Verizon Expands Telepresence with Tata Communications

Verizon Communications is extending the range of its TelePresence offering to enable virtual face-to-face collaboration in more locations around the world, made possible by a new agreement with Tata Communications.

The collaboration enables meetings to take place between Verizon's telepresence customers and any public or private telepresence room on the Tata Communications Global Meeting Exchange -- one of the broadest telepresence networks accessible today and a gateway to the company's public room network spanning 31 cities on five continents.

This will supplement Verizon's telepresence offering powered by its expansive global Private Internet Protocol (IP) Network service. Similarly, Tata Communications telepresence customers can use Verizon's facilities to communicate with Verizon customers.

Enterprise TelePresence replicates face-to-face interactions so realistically that it feels as though everyone is in the same room, even though they may be hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

By leveraging collaboration technology to replace in-person meetings, telepresence reduces travel time and cost while lowering the carbon emissions associated with business travel.

As a result, the service makes collaboration among employees, customers, suppliers and business partners more efficient and economical.

"Video is the new voice for business, and it's becoming more and more available to meet the changing nature of work," said Farooq Muzaffar, Verizon vice president of enterprise network and communications solutions.

"As businesses expand beyond the traditional four walls of an office building, we're seeing more of our customers turning to advanced collaboration tools like telepresence for a bigger impact on their overall productivity and performance."

Verizon and Tata Communications customers currently can use Cisco TelePresence to conduct intercarrier telepresence meetings. Plans are under way to establish similar agreements with other immersive video providers and services to further expand the availability of telepresence.

Peter Quinlan, vice president, integrated business video services, Tata Communications, said "We are delighted to welcome Verizon to our global telepresence partner ecosystem. Intercarrier connections such as this one will benefit customers by offering a broader telepresence business ecosystem that connects regardless of network or service provider. It's agreements like this that fundamentally make telepresence a truly global collaboration tool."

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Cisco TelePresence via American Express vmX

American Express Business Travel and Cisco announced the global availability of public Cisco TelePresence Suites through American Express Business Travel's virtual meetings eXpert (vmX) solution.

This agreement provides corporate clients with virtual meeting consulting services which will enable clients to make better decisions about the best method of face-to-face collaboration -- by leveraging publicly-available Cisco TelePresence rooms and increase use of private, corporate-owned systems around the world.

Cisco TelePresence uses high-definition video and audio to create the experience of face-to-face meetings. People appear life-size around a virtual conference table, creating an environment where meeting participants feel as though they're sitting in the same room.

Public Cisco TelePresence Suites offer convenient access to organizations, travelers, remote workers or business partners to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, customers and partners. Public Cisco TelePresence Suites are currently available from a growing ecosystem of partners supported by Cisco in major business centers around the world.

These include, Marriott International, operated by AT&T, as well as the Tata Communications operated rooms at the Starwood and Taj Hotels and the Singapore public room at the Rendezvous Hotel.

Growing Demand for Online Collaboration
"As virtual meetings gain traction among corporations of all sizes, it is critical to offer a network of locations that companies can use to connect to and integrate virtual meetings into their overall travel and meetings program," said Lisa Durocher, senior vice president, American Express Business Travel.

"Cisco is a leading provider of telepresence technology and facilities and we are pleased to add its public Cisco TelePresence Suites to our solution. Our ultimate goal is to offer clients the guidance they need to optimize virtual meeting options while providing the widest coverage of publicly available rooms extending the reach of private rooms companies may already have available."

By combining the availability of public and private telepresence suites, virtual meetings eXpert offers companies a broader pool of virtual meeting options to help achieve corporate travel objectives and savings. The vmX platform is currently available through an offline reservation desk and is expected to be available online in 2011.

Announced last year, vmX is a unique, patent-pending, solution that serves as a central hub and aggregator of both publicly available telepresence facilities and private corporate facilities.

As a comprehensive virtual meetings solution, virtual meetings eXpert not only provides the necessary inventory, technology and physical locations to connect virtually, but also guides travelers through scenarios that determine whether to meet virtually or in person based on criteria such as price, trip duration, meeting purpose, environmental impact and more.

