Microsoft Office System Customer Solution Case Study Web Conferencing Service Reduces Company Travel Costs, Enhances Collaboration Overview Country or Region: United States Industry: High-tech and electronics manufacturing Customer Profile Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) produces production laser systems for microengineering applications. The company is based in Portland, Oregon, and has 650 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. Business Situation ESI employees needed to travel to distant offices, which was costly and timeconsuming. In addition, its video conferencing system was expensive and aging. Solution ESI deployed Microsoft Office Live Meeting, a cost-efficient, easy-to-use Web conferencing system with rich media features, voice over IP (VoIP), and live video. Benefits Saved time and travel costs Increased productivity Enriched communications Enhanced video conferencing Improved user experience Users are easily able to connect, open up PowerPoint slides, switch to making someone else a presenter, and share each other s desktops. Microsoft Office Live Meeting is easy to use. Brent Balza, Network Technician, Electro Scientific Industries Electro Scientific Industries (ESI), a company that produces laser products for electronic devices, wanted a Web conferencing solution. With offices and customers throughout the world, ESI needed to enhance the ability of its engineers, scientists, software developers, and sales and support teams to interact online with colleagues, customers, and partners. For its video conferencing needs, the company had been using a third-party tool, which required an expensive infrastructure, and that system s equipment was aging. In October 2006, ESI began using the Microsoft Office Live Meeting (2005) Web conferencing service. In May 2007, it deployed Office Live Meeting (2007) to take advantage of document sharing, live chat using voice over IP, rich media presentations, and live video. The solution is helping ESI to reduce travel costs, improve productivity, and enhance online communications.
With Office Live Meeting, our sales and field service support staffs have another tool that allows us to communicate more effectively with external customers. Brent Balza, Network Technician, Electro Scientific Industries Situation Founded in 1944, Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) designs and develops a range of innovative production laser systems for microengineering applications. The company is based in Portland, Oregon, and has facilities in North America and in Japan, Europe, People s Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore. The company employs 750 people, including 600 in the United States, many of them working from remote locations. Its customers are located all over the world. ESI uses a variety of products to meet its diverse online communications needs, which include meetings, training sessions, collaboration sessions, job interviews, service support, and sales presentations. Additionally, ESI employees travel extensively; however, in the past, employees had been asked to reduce travel to hold down budget costs. ESI used a number of disparate solutions for communicating internally and externally. For video conferences, ESI primarily used a thirdparty environment that required an expensive infrastructure for which the company had to maintain conference rooms with T1 lines and direct dedicated circuits. Additionally, the third-party equipment was difficult to use with multiple external participants, and it was aging. ESI had deployed Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 for internal communications. For sharing applications externally with a small number of people at a time, ESI employees had used Microsoft NetMeeting conferencing software. On occasion, ESI had been invited by an outside client or partner to an online conference using WebEx. Office Live Communications Server 2005, the Windows XP operating system, Microsoft Office 2003 Editions, and the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 messaging and collaboration client. We are now moving in the direction of Microsoft products for a lot of our communication infrastructure, explains Barry Buchanan, ESI Network Administrator. ESI wanted to replace its existing video conferencing system with an integrated Web conferencing solution that would help reduce travel costs; would be easy to use; and would provide rich multimedia capabilities, including voice over IP (VoIP) and embedded animation, audio, and video files. Solution To address its online communications challenges and to provide employees with richer multimedia video conferencing experiences, ESI deployed the Microsoft Office Live Meeting (2005) Web conferencing service in October 2006 to 15 people. Office Live Meeting gives people the tools to productively work, train, and present together in small or large online meetings without having to be in the same place at the same time. When Microsoft released Office Live Meeting (2007) in May 2007, ESI decided to immediately migrate to that version and to make it available to all its employees. ESI chose Office Live Meeting because it wanted a Web conferencing system that would make online meetings productive and interactive for both ESI employees and its customers. Additionally, ESI users are now able to schedule online meetings easily and quickly through Office Outlook 2003 using the add-in that provides an integrated solution to Outlook 2003. ESI wanted a Web conferencing solution that would integrate seamlessly with Microsoft products. ESI s infrastructure includes Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft After launching the new version of Office Live Meeting, ESI users were pleased to find that its features included a redesigned and simplified user interface and embedded
For engineers and scientists, a fair amount of what we do is visual, so being able to do something like pop up a design and critique it in real time using Office Live Meeting is valuable. Robert Hainsey, Manager, Laser Processing Research Group, Electro Scientific Industries animation, video, and audio files that help presenters deliver rich multimedia presentations to participants. A two-way phone or VoIP offers participants a choice for integrating conference audio. In addition, the newest version provides improved training and event features that include announcing events, registering for an event, and distributing handouts. The 2007 enhancements also provide live webcam video, including 360-degree video conferencing through the Microsoft RoundTable conferencing and collaboration device. The RoundTable system, which combines the features of a speakerphone with those found in video conferencing equipment, offers a virtual, real-time experience by displaying side-by-side images of conference participants. The device also tracks the flow of conversation so that the person speaking is spotlighted in a separate, larger panel. ESI implemented a rolling deployment of the new version of Office Live Meeting to employees throughout the company, including those at facilities outside the United States. Accounts were established for a diverse group of employees include IT, sales, field service, and software development, but anyone who has a need for an account can have one, Buchanan says. Among the users of Office Live Meeting are employees of New Wave Research, a sapphire wafer scribing and laser micromachining company in Fremont, California, which ESI acquired in July 2007. he was anxious to get back to me with a list of users for that location. IT staff see continued interest in Office Live Meeting throughout ESI. We are still adding users to Office Live Meeting every day, says Balza. People are coming up to me and saying, I d like to try it, and we make sure we get them their accounts. Benefits Office Live Meeting helps ESI users save time and travel costs, increases meeting productivity, and enriches internal and external communications. Additionally, ESI users now have access to powerful multimedia Web conferencing functionalities that are easy to use. Saved Time and Travel Costs With offices and clients throughout the world, ESI employees can use Office Live Meeting to save time and money. Instead of having to always travel to remote locations, ESI employees, including sales representatives, field service representatives, and software developers, now can participate in rich, interactive online meetings. For example, soon after the New Wave acquisition, a meeting was scheduled between two managers, one in Portland and the other in Fremont. The Fremont employee was asked to fly to Portland for a Friday meeting; however, he also had a second meeting that he needed to attend on the following Monday. In lieu of an on-site meeting in Portland on that Friday, an Office Live Meeting was scheduled. Office Live Meeting is a welcome tool for employees at the newly acquired company, says Brent Balza, an ESI Network Technician. I recently created the first [Office] Live Meeting account for a New Wave employee. We hooked him up and did some testing, and He couldn t spend the weekend in Portland, so using Office Live Meeting worked out great because he didn t have to fly up here twice, says Balza.
