Four reasons why video is vital to me as a regional director

[Michael_Rose]

Polycom recently embarked on its largest ever integrated marketing campaign around how businesses, governments and organisations can Defy Distance. This is not just defying the distance between geographies but also how do you close the distance between people’s thinking, or between two departments.

This got me thinking about how do I Defy Distance as a marketer, especially as I have a regional role. Considering that the essence of the marketing campaign is to speak to professionals working across different business functions, I wondered if I actually use the collaboration tools available to me as a marketing professional. The overwhelming answer to this question was yes!

I can break these down into four key marketing imperatives for me.

Marketing Use 1:  My department

Three of the team may be based in Singapore but the fourth is Melbourne based. Why Melbourne? Well we had an opportunity to create a new role and this person happened to be the best person for that role. So working closely with a remote team member – I can have multiple video calls daily with Melbourne. This allows me to check in with him, provide advice, review work in progress and generally ensure that the remote team member is plugged in.

Marketing Use 2:  Video helps me to engage my regional constituents

We cover a large part of Asia Pacific in our regional roles – India, Japan and Korea through to Southeast Asia, and Australia and New Zealand. So again I engage with our marketing teams and country executives over video to ensure they understand the scope of what we are covering and that I get effective buy in from them. I can ensure through visual signals that the remote teams I provide specialist support to do in fact understand a project or a strategic direction that we are taking. This is particularly important for our markets where English may not be the first language.

Marketing Use 3:  Trusted Advisor

A key role as a corporate communications specialist is to be a trusted advisor to our leadership team, both the APAC management that I report into and our US Corporate team.

Video allows me to effectively engage with each of these key stakeholders, and I can share relevant content real time when developing communications strategies to support their business objectives.

Historically I would have needed to be present physically for many of these meetings, making it both impractical and likely that the local leader would push on and perhaps only engage with me when it was vitally important. Having high definition, enterprise quality video, with inherent security protocols, means that I can be there each and every time to ensure that I can offer timely counsel.

Marketing Use 4:  A seat at the table

Key in any global organisation is having a voice. The ability to easily participate in a meeting anywhere and at any time over video means that I do have a seat at the leadership table, even though it may be a virtual one it is again as good as being there. 80 per cent of my weekly meetings are with people outside of my home country, Singapore therefore video is the only way that I can effectively attend all of them – until of course we can in fact one day “beam me up”.

So key for me are the tools that help me do my role better and more effectively and video certainly is a key part of how I Defy Distance on a daily basis.

If you’re keen to find out more about how marketing professionals are benefiting from video and voice collaboration tools, you can visit this dedicated page.