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TelePresence Gains Momentum at Retailer Show

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released its 2010 economic forecast, projecting retail industry sales to increase 2.5 percent from last year. In contrast, total industry retail sales for 2009 had actually declined by 2.5 percent.

"As we continue to see signs of improvement throughout the U.S. economy in 2010, overall sentiment will begin to lift, making way for slight increases in consumer spending," said NRF Chief Economist Rosalind Wells.

While this past year certainly has been a challenging one for most retailers, they continue to seek out ways to apply business technology that helps to transform both their in-store communications and the way they interact and collaborate with their primary suppliers.

Earlier this month, the NRF 2010 "Big Show" attendees were able to once again experience Cisco TelePresence systems and AT&T services in action. The above video includes insights from some of the people who shared their perspective about how business video adoption will positively impact their customer experience and operational productivity.

TelePresence Provides Competitive Edge
"Telepresence gives us something up on the competition, by being able to leverage the expertise that we have in one of our stores, and now use it across an entire region" said David Bash, CIO at Nebraska Furniture Mart, after participating in the AT&T Telepresence Solution demonstration.

To thrive in today's economy, you have to be able to collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers around the globe at a moment's notice. At the same time, you need to conduct your business in such a way that it enhances the quality of your key relationships.

In 2010, we'll likely see more creative applications of visual conferencing technology, as borderless collaboration continues to mainstream across all manufacturing industries and commercial service sectors.

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Next Generation Managed Services Enable Retailers to Innovate

Online competition and access to price information has been squeezing already thin retailer profit margins for some time now. Combined with the added pressures of the economic crisis, many retailers are being pushed to the edge. Sadly, familiar names, such as Circuit City, have already been pushed over the edge.

To survive this crisis forward-looking retailers need to focus on:

1. Efficiency -- making every part of the business as lean and efficient as possible, especially in the supply chain.
2. Cost Removal -- driving out costs everywhere, especially in labor, their second biggest cost after the goods that they sell.
3. Customer Experience -- seeking ways to differentiate an increasingly homogeneous shopping experience.
   

Salvation in Managed Services
Retailers have traditionally been very closed to the idea of managed services provided by third parties. Razor thin margins have made them very risk adverse. There is a general skepticism of service providers, large IT firms, and their understanding of retail or their ability to adequately serve retailer needs.

Those fears and biases are beginning to fade as the reality of economic pressures for cost reduction and competitive pressures for differentiation bite harder than ever before. Retailers are now exploring how managed services allow them to address these monumental challenges.

Research by Cisco IBSG (the company's strategic consulting arm) reveals that successful providers of managed services must address retailer core buyer values:

• Proven Reliability -- to manage risk and complexity.
• Cost Effective -- pay for performance.
• Tailored Solutions -- specific to the retailing industry.
• Focus on Customer Experience -- enabling competitive differentiation.
• Speed to Market -- deliver benefits immediately.
  

Managed Services Enable In-Store Innovation
Many retailers are aggressively applying managed services to innovate. Digital Signage, or the ability to provide targeted multi-media messaging to customers, is being used by retailers such as WalMart and Eddie Bauer to influence buying decisions at the point-of-sale and to increase store traffic. The complexity involved in the deployment, underlying network and operations means that retailers are increasingly turning to proven, managed end-to-end solutions.

Companies like Best Buy and Home Depot are trialing Telepresence kiosks that allow them to enhance the shopping experience by bringing expertise directly to their customers in their stores -- in a scalable and cost effective manner. Service providers that install and deliver these solutions become valued partners who offer unique value-added solutions specific to the retail industry.

The current economic crisis will re-shape the retail business. Resilient retailers who survive and thrive will be those that proactively embrace next generation managed services as a means to attain competitive differentiation. Inventive managed service providers will deploy unique solutions that help to position retailers for the long term.

About the author: Stuart Taylor is a Director in Cisco IBSG. Stuart leads thought leadership and engagements with key Service Providers in managed services. He has over 15 years of experience focused on strategy, corporate development, business unit strategy, M&A and operational improvement with large mobile and wireline operators and high technology clients.