ESI calculates there will be significant savings in travel costs as more employees schedule meetings using Office Live Meeting. The ease of setting up a conference and the ability to share data and documents online allows employees to use Office Live Meeting instead of traveling, says Buchanan. That is definitely a time and cost benefit. Increased Productivity ESI employees in Portland plan to use Office Live Meeting when they conduct training and integration meetings with the 125 employees who work in the New Wave office in Fremont. The first of those training meetings began in September 2007. In preparation for those meetings, Robert Hainsey, Manager of the ESI Laser Processing Research Group, used Office Live Meeting for an advisory board meeting. The session involved 25 people in Portland, including the ESI Chief Executive Officer, the board of directors, and an Engineering Manager at New Wave in Fremont. The Portland and Fremont colleagues were able to share slides created with the Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation graphics program using the Microsoft Office PowerPoint viewer integrated into Office Live Meeting. Hainsey liked being able to quickly and easily give control of the desktop to his colleague in Fremont during the presentation. The sharing capability of Office Live Meeting makes meetings more efficient, and the speed at which our files were updated ensured a smooth flow of information, Hainsey says. For engineers and scientists, a fair amount of what we do is visual, so being able to do something like pop up a design and critique it in real time using Office Live Meeting is valuable. Hainsey says another feature that he appreciates is that Office Live Meeting gives participants the ability to print out materials with excellent graphics quality. With Office Live Meeting, I don t have to run to a fax machine and pick up a gray and poorly printed version of the presentation materials, he explains. Enriched Communications The more ESI employees use Office Live Meeting, the more Buchanan and Balza expect that users will come to rely on its rich communications and collaboration features for external as well as internal communications. With Office Live Meeting, our sales and field service support staffs have another tool that allows us to communicate more effectively with external customers, Balza says. Specifically, Office Live Meeting will benefit us when we are dealing with customers and partners outside ESI, says Buchanan. When we have multiple participants or outside users where we don t have support of their environment, that s where Office Live Meeting will meet an important need. Buchanan and Balza say that Office Live Meeting also provides opportunities for training sessions with customers and for sharing applications with a partner or vendor during a product s development. One ESI group plans to use the tool to provide outside consultants access to a system the company currently has in development. Enhanced Video Conferencing Prior to implementing Office Live Meeting, ESI used a third-party video conferencing solution that sometimes was difficult to operate. We frequently ran into obstacles connecting external participants, Buchanan explains. Office Live Meeting streamlines the process of having multiple remote participants attend a meeting.
ESI s deployment of Office Live Meeting includes using RoundTable, a table-top device that can be connected to a standard PC to offer synchronized voice and video conferencing, a tool ESI says will be important in meetings connecting employees throughout the world. easily able to connect, open up PowerPoint slides, switch to making someone else a presenter, and share each other s desktops, he says. Microsoft Office Live Meeting is easy to use. ESI expects to use RoundTable frequently to conduct job interviews with prospective employees, says Balza. RoundTable offers an easy-to-use, less expensive alternative to ESI s previous third-party conferencing solution. Using RoundTable will definitely be an asset for job interviews, especially with multiple interviewers, as we often have, says Balza. It will be nice for the interviewee to be able to put a face to names and to see everyone. Balza says IT staff ran a test of RoundTable to see if we could get it out of the box and make it work. They were impressed with the results. He explains, We set it up in IT and had it running within 15 minutes. It switched quickly between speakers. We liked being able to put it in the panoramic view so we could see everyone. Improved User Experience With a redesigned user interface that makes the new version of Office Live Meeting easier to use, Balza and Buchanan have found that training employees to use its features is minimal. I create their Office Live Meeting accounts and let them know they will be getting an e- mail message with their credentials, explains Balza. Then I send them [an Office] Word document on how to get it configured for Outlook. They don t seem have any problems at all. Balza says he usually conducts a one-on-one test meeting with the new user. Users are
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