FR: Tell us about MeetingZone.
Meetingzone is a global provider of online conferencing, collaboration and communications services, commonly referred to as “Unified Communications” (UC). In practice we advise companies in a wide variety of sectors, including financial, on the ideal solution to collaborate and communicate - and help with implementation, delivery, installation and its roll out. We have the expertise enabling people to work together, share documents and information via any device in real time irrespective of location.
FR: What have been the main highlights for MeetingZone in the last 12 months?
For us the most notable highlight would be the acquisition of Atia Communications, a UK based company specialising in providing and supporting Microsoft Lync collaboration systems. The acquisition means that we’ve been able to enhance our services and can offer expertise in deploying the world’s leading UC solutions; Webex and Lync.
FR: Why is MeetingZone important to the financial industry?
We understand the challenges facing companies in the financial services industry and how conferencing and communications tools such as WebEx or Microsoft Lync help improve business agility, enhance decision-making and expand the way in which your company works and collaborates.
In the financial sector there’s the need to improve interaction with external clients. There are also unique challenges from training 100s from multiple locations all at once on regulatory changes to streamlining the investment process and improving investor relations to meet with FCA’s need for transparency. It’s here where we can add real value with years of experience of handling these types of calls and provide full training available for our customers to get the very best from the services.
FR: You set up BT’s conferencing business in 1993. How have conferencing services evolved since then?
In some ways things haven’t really changed that much. Simple audio conferencing is still growing and represents the largest segment. However, online conferencing and collaboration whereby people can share information and work on documents in real time via web based services such as Lync and WebEx, are rapidly changing the way we work. Companies can cascade information instantly through their organisation keeping ahead of the competition or in response to changing market conditions. In addition, applications such as online training is really taking off with companies saving massive amounts of money and time being able to train global teams at once from a single location.
FR: What challenges currently face the financial industry in delivering better communication strategies?
The financial industry’s still very traditional in the way it communicates, although efforts are being made to slowly change this. Failure to embrace new technologies will leave some companies vulnerable to faster moving, better informed competitors, while technical issues can also prevent adoption. Getting the right advice and having the experience and expertise on how to best deploy these solutions is therefore crucial.
FR: What’s Unified Communications all about?
Unified Communications integrates a variety of communications services via a single place and all in real-time. What this means is a user can seamlessly see a colleague is available or know where they are via their ‘presence’ service. For example a sales person in the office could see that their colleague working remotely is available and start a text conversation on instant messenger. Then they could fire up a web conference with integrated audio to discuss further and from there easily work on a document together in real-time - regardless of location or device.
Reaching the right person at the right time reduces time wasted on the unproductive communication, the number of email and voicemail messages and as a consequence the time required to reach decisions; it also reduces delay and worker frustration. All of which results in greater productivity and reduces the possibilities for both error and delay in decision making.
Connecting remote team members with the appropriate skill sets, whether halfway down the hall or half round the globe, means that their expertise can be used effectively. For traditionally slow moving sectors like financial services that can mean a big competitive advantage.
