London to New York with no Redeye in sight…

[Marco Landi (MarcoVLandi)]

On Wednesday 27th May, I hosted a packed Immersive Studio in London, full of European media and analysts, met with our colleagues and press across the pond to talk and see first-hand the ‘workplace of the future’.

The event hosted by our Execs in NYC – Jeff Rodman, Michael Frendo and Ashan Willy talked about Polycom’s past, present and future. It is very clear it is an exciting time at Polycom – celebrating our birthday and past innovations this year, and as part of the presentation … we were able to get a glimpse of what the future will look like, when we start to bring our new and exciting innovations to market throughout H2.

For me, what stood out, and really hit home is how unique our offering is to some of the vertical sectors represented in the customer panel. This was demonstrated throughout the commentary provided by five of our customers. Each took time out of their schedules to join us (in person and virtually) to share their experiences of how Polycom Solutions enhance their way of working and alternatively affect their own customers.

Two things that were repeatedly mentioned was how ‘the quality of HD voice’ was critical to the Manhattan School of Music’s ability to offer countless distance learning music and dramatic arts sessions across the globe… and ‘how the quality of HD vision’ was of a clinical standard, echoed by Veronica Southern, Teleswallowing consultant, ‘to the point it feels like you are in the room with the patient meaning you can provide a diagnosis in half the time, using half the resource and equally providing that valuable care to your grandmother or great uncle Keith’.

Hearing about how video can impact people’s lives outside the office environment, really shows how powerful our solutions are – you perhaps as an individual would quite possibility feel uneasy if your doctor asked you to connect via a consumer video app to undertake a complex diagnosis… however through using a business grade video solution like Polycom, there is the added security, and the HD experience that immediately puts you at ease. It also shows that the moment we move away from a more traditional pitch that focuses on travel savings, to showing how organizations can use our technology to evolve their processes for the better, the return is more impactful – going vertical is the way forward.

I see this event as just the beginning, as our customers were eager as part of this session to exchange stories and best practice – and this is something I want to actively encourage the team to do here in EMEA.

One thing is clear to me, the workplace of the future is already here; we have customers using our technology in innovative and exciting ways, all having a positive impact on their businesses and customers in turn. We just need more like them!