Microsoft has started measuring the effectiveness of its telepresence
suites in terms of how quickly they are helping users bring new products to
market, the company's EMEA travel manager, Julia Heesterman, said at the NBTA
Europe conference in Lisbon Tuesday. Microsoft has opened telepresence suites
at its offices in Seattle, Singapore and Reading, U.K., with more poised to
come.
Microsoft already was assessing how telepresence helps reduce costs through
avoidance of travel, Heesterman said, but it also now monitors the potency of
virtual collaboration in speeding up product development.
"Telepresence users are required to fill in detailed post-meeting
questionnaires on their use of the technology," she said. Heesterman added
that Microsoft's IT department is comparing speed of product development
between projects where employees collaborate through telepresence meetings and
those which do not.
She made her remarks during a BTN
European Top 100 benchmarking session at the Lisbon conference. Another travel
manager told the session that he is looking at measuring the effectiveness of
videoconferencing in terms of time saved for employees and contribution towards
work/life balance.
A third travel manager said her company brought in a student to monitor
how different countries within the organization are using videoconferencing,
leading to some surprising results. "Russia and South Africa are doing the
best videoconferencing because travel for them is more complicated," she
said. She added that the volcanic ash crisis earlier this year has led to a
permanent increase in videoconferencing at her company.