Customer Success Story – Ibec transforms collaboration with Polycom
“Video conferences allows us to be fluid all the time, we can stick to agendas and keep things going. Making sure we connect with everyone is very important, so we all feel like one organisation, one team.”
Martin Wells, Director of Member Services, Ibec
As Ireland strengthens its business reputation in the European marketplace, the power of relationships is paramount. Ibec is an organisation dedicated to leading, shaping, and promoting business policy and conditions to drive economic success. With 160 employees in seven offices, and over 7,000 members across numerous sectors, the organisation’s ability to communicate is crucial.
“Video has been transformational for us,” says Martin Wells, director of member services at Ibec. “It’s imperative we connect with people in the regions, not just for Ibec staff, but for our membership and organisations. It makes things more immediate.”
The Ibec Board comprises of CEOs and business leaders scattered across Ireland and working from every corner of the globe. Connecting them is critical. “These guys are busy. You’ll never get them all here physically, so video has been great for us that way,” says Wells. “It means we’re fluid all the time and we can stick to agendas and keep things going.”
Beyond its Irish borders, Ibec maintains a European team in Brussels, Belgium that is instrumental to the governance and regulation process. Bridging that gap has been a win for all. “Rather than having to fly back and forth, we can meet quickly now. We can make the sessions and understand the impacts,” explains Wells. “It just makes us that much more agile and flexible in the way we work.”
Time and distance greatly impacts planning and Ibec has enhanced work-life balance for its internal staff, while ramping up value. “By using the system, we don’t have people traveling from Cork or Waterford or Donegal to Dublin for a meeting or training workshop that might only last an hour or two,” says Yvonne Clancy, director of talent at Ibec. “It’s much more time effective for people.” With the video solutions, training is much more effective, and so is general communications internally. Clancy points out the importance of addressing the entire company as one, with one video meeting.
Ibec has pieced together all the components to better serve its members and customers, and operate internally at best capacity. Wells notes the importance of collaboration. “Making sure we connect with everyone is very important, so we all feel like one organisation, one team.”
Dave Curtis IT infrastructure manager at Ibec confirms that their objectives were met by deploying Polycom. His mission as IT Infrastructure Manager was to enhance meeting capacity, deliver a solution that would be easy to use, and be adopted by the staff. Digicom, his local audio video partner, and Polycom certified reseller designed and supports the successful project. Curtis confirms, “We exceeded the plan we had put together with Digicom the first year, and we far ahead of our forecast for video meetings this year.” The future plans for Curtis, at Ibec are to deliver greater flexibility by rolling out Polycom RealPresence Desktop.