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AT&T Telepresence Gets Retailers Talking

AT&T demonstrated its telepresence capabilities at this week's National Retail Federation conference in New York City. Retailers and other attendees are already talking about how the global industry could use Business Video technology to improve supplier and customer relationships, reduce travel expenses, and make supply chains more efficient.

Using Cisco's TelePresence technology for videoconferencing, AT&T offered attendees the chance to participate in sessions with Cisco employees in San Jose. Chris Eubanks of athletic equipment retailer Sports Authority said, "It was one of the most real things I'd ever seen. It was like being in the same room as the people in San Jose." Carlo Pochinesta of clothing manufacturer Gucci said, "It was as close to meeting in person as you can get and yet not be in the same room together."

As a salesperson, Erik Kostelnik of employment Web site careerbuilder.com found it helpful in his work. "I started reading the body language of the people. I'm in sales, so it's real important that to understand who I'm talking to and how they're responding to my questions."

Telepresence for Training and Improved Customer Experience
In addition, AT&T and Cisco announced that several retailers were already using AT&T's telepresence solutions. Office products retailer Staples is using it for corporate training, while Cabela's, one of the leading retailers of outdoor equipment is using it to improve the customer in-store experience.

Cisco's TelePresence solutions are part of its Connected Retail strategy to help retailers collaborate better with suppliers, partners and internal staff, while lowering operating costs.

Based on the reactions in the above interviews, telepresence is on its way to becoming a clear alternative to air travel for companies with a global presence. They can benefit from maintaining face-to-face discussions and relationships, while still avoiding the time and expense required for on-site visits.

Watch another video to learn more about the fully managed AT&T Telepresence solution.

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Five Ways to Avoid Business Travel Expenses In 2009

Novell has canceled BrainShare. Apple is ending appearances at MacWorld. And thousands of businesses continue to cut their travel budgets for 2009.

I've got some unconventional advice for you: Stay on the road in 2009, and make sure you're meeting face-to-face with your best business prospects and sales leads. I plan to be on the road at least 40 to 50 percent of the time in 2009.

But on the other hand, our business continues to embrace a range of online technologies that drive conversation and collaboration with employees, customers and partners. Here are five options that can enable your business to save money and cut travel costs in 2009.

1. Hosted TelePresence: Yes, TelePresence (next-generation video conferencing) is a great way to drive communications. But building out TelePresence studios (they resemble executive boardrooms for the digital age) can cost $300,000 or more. Lower-end TelePresence solutions can cost about $12,000 and prices continue to fall.

Still, you can avoid the capital costs entirely by embracing hosted TelePresence. Much in the way that some on-premise applications are shifting into the cloud and SaaS (software as a service) model, TelePresence is gaining momentum in a hosted or pay-per-use model.

Take a look at AT&T's work with Cisco Systems, as well as Cisco's efforts to develop Public Rooms TelePresence. Over time, you will see more and more hotels, airports and public gathering places offering TelePresence rooms that you rent by the hour. And increasingly, the back-end services will involve hosted VoIP mixed with TelePresence.

2. Skype: An oldie but a goodie. Although eBay hasn't managed to monitize or fully profit from its Skype acquisition, the Skype platform continues to deliver big cost savings to my own business.

During a recent trip to Australia, I used Skype to make free VoIP calls to friends, family and my business partner in New England. The call quality made it sound as if all participants were down the hall from one another.

However, here's the challenge: To make free skype calls with your fellow employees, your peers also need have Skype accounts. Otherwise, you need to pay to "dial" from Skype to employees' traditional phones. At our business, Skype is a mandatory, cost-saving tool. And we find we communicate with many of our clients in Europe, India and Australia using the Skype platform.

3.WebEx: In February 2007 I visited Cisco Systems for an IT channel briefing. When we got on the subject of Unified Communications, I told Cisco they needed a stronger applications story to help show the power of Unified Communications. "You need an application like WebEx," were my exact words.

Two weeks later -- and by pure coincidence -- Cisco acquired WebEx. Clearly, I believed in WebEx for online meetings and Web conferences even before Cisco opened its wallet.

