BT Conferencing: Think global act local

Fed up with having to catch the red-eye so you can make that all-important meeting? Pulling your hair out in frustration at not being able to get everyone in one place at one time?

Impossible to show colleagues which bit of the report you are referring to? You need to start conferencing – available to use with the phone, over the internet or via video, this is the answer to your communication needs

A great way to help your firm communicate more efficiently is to use conferencing to bring together important members of staff and even your customers and business partners. BT Conferencing helps you connect your key people instantly, whether they’re out of the office or in another country.

BT has more than 20 years of experience in conferencing, and offers high quality, tried and tested solutions that cover voice, web and full video conferencing. It can even enable you to share documents and presentations in real time.

Conferencing adds another layer to your communication. With it you can gain commercial advantage by sharing your knowledge and expertise in a timely, efficient way – and implement key decisions fast.

Conferencing also cuts out the need for expensive and time-consuming business travel. Not only will your employees be well informed, they will also be more productive and, most important, able to maintain an improved work-life balance.

BT has a range of conferencing options to meet your individual requirements. For example, BT Express is a quick, easy and reliable phone conferencing service that lets you talk to several colleagues at once, whether they’re on landlines or mobiles. The service is secure as each user gets a unique password for each conference.

Another option is BT MeetMe, which is like your own personal meeting room. The phone conferencing service lets up to 40 people meet quickly and easily. You don’t have to book and you just need a phone and a pass code. If you need to bring a project team together for weekly status meetings, or hold meetings at any time without having to pre-book, this is ideal.

If you want to add web conferencing features to your BT MeetMe service, it’s worth looking at BT’s hosted service, Microsoft Office Live Meeting. With this, participants can share Microsoft Office presentations and documents on the web. You can work together with colleagues using features such as whiteboards, voting polls, annotation and instant messaging.

Conferencing also lets you do things that would otherwise be impossible. Just think how helpful an impromptu discussion around your desk can be, for example. With conferencing technology, you can have this kind of meeting any time, wherever your desk may be, without having to worry where colleagues, customers or suppliers are located.

Allow BT Conferencing to liberate your business. Talk to your account manager for more information on how it could help you.

PROFILE CENTRE FOR CONFIDENCE AND WELL-BEING

The Scotland-based Centre for Confidence and Well-being was set up at the beginning of January 2005 with an ambitious mission to bring about a transformation of Scottish culture, to make it more supportive of positive attitudes and well-being. A not-for-profit organisation, the Centre is backed by companies such as BT, Royal Mail and LogicaCMG. Effective communication with the Centre’s partners, facilitators and the wider community is key to its success – sometimes it is not always possible to attend all the meetings you’d like to in person, and conferencing from BT has provided an excellent and cost-effective alternative.

As Zoe Conlin, events manager at the Centre for Confidence and Well-being told us: ‘The solutions are great – there is a wide range to choose from.’

As part of its distance learning programmes, the Centre for Confidence and Well-being has used BT Conferencing’s webconferencing solution, Microsoft Office Live Meeting. This has enabled US-based subject-matter experts to deliver lectures to a UK-based audience, which could both listen in on the Live Meeting website and participate interactively by asking questions.

‘We would not have been able to conduct our distance learning programmes face to face,’ explains Conlin. Participants for the Vanguard Programme – an extensive, in-depth training programme on positive psychology – totalled 300, and ‘[they] come from all over the UK and the sheer number of them would make it too difficult to try to organise anything but conferencing. Also, we would have had to use a much more complicated method to record the US lectures – I’m not sure what we would have done… BT Conferencing gave us a solution.’ She adds, ‘We simply couldn’t have done what we wanted to any other way so BT Conferencing has been worth the cost.’ Every BT Conferencing customer has their own account manager who is there for people to consult and to help them achieve a conferencing strategy – savings, services, training, delivering their plan. According to Conlin this has been key to the Centre’s success: ‘My account manager is always available when I need to speak to him and always returns my calls or gets back to me when he says he will. If he is unable to answer my query or request, he will find someone who can.’ Conlin is also impressed with the after-sales service she received from BT Conferencing. ‘Recently my account manager was off work and his colleagues stepped in to help me record two live meetings in a week when I had moved offices and was having major systems and electricity failures. They sorted everything out for me and stayed late to record the call, which meant it all went very smoothly.’

When asked whether she would consider continuing to use BT Conferencing in the future, Conlin is equally enthusiastic. ‘A lot of our participants have also been pleasantly surprised with the technology and were unfamiliar with it beforehand,’ she says. ‘As a charity, the Centre tries to keep costs to a minimum and run a good e-business. BT Conferencing has helped us do this and I am sure that we will continue to use it in the future. I would have no hesitation in recommending the BT Conferencing products – they are very simple to use.’

10 BENEFITS TO YOUR BUSINESS

1. Instant results

Conferencing allows you to bring together key staff and even your customers and business partners instantly.

2. Teamwork

It fosters teamwork and gives people more tools to work together no matter where they are.

3. Sharing information

Share documents and presentations in real time over the web.

4. Business edge

Get the edge on your competitors by sharing your knowledge and expertise in a timely, efficient way.

5. Fast decisions

Implement key decisions fast, by quickly bringing your experts together on the phone or online.

6. Talk securely

Conferences are secured with PINs so you can prevent outsiders, even the operator, hearing sensitive conversations

7. Cut travel costs

Reduce the need for time consuming business travel and cut your business costs.

8. Stay informed

Keep your staff better informed by holding briefings with multiple members of staff simultaneously.

9. More productive

Employees can be more productive, sharing documents online and conferencing from out of the office.

10. Work-life balance

Conferencing can help maintain a good work-life balance, as it helps staff to work effectively in the office or from home.

SAVE TIME AND MONEY WITH BT CONFERENCING
Visit www.conferencing.bt.com