New Handbook for Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Arrives as Blizzards and Travel Failures Underscore Need for Alternatives to Travel
New Handbook on Inter-Company Telepresence and Videoconferencing Aims to Accelerate Use of Video with Customers, Partners and Suppliers
December 22, 2009 – Ashburn VA and Northborough MA – Independent research firm and consultancy, Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann & Company, the customer insight firm, have published the industry’s first comprehensive handbook on inter-company telepresence and video conferencing. “The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Handbook” educates CIOs, executives, managers, telepresence and video conferencing professionals about the opportunities, challenges and solutions for inter-company telepresence and video conferencing with partners, vendors, and customers.
The Handbook comes during a week when a blizzard shut down much of the northeastern United States, 2,000 rail passengers are abandoned below the English Channel for hours, and a British Airways union threatened to strand tens of thousands of passengers.
“These recent events, in combination with wars, terrorism, pandemics, airline strikes, bankruptcies, and blizzards all demonstrate the need for organizations to have a disaster recovery plan – a business continuity plan – whenever physical travel becomes disrupted, dangerous or just plain impossible,” said Howard Lichtman, handbook co-author and President and founder of the Human Productivity Lab.
“Beyond the benefit of business continuity, it has been proven time and again that the value of networks – telephone, radio, TV, mobile, computer networks – increase dramatically as you expand the potential connections. Network, security, and cultural issues have relegated most telepresence and video conferencing to internal company meetings. These issues are being addressed and smart business leaders are “moving to the puck” to connect their organizations with customers, suppliers and partners. This handbook helps organizations accelerate adoption of inter-company telepresence and video conferencing,” said Peter Brockmann, co-author and President of Brockmann & Company.
The financial support of these industry leaders: BCS Global, BrightCom, Cisco Systems, IPeak Networks, MASERGY, TC&C Carin, and TATA Communications enabled the free download at http://www.TelepresenceOptions.com/handbook and at http://www.brockmann.com. The handbook is also available in hardcopy at LuLu.com.
The follow-on report, The Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange Provider Review will be a comprehensive review of a new class of telepresence and videoconferencing service providers: Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange Providers. Exchange Providers connect enterprise and carrier networks together, match disparate QoS tags, handle IP address conflicts, and enforce security policies to connect partner, vendor, and customer companies on different networks for the most secure and highest quality telepresence and video conferencing experiences. The Telepresence and Video Exchange Provider Review will be available with a 20% discount expiring on January 31, 2010 at http://www.TelepresenceOptions.com/exchangereview.
The Human Productivity Lab will be hosting The Developing an Intercompany Telepresence & Visual Collaboration Program Conference and Working Group on March 24th & 25th, 2010 in Reston, Virginia. The event is for organizations looking to improve their ability to collaborate with their vendors, partners, and customers using telepresence and video conferencing and a working group where partners can get together to work out details of a joint program in a highly focused, productive environment. Details are available at http://www.TelepresenceOptions.com/conference.
About the Human Productivity Lab:
The Human Productivity Lab is the leading telepresence consulting firm for organizations looking to cost-effectively deploy and future-proof telepresence and effective visual collaboration. The Human Productivity Lab offers telepresence end-user firms and vendors a host of advisory services including Equipment Acquisition, Managed Services & Network Consulting; RFI & RFP Preparation; Telepresence and Visual Collaboration Strategy; Investor Due Diligence; and Best Practice Assessments. http://www.HumanProductivityLab.com/consulting. The Lab also publishes Telepresence Options, a multi-vendor sponsored survey of telepresence technologies, and the #1 website covering telepresence and effective visual collaboration. http://www.TelepresenceOptions.com
About Brockmann & Company:
Brockmann & Company is the leading analyst and consulting firm focused on the user’s experience with communications technologies. Clients accelerate growth through customer research and thought leadership. Our motto: “In God we trust, all others bring data.” Learn more at http://www.brockmann.com.
