Polycom, Inc., one of the global leaders in open standards-based unified communications (UC), announced that HomeAway, the online marketplace for vacation rentals, is currently using Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions to transform its culture to video collaboration, allowing employees to communicate visually, face-to-face across its many distributed business locations.
For speed and volume of communication, e-mail, voicemail and instant messaging, are the preferred means of communication in many companies, but researches show that some of the dialogue and personal touch can start to disappear without the face-to-face communication. Using e-mail rather than personal discussion can also, some times, delay decision-making.
A global survey conducted by NFI Research, indicated that 67 percent of senior executives and managers say their organisation would be more productive if their superiors communicated more often by personal discussion.
HomeAway uses the Polycom® RealPresence® Platform, along with video systems to connect employees and clients across various environments ranging from conference rooms to work offices to home offices to mobile or field offices.
“We live and breathe video collaboration – it’s fundamental to our culture,” said David O’Rourke, senior manager, glob al IT, HomeAway. “We have Polycom deployed across four continents and conduct videoconferences every day. A key component of our video collaboration strategy is the use of mobile devices like the iPad 2 or the new iPad to increase the productivity of remote personnel, whether they are in their living room, on the road or in a vacation rental property. Polycom has made it all possible with secure and reliable HD video that enables our distributed team to have face-to-face conversations from anywhere. We can even show each other video of new properties in real time. Polycom’s platform is breaking down time and distance barriers and helping fuel our growth by allowing our people to meet anywhere at any time.”
Just a few years back, business-grade Internet connections were common only in Fortune 1000 boardrooms, whereas now it is widely available, making it easy for any business to conduct face-to-face video conferencing.
Web and video conferencing allow for better and more interactive communication, but it can also literally decrease business travel costs by as much as one-half by completely eliminating or reducing the need for lengthy trips that are made for recurring business meetings, sales presentations and training.
When HomeAway first began using video conferencing, the company turned to common consumer services. However, the company’s business has grown dramatically and HomeAway now has a customer base with listings that span more than 168 countries, offering more than 640,000 vacation rental homes across a portfolio of high-traffic websites such as HomeAway.com and VRBO.com. As HomeAway grew, the company realised it needed a more reliable, scalable, and secure video collaboration solution to bring together employees in 20 different locations worldwide.
Face-to-face video interaction is allowing HomeAway to pursue its goals of faster and more effective collaboration to increase organisational productivity and reduce operating costs.
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