Global videoconferencing service takes advantage of new fibre services to improve business flexibility and robustness, and cut costs.
Gen-i has won a contract with Fletcher Building to deliver its SmartMeeting service to Fletcher's offices in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Cincinnati. Based on Cisco's TelePresence, Gen-i's solution takes advantage of fast fibre networks to deliver a videoconferencing service that will significantly improve the flexibility and robustness of Fletcher's operations, and reduce costs.
Fletcher Building CIO, Paul Knight, said that the new deal would result in significant improvements to the way the business conducted its day to day operations and support its ambitious growth objectives.
"Our decentralised structure with over 40 independent businesses within a global operation brings about its own unique challenges. We're constantly looking to innovate and find new ways to bridge the organisational and geographical divides through streamlining our approach to communications across all our offices.
With offices across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, North America and Europe, Knight said that enabling conversations is vital for efficiently managing the group's total operations.
"The advantage of high quality videoconferencing is not just solely in the reduction of travel times and costs. It's as much about the improvement in the quality of conversations.
"Gen-i came up with an innovative solution that meets our long term objectives and will future-proof our business's communications infrastructure. Their SmartMeeting videoconferencing service removes the need for unnecessary travel, accelerating our decision-making processes, reducing costs and ensuring we minimise our carbon footprint," he said.
Chris Quin, CEO of Gen-i Australasia, said that the new contract reinforces Gen-i's reputation for delivering innovative, flexible and sustainable fibre-based solutions for Australasian businesses.
"We've had strong demand for fibre services that enable high quality videoconferencing. We are committed to the success of Fletcher Building, and our team worked closely with them to develop a solution that could accommodate their diverse needs and create value across the Group.
"With the rollout of UFB across regional and metro New Zealand, more and more kiwi businesses are looking for ICT solutions that harness fibre speeds to improve their flexibility and robustness, and cut costs.
"Businesses are increasingly relying on ICT partners like Gen-i to provide a robust and resilient hybrid networks that integrate fibre, copper and mobile, and manage services from multiple fibre providers. Our clients are also looking to us to provide the exciting applications and services that leverage this new fibre world, in areas such as videoconferencing and collaboration, cloud computing, remote working and business continuity.
"Fletcher Building is the latest client to take advantage of our fibre-based products and services to increase productivity, support exporting to the rest of the world and create economic value for New Zealand," he said.
Gen-i's SmartMeeting provides a fully immersive video collaboration service, allowing users to conduct their meeting as if everyone were in the same room. Delivered via large screens, the service provides high quality ‘virtual meeting' communication with life-sized images of meeting participants from multiple locations. The lighting, cameras and microphones also preserve eye-lines and audio location between users in the room and on screen.
The contract also includes a unified communications solution and IP telephony network that builds on Gen-i's managed IP Telephony solution delivered over the past four years for businesses such as PlaceMakers, Firth and Fletcher Steel. The deal includes the extension of Webex to mobile devices, allowing staff at Fletchers to communicate anywhere and at anytime. The contract was awarded to Gen-i following a competitive tender process.