Article

Published: October 2008

Situation

Every quarter, Microsoft Australia holds a manager meeting where approximately 130 people managers from every branch in Australia come to Sydney for two days. This meeting is hosted by the human resources team and focuses on professional development and the company culture. It is also an opportunity to reflect on results from the previous quarter and to plan for the next quarter. Most importantly, the meeting is a high-engagement forum where new management skills are developed and professional relationships are strengthened. The outcomes of these meetings are taken back to the field to build collective capabilities and reinforce corporate values and culture.

During the final quarter of Microsoft's fiscal year, it was evident that our sales people needed to maximize their customer facing time in order to meet their goals. At the same time, they did not want to miss the opportunity to participate in the people manager meeting, which is seen as a cornerstone of ongoing professional development.

In order to accommodate these competing needs, the Microsoft Australia team changed the format of the May 2008 people manager's meeting to achieve the following goals:

• Maximizing customer-facing time to increase the productivity of sales, support, and marketing teams
• Reduce Travel and Entertainment (T&E) expenses
• Reduce our CO2 footprint

Solution

Many options were discussed—from proceeding as usual to postponing the meeting entirely so as not to compromise either the meeting or the customer-time needs of the staff. A decision was made to conduct the meeting using Microsoft's collaboration technologies so that remote managers were not required to travel; thereby, providing them additional productivity gains, CO2 reductions, and travel cost savings.

The technologies chosen were Microsoft®Office Live Meeting and Microsoft RoundTable™

A large meeting room in the Microsoft Sydney office was used as the physical meeting space for the Sydney-based people managers, with the RoundTable meeting device placed adjacent to the speaker's podium with a panorama view of the local Sydney audience. The ability to show a large panorama view of the Sydney location where the bulk of the managers were located was just one of the reasons why RoundTable was selected for this meeting.

Remote branch offices used their own meeting rooms for their participants and RoundTable meeting devices were connected via USB to a single computer in each of the branch offices.

All field branches and the Sydney office signed in to a single Office Live Meeting session. In total, 130 managers participated in the meeting.

Support from IT During the Meeting

An IT staff member was available to ensure that Office Live Meeting and RoundTable setup was correct and the overall infrastructure and communications lines were working correctly. This was seen as essential in ensuring that all systems operated as specified, as it was a priority that the entire operation was executed smoothly with no unexpected trouble-shooting or delays for participants.

Because RoundTable was a newly deployed technology in Australia, a training coordinator from IT was available during the entire meeting to ensure the correct use of Office Live Meeting and RoundTable by the attendees. Future meetings may not need this level of supervision as the meeting users have become more proficient with the technology and have attended IT training sessions to learn best practices and "tips and tricks."

The total time devoted by IT and the presenters to ensure the technology was set up and used correctly—including supervision during the meeting—was 6 hours, of which 90 percent was the attendance of the IT training coordinator.

What value did Microsoft's collaboration technology bring?

• Rich end-user functionality
• Improved speaker-focused audio
• Immersive 360-degree video panorama
• Automatic active speaker detection
• High value at low cost
• Simplicity and easy setup

In addition to video, RoundTable can be used as a telephone for audio only conference calls (PSTN/PBX compatibility). It integrates with RTC Conferencing Solutions USB AV devices, as well as with Office Communicator 2007 and Office Live Meeting 2007.

Benefits

There were multiple benefits achieved by the use of Microsoft's collaboration technologies.

• Productivity returned to the business
• 160 hours of additional productivity returned to the business through reduction in travelling because of using Live Meeting and RoundTable technologies.

* Cost savings are calculated in Australian currency.

• Travel and Entertainment savings
• Almost $18,000 AUD saved by using Live Meeting and RoundTable.
• This is a conservative estimate as cost savings are based on flexible air fares booked in advance.
• Average cost of taxi fares and corporate hotel rates have been taken into consideration in the calculations.

* Cost savings are calculated in Australian currency.

• Environmental benefits
• Approximate reduction of 4 tons of CO2 and equivalents [CO2e], that is, harmful greenhouse gases.
• Figures for the number of grams of CO2e per passenger/per km provided by DEWR/AGO. As opposed to the Greenfleet calculation, this figure takes no account for potential differences in emissions generated in short-haul versus long-haul flights.

Feedback on the Event

• 87 percent of managers who responded to the survey said they felt the meeting was a good use of their time
• 48 percent found the Live Meeting and RoundTable format effective
• 48 percent felt there was still a feeling of connection and networking and 32 percent rated it as "neutral"
• "I applaud the use of our technology to enable us to hold the People Manager meeting in a climate where cost savings, optimizing for client time, and reducing our environmental footprint was a business imperative. We achieved our objectives of saving greenhouse gas emissions, travel costs, and improving productivity. Whilst we naturally compromised on the level of interaction and participation that marks success for these meetings, our technology enabled us to still deliver an effective meeting attended by 130 managers across six locations." – Rose Clements HR Director Microsoft Australia & NZ
• "From an environmental sustainability viewpoint, it was really important for us to demonstrate to ourselves how technology can help reduce environmental impacts—to practice what we preach and learn by doing so we can better understand what our customers can do, and the challenges it presents. The great outcome is that this trial was a three-way win: our people, our business, and the environment." – Sarah Hatcher, Director of Environment & Sustainability, Microsoft Australia

Future Plans

To improve the level of engagement from remote participants the following improvements are recommended:

• Provide opportunities within the People Manager program for remote branches to present on various topics to increase the level of engagement and feeling of inclusion.
• Develop protocols for Q&A and general interaction so that the technology does not interfere with the feeling of participation.
• Continue to use LiveMeeting and RoundTable for other internal meetings as appropriate to the situation. The subsidiary can potentially increase productivity, and reduce carbon footprint as well as travel costs.
• There are currently 12 RoundTable devices in Sydney and several more in the remote branches; the use of RoundTable has become entrenched in the Microsoft culture.

RoundTable Best Practice

• Connect LAN cable to computer, disable computer wireless
• Connect meeting room AV cable to computer
• Launch Live Meeting 2007
• Connect RoundTable USB cable to computer
• Project the RoundTable session via the meeting room projector
• Prevent in meeting room attendees from viewing all Live Meeting video via their computer to reduce bandwidth usage
• All attendees should mute their microphones when not speaking to prevent echo

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada information Centre at (800) 563-9048. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information through the World Wide Web, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/environment/

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

https://olm.microsoft.com

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft and RoundTable are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.