Insight. The Global Leader in IT products and services CASE STUDY Future Publishing AT A GLANCE Future Publishing turns to Insight for video CLIENT PROFILE conferencing to realise productivity gains Future plc is an international special and achieve cost reduction. interest media group and leading digital publisher. Founded in 1985 with one magazine, today they have operations in the UK, US and Australia creating 200 special-interest publications, apps, websites and events. It’s best selling publications include T3, Total Film, Official Xbox Magazine and Cyclingnews.com. CHALLENGE Future were spending a considerable Insight UK, a Fortune 500 global Hi-Tech leader, has recently advised Future amount on employee travel costs between their offices in Bath & London Publishing on the selection of a new video conferencing solution to standardise and wanted to reduce them. Their the company’s existing solutions into a single platform and increase usage of existing video conferencing set up was the technology across the company. Future is a large media publishing company inconsistent between sites, complex to with offices in Bath and London as well as in the US and Australia. Founded in operate and didn’t offer the features that were vital to their business. 1985, it publishes media such as T3, Total Film, Official Xbox Magazine and Cyclingnews.com from both UK locations and many employees travel between SOLUTION Bath and London for meetings, training and other business purposes. Bath is Future wanted a consistent video a 90 minute train journey from London so unmaximised working time while conferencing experience that would travelling, along with the annual travel costs the company was incurring, were be the same no matter which office employees used, along with a HD reaching record levels. solution to facilitate their need for sharing graphics and video content in meetings. Future chose Cisco- “I think of Insight in the same way as an Independent Financial Advisor. Insight sits in the middle of Tandberg kit to fulfil their needs and the market and its only interest is in matching my requirements in an unbiased and patient way.” since installing have seen travel costs IT Project Manager at Future Publishing decrease by 25%. More appealing to users “The main motivation for deploying video conferencing for us is that saves on a lot of travel,” says Andrew Hudson, IT Project Manager at Future Publishing. “We have offices in Bath and London, and used to have a number of staff on the move every day. People being able to quickly set up a video conference rather than spending 90 minutes travelling each way has reduced this. We were spending a considerable amount on train fares and, in the current economic climate, £130 for a return fare just didn’t make much sense.” Future, which sells 2.9 million magazines each month and attracts more than 34 million unique visitors to its websites every month, turned to Insight to explore how it could upgrade its video conferencing infrastructure and make it more appealing to users. The company has a longstanding relationship with uk.insight.com | 0800 333 333 CASE STUDY cont... Insight that includes advising on software and a successful, major notebook roll out project. The company’s previous video conferencing infrastructure was made up of a number of different units from four different manufacturers, along with a range of displays. The systems were felt to be inconsistent in the services they provided and overly complicated to use. In addition, the equipment lacked key “We’ve seen a demonstrable increase in usage of video conferencing and a decrease of around 25% features that Future requires, such as screen sharing or multi-party calling. in rail travel since the project completed” Reducing complexity IT Project Manager at Future Publishing The company’s aim was to make the video conferencing experience consistent across its business and available to all employees. Different equipment that operates inconsistently presents a barrier to usage and consequently Future wanted to deliver the same experience in both locations. “It was necessary to upgrade our existing video conferencing facilities in order to reduce complexity,” explains Hudson. “We had several units from different vendors, so it was the usual story of no one being able to use all the different remote units or screens without something going wrong.” With a policy of making video conferencing available to all employees, Future’s deployment is substantial. There are five video conference rooms in Bath and four in London. “Future wanted any employee to be able to go to any video conference room and have exactly the same experience from powering on the unit to initiating a call and participating in a video conference,” explains Hiten Devani, client director at Insight UK. “This meant that remote controls should be standardised across the endpoints, for both the video conference unit and the screen.” Best interests Insight acted as the introducer to the partner who implemented the solution. “Insight, which I’ve worked with since October 2008, also put us in touch with the different vendors, and assisted with vendor selection,” adds Hudson. “This has been by far and away the most significant project we have undertaken with Insight in terms of value. Hiten and the Insight team had our best interests at heart and made sure we spoke to all the relevant vendors. Following an extensive look at the market, Future selected a range of Cisco-Tandberg hardware including: Standardised Cisco-Tandberg codecs, stands and controls, Cisco- Tandberg VCS controls, Cisco-Tandberg VCS Expressway, Cisco-Tandberg TMS, Cisco-Tandberg Multipoint Control Unit and Cisco- Tandberg Movi desktop video clients for PCs or Macs. “We went with Cisco-Tandberg because the overall package was well structured and involved a diligent sales team that listened to our requirements and took them on board when coming up with a solution,” says Hudson. Addressing collaborative working Part of that solution is to ensure Future video conferencing is in high definition (HD). “We wanted an HD solution primarily because that is what we perceive to be the standard offering these days,” adds Hudson, “but also because we want to be able to share content over video which means that sharpness is of paramount importance.” However, it isn’t just the obvious communications benefits that Future wanted to achieve. It also wanted to address collaborative working and deploy a solution that integrates with Microsoft Collaboration Technologies. “The project has been very successful and we are seeing a decline in overall uk.insight.com | 0800 333 333 CASE STUDY cont... travel spend,” says Hudson. “The video conferencing facilities are being heavily used judging by the calendar booking system. We’ve seen a demonstrable increase in usage of video conferencing and a decrease of around 25% in rail travel since the project completed We intend to build upon our investment - primarily we’re looking at extending the number of desktop licenses so we can roll it out to a wider group of people, but we’re also looking at getting at least one unit, if not more, into our US offices to assist with working together” Devani at Insight adds: “We’re delighted that Future Publishing is achieving the goals it set with its video conferencing deployment and look forward to helping it to take its platform further.” “As far as engagements go, Insight did exactly what it said it would do and acted as my Trusted Advisor. They introduced me to people that did matter and a fully formed solution was created. It is a really good relationship.” IT Project Manager at Future Publishing Hudson concludes: “As far as engagements go, Insight did exactly what it said it would do and acted as my Trusted Advisor. They introduced me to people that did matter and a fully formed solution was created. It is a really good relationship.” About Insight Insight EMEA is a division of Insight Enterprises, Inc., a leading provider of brand-name information technology (“IT”) hardware, software and services to large enterprises, small to medium-sized businesses and public sector institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. The company has approximately 5,100 teammates worldwide and generated sales of $5.3 billion for its most recent fiscal year, which ended December 31, 2011. Insight is ranked number 471 on Fortune Magazine’s 2011 ‘Fortune 500’ list. For more information, please visit: http://uk.insight.com http://twitter.com/Insight_UK http://blog.insight.com MKT1228 uk.insight.com | 0800 333 333.