.
Project management skills and
experience of videoconferencing
implementations ensured that
Ciscos ACR was implemented
without difficulty.
Executive Summary
With 120 subsidiaries around the
world, British American Tobacco
(BAT) moved quickly to exploit
videoconferencing when it first
became generally available,
reinforcing its culture of close
collaboration across BATs many
international offices. However,
early technology was not designed
to open standards and, over time,
users became frustrated by the
technologys inability to interoperate
with BATs other videoconferencing
systems. Also, BAT wished to
extend its videoconferencing
options beyond telepresence
rooms in order to give
individual employees access
to videoconferencing from
their desks or their homes.
An incremental replacement
of the technology in existing
conference rooms would neither
alleviate user resistance, nor
expand BATs videoconferencing
capability. At the same time,
simultaneous replacement of
existing videoconferencing
technologies and implementing
new technologies 25 sites across
five continents posed a significant
risk to BATs business continuity
and performance. Dimension
Data has extensive experience
in videoconferencing and
telepresence implementations.
This, together with the global
reach and in-country regulatory
case study
Business Challenge
case study
Solution Delivered
For the telepresence replacement project,
all the systems needed in 25 BAT locations
were delivered to site, ready for installation
by the Cisco team, within six months.
One of the advantages we offer a global
organisation such as BAT is that we are
ourselves a global organisation, says
Ian Kempsell, Dimension Datas BAT
Account Manager. We understand the
challenges of managing projects
across borders.
Crucial to being able to do that
successfully is having a single point of
accountability, and having visibility into
all aspects of a project that, like BATs
telepresence one, is absolutely seminal
to the way you operate. Dimension
Data Supply Chain Services specialises in
doing just that from a procurement and
logistics point of view, reducing clients
risk and cost.
For the Cisco ACR implementation,
Dimension Data project-managed the
installation, working closely with furniture
companies, audio visual providers
and other suppliers to ensure that all
components of the room were correctly
planned, appropriately sourced and
delivered in the correct sequence so as not
to hold up installation.
Services Provided
In ongoing client liaison, following its
implemetation of IP telephony and an
IP contact centre in BATs Southampton
offices, Dimension Data assisted BAT with
its consideration of videoconferencing
options. It then worked closely with Cisco,
a long-standing Dimension Data business
partner, to ensure that Cisco equipment
reached the right sites at the right time.
Value Derived
BAT now has future-proofed means to
fully exploit its collaborative work culture
as a differentiator in the market. With the
choice of a full range of videoconferencing
technologies, from fully immersive
telepresence rooms, to executive desktop
and remote worker mobile solutions, BAT
employees can easily communicate face to
face, no matter where theyre located.
With the ACR, BAT business and IT
specialists all over the world can brainstorm
easily and naturally and co-ordinate the
company-wide SAP roll-out in real time.
BAT executive travel costs can also be
easily contained, and BAT business
performance and productivity can be
continuously improved.
Differentiators
Dimension Data is that rare thing:
a global organisation with all the
necessary best practice and standards
that ensure consistency of service
wherever its clients are located, yet
also enormously adaptable, Kempsell
says. As the BAT projects demonstrate,
were equally efficient and
cost-effective, whether were
working on big, multi-country,
multi-technology projects, or small,
once-off implementations.