4. FreeConference.com: A great way to organize free conference calls with internal users or external sources. Many businesses spend thousands of dollars on conference bridges and other group-oriented phone conferences. But Free Conferences pushes the cost out to each dialer. And that cost is typically covered by each dialer's existing long-distance plan.

5. Be A Guest: Before you register for an event, conference or trade show, check in with the conference host to see if they need guest speakers for panels and breakout sessions. Then, see if those event hosts will pick up some -- or all -- of your travel costs.

If you're a dynanic speaker with unique views to share, some conference hosts will tap their own travel budgets to cover your trip expenses. But, pick your spots wisely. Plenty of conferences aren't worth your time, and many conferences will face light attendence in 2009.

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Managed Services: The Ultimate Small Business Contingency Plan

Today could have been a really bad day for my one-year-old company, Nine Lives Media Inc. My New York office suffered a broadband outage.

If our Web sites, network, email, phone and application systems were all centralized in that office we would have been dark all day. But our small business didn't skip a beat. Why's that? The three-word answer: Redundant managed services.

Our New York office has a redundant managed broadband connection. Plus, we depend on a range of decentralized managed services and SaaS (software as a service) solutions to keep our business growing. Here's a look at the services we're leveraging today -- and a few that we hope to leverage in the next six months.

Managed and SaaS services we're currently leveraging:

• Hosted Email: I don't know why any small business would consider an on-premise system these days. Hosted email is cheap (it's a commodity, in fact), reliable, fast and accessible from anywhere in the world. It's so cheap I can't remember the annual price.
  
• Hosted Web Sites: At my first start-up, all of our web servers were located in our own data center. Our network administrators wanted to "touch" the servers and work on them right in our own offices. These days, the smarter option for many small businesses is to pay a low monthly fee for a shared or dedicated server managed by a data center provider. We started our business using a shared server (about $89 per month) but recently moved to a dedicated server (about $250 a month) because our traffic has been growing fast.
• Phone service: We depend on hosted voice-over-IP and we don't own our phone equipment. Our service provider does. Over time, I expect our service provider to introduce new unified communications services, which will ease my life from the road. (Scroll down for our future plans for unified communications).
• Software as a Service: This list is getting pretty long. We're depending on a range of SaaS solutions to build our customer database and drive viral marketing. Inexpensive, reliable options include SurveyMonkey (free for basic service, about $200 annually for unlimited service), a great way to survey existing and target customers; WordPress (free open source content management, which you can customize); WebEx and FreeConference (online collaboration and teleconferencing; MyPodcast.com (hosted podcasts).
  
• Mobile Broadband: If you drink coffee and travel a lot, sign up for Starbuck's WiFi service. It's a life saver when you're on the road and your hotel or conference center has lousy Internet service. For about $30 per month, you'll be able to find a strong WiFi signal in virtually any Starbucks location.

Future Managed and SaaS Services: We're evaluating the following managed and SaaS services for 2009.

• Public TelePresence: For about two years, I've been predicting that TelePresence (next-generation video conferencing) would find its way into hotels and conference centers. Our small business can't afford to build out a complete TelePresence location. But we can -- and will -- use Public TelePresence centers. Cisco is introducing such centers right now, and signing up to use one sounds easy. As more public locations launch, I suspect we'll use managed TelePresence to communicate with clients across North America, Europe, India and Australia.
• Mobile Unified Communications: I fell for the iPhone the day Apple started selling it. I love the iPhone App Store. And I generally like the iPhone user interface. But I want better integration between the device and a range of services (hosted email, hosted VoIP, remote application access). Slowly but steady, those services are coming. Azaleos and other managed service providers are introducing Microsoft Exchange-to-iPhone integration. And the iPhone also supports Cisco's VPN technology. So I'm seeing progress. But I want to see more and more corporate services, managed services and "follow me" unified communication services touching the iPhone.
• Hosted Customer Relationship Management: We're looking at a range of options here. Salesforce.com is the best-known option. But Zoho (which often competes with Google Apps) has an interesting on-demand CRM strategy.

I suspect we're using a dozen additional managed services and SaaS applications to keep our small business humming along. Sometimes I forget just how many managed services we leverage. And that's a good thing. While we're focused on our business, somebody else is focused on managing and maintaining all the back-end technoology.

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