How much return are we getting for our video investment?

[Roger Farnsworth (Roger_ Farnsworth)]

By adding video to your work environment employees are able to defy distance and work effectively from practically anywhere. This enables organisations to see cost savings versus traditional work streams such as; web conferencing, telephony, travel and even physical office real-estate. A successfully implemented Unified Communication (UC) solution not only delivers more efficient communications and better collaboration, but can provide measurable cost saving benefits.

Of course there are costs and expenses associated with deploying the UC solution that delivers these savings, so how do you know when you’ve got the balance right? 

As the IT manager, you are not only under pressure to deliver high-quality, available and reliable video collaboration tools, but you are increasingly being held accountable to realise the highest possible return from the related investment.There is nothing worse than being unprepared and unable to answer that all important question of: “Can you provide us with an update regarding ROI on our video investment?"

Where would you start? Knowing how your UC solution is being used and by whom is the first step to being able to measure its effectiveness, but how would you go about finding this? One way could be to issue a survey to all employees to quantify how often your UC solution is being utilised, but this may not be the most effective way. Which departments or groups should you target? The real challenge here would be getting employees to respond".

So what’s the secret source to knowing if your investment is seeing the right returns?  Put simply, Utilization and Benchmark reports from Polycom’s Advantage Service.

Utilization reports take the guesswork out of knowing how your environment is being used and can turn you from an unprepared IT Manager into an analytic expert who can make smart and  cost-effective decisions.

Monthly utilization reports summarise the total number of video calls and minutes used as well as statistics for each Polycom video endpoint registered. Twice a year benchmark report measure and focus on utilization, utilization regularity, success rate, network readiness, HD experience, and MCU utilization. So next time you need to present an update on the ROI in terms of the company’s video investment, you’ll know which rooms are being used the most and which are being used the least and be ready to:

• Make better and more informed decisions
• Drive down operational costs with a scalable, cloud-based service
• Eliminate expensive home-grown reporting projects
• Take control of service quality
• Make adoption an on-going initiative
• Maximise your return on investment

What can Utilization reports tell you?

• Know which rooms are being used the most and which are being used the least and determine how well you are meeting the demand of the rooms. For example, you may notice that your rooms are constantly booked.  If this is the case, you can recommend adding more meeting rooms.
• See how many dropped calls there are per day and which location the dropped calls come from. This will provide you with the opportunity to act quickly and better identify the root cause of the problem.
• View many mobile devices are being used to dial in, which can help you to determine a suitable mobile strategy for your company.

The bottom line: utilization reports take the guesswork out of important planning decisions and help you lower your bottom line. 

See how Polycom utilization reports can help you with future planning. Be prepared and armed with the analytics you need. Discover utilisation for yourself through Polycom Advantage Service and tell us how you would reinvest the money you save.