Choosing a Managed Video Conferencing Service Provider

Organizations that have branch offices scattered all over the country, meetings amongst employees from time to time is a necessity. While too much of travel costs them a lot, small and mid-sized companies can't really afford missing their employees in action because of a meeting at a particular office. There are Video Conferencing (VC) solutions out there that have been around for quite some time to help you save money, energy, etc by making you travel less. However, the infrastructure setup for video conferencing is quite extensive and requires a lot of costs upfront, depending upon the number of offices and people to connect in conference through real time video technology, which an organization may not be willing to pay up. One viable option is to transition from CapEx to OpEx model through managed VC and offload their troubles to a vendor who is responsible for providing, working and managing the VC setup for the organization at multiple locations. The company just has to pay the vendor a rental for using the service. While the idea seems invigorating enough there are a slew of factors that need to be kept in mind while going for it. Here, we'll provide a possibly exhaustive list of things to look out for when going in for a managed VC setup.

Scalability

This is one of the major points to ponder over. Every organization has plans and hopes of growing. When that happens, the company would want to extend the current services to other parts of the company as well. This would call for a need of scalability in the solution being provided by the vendor. The company should ideally go for a solution/vendor who is able to provide scalability to the setup so that in case of a need for more end points in the solution, the vendor is able to connect them without much hassle. For this, the vendor should be able to provide services in other parts of the country, world.

Security

Security of the solution is another key aspect. It is highly critical for a company that the discussions being held on a VC are not being intercepted by unauthorized personnel or systems. Thus it is pivotal to check the security aspect of the system and to make sure that a session lockdown service is available wherein nobody is able to be an uncalled party to the session. Authority to be a part of the session should be by choice of admin only.

On demand/always on

Another differentiator amongst the services is the usage of the managed VC. There are options wherein the VC service may be always on, as in whenever the company wants to use the services they can. The other methodology is when the service starts on demand. The company has to intimate the vendor or the manager to begin the services for VC and only then the service would be initiated. This aspect also incurs a difference in price as well as the always on service is bound to be more expensive than the on demand one.

Pricing

Usage based or number of rooms, etc --the basic idea behind using a managed VC setup would be the pricing. The OpEx model of the managed VC services would suit most SMEs as compared with the CapEx of the privately owned VC setup. But one has to be careful of the pricing structure beforehand. The company would not want to pay for something they would not use. On the flip side, they would have to pay for services that they might require as instantaneous addition of services is always not possible. Pricing for the VC depends on the number of location, number of rooms, and support amongst other things. Most of these pricing structures would be open to some negotiations with the vendors.

Support

Since we are talking about the managed VC services, support is a critical aspect to discuss. There can be cases where the equipment fails to respond or something is wrong somewhere. This is where the need for support arises. Now since the services are managed from the vendor end, it is up to him to take control of the situation and solve the problem. And since this would generally crop up minutes prior to a meeting or even during the meeting, it is highly critical that the problem is communicated clearly and precisely to the person who is going to be the troubleshooter. It is then critical that the problem be understood and rectified at the earliest so as to maintain the usefulness of the solution. You do not want a setup to not function properly and you using alternate less fancy and cumbersome ways of getting the job done. Thus the support and management aspects need to be clearly worked out with the vendor. The solution being deployed needs to be monitored on a frequent basis. Manageability of the solution should also be chalked out. The company would not want any maintenance activity being performed during office hours when the VC setup might be required. Hence these things need to be decided well in advance with the vendor so as to avoid hassles later.

Upgrade to better technology

It is highly probable that the company opts for a lesser technology (like SD) today and upgrade to a newer better technology (HD) later. In this case, it would be important to consider things like upgradability. One would need to understand if the vendor can upgrade the current setup to provide a better experience. Would it require a swap of equipment, or is it possible with the current equipment from the vendors side is what the company needs to understand.

"Managed Video Conferencing at a Popular TV Channel in India

A leading TV channel in India deployed Managed VC as it allowed them to be free of operational activity of ensuring the connectivity and call management. They could now focus on their core function and don't worry about the jargons and maintenance of the system.

The challenge

The challenges that they faced were on ensuring that the video calls are connected with desired level of quality, monitoring of the calls as they are in session and handling of VCs from our partners/offshore business units, with only capability of connecting via Internet / ISDN. The key points considered by them were dedicated monitoring team of service provider to ensure the VC quality before and during the calls and the capability to use the service providers video bridge, enabling them to have sessions with any unit which may or may not be connected to their network.

Implementation

The company deployed managed VC including the network infrastructure connecting 11 of its units across 7 offices. The company had already invested in procuring maintenance of the VC units. The same were not procured as part of services.

Business benefits

The company states that cutting down the travel cost will surely be a outcome, but majorly, this will ensure much more seamless coordination between the team irrespective of the base location/office of a respective personals.

Enabling better understanding between the teams results in various direct and indirect business benefits. The solution has also given them an option of getting their team connected while traveling with use of just their laptops making the VC facility available 'Anywhere, anytime, and any device Video Conferencing'.

"A managed VC service provider should support most standards based video end-points in an open architecture.

--Brett Clark, Sr. Manager, Managed VC, Avaya Operations Services.

Q> what are the current trends in the Managed VC space? How do you expect the market to shape up in the near future?

Managed service providers in the video conferencing space have historically been divided between carriers who had a side business managed videoconferencing; and small niche providers. As video conferencing evolves from being a stand-alone H.323 environment (what one might call 'video as an island') to just another SIP application in a unified communications environment. Another key trend is the globalization of video B-to-B communities, and this is also challenging the existing base of video MSPs. While most of the leading video MSPs claim the capability of offering a global video B-to-B network, in practice they are constrained by the lack of people in individual country markets to coordinate operations, account relations, and address country-specific issues. Both of these trends mean that market trends will tend to favor the growth of video MSPs, that have in-depth UC expertise and UC managed services talent, in addition to global resources that can be deployed to coordinate international video B-to-B projects.

Q> What are the realistic cost savings in terms of managed VC (OPEX) vs non-managed VC (CAPEX) setup for a company?

There are multiple factors that go into determining an OPEX vs CAPEX approach that can vary significantly depending on the cost profile of the enterprise, its core skill sets, its time horizon, and several other variables. However, in general the best of the industry's video MSPs are able to offer enterprises something that few IT organizations can deliver internally -- a consistent, high-quality video collaboration experience. Avaya believes that 'predictability of experience' is the single greatest factor that drives user adoption of video collaboration, and has committed its managed video services to this purpose.

Q> What kind of scalability is available?  What are the cost considerations for the same? (For eg, if a company wants to extend the number of offices or include sales people on audio, is it possible? )

A managed VC service provider should support most standards based video end-points in an open architecture. A few of these include Polycom, LifeSize, Tandberg, Cisco, etc.

Another thing to check is whether the solution is vendor and carrier agnostic. Plus, check whether it can scale to meet the demand of any video customer, operating under just about any telecom environment (be it public Internet, MPLS, dedicated circuit, etc).

Customer should be able to dynamically add or delete managed video endpoints at will with minimal notice to the managed VC vendor.

We have one large customer who routinely adds or changes dozens of endpoints each quarter, as it expands or consolidates international operations, and changes the suppliers, clients, other stakeholders who form part of its B-to-B community.

Q> what are the prerequisites for the managed VC solution? (For eg, can it be done on the current bandwidth or is there a need for separate setup)

There are few prerequisites to a managed video conferencing solution. In general, these include:

i) Having video endpoints properly installed and certified

ii) Ensuring that the vendor is given authorization to exercise the customer's entitlements under its maintenance agreements with the system vendor(s)

"Managed VC as a concept is at a nascent stage in India"

--Roopesh Shah, Sr. Manager, Pre-Sales, Rich Media Collaboration, Siemens Enterprise Communicatoins

What are the current trends in the Managed VC space? How is the market shaping up?

Managed VC as a concept in India is still very much an the nascent stage. We only have the telecom service providers like Tata, Bharti-Airtel and Reliance practicing the same. However, all that is practiced is