Polycom has announced that HEINEKEN is using Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions to reduce the amount of travel its field sales people do across the UK. Polycom video has transformed HEINEKEN London and Edinburgh offices into a virtual campus, reducing travel costs by over £250,000 (US$388,000), while also saving 160 tons of CO2 in just 12 months - the equivalent of 1,270 car journeys between Edinburgh and London or 752 return flights between Edinburgh and London.
"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. We haven't even had to launch it internally; it's been word of mouth that has carried the solution into the live operating environment," said Brendan Rafferty, IT Architect, HEINEKEN.
"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. Moving forward, HEINEKEN will be investing heavily in mobile and tablet technology in the UK. Our vision is that our sales force will use personal video to stay in touch with each other and customers, cutting down the time required for one-to-ones and also keeping them in real-time contact with colleagues in the office," said Jem Anderton, IT Innovation and Solution Development Manager, HEINEKEN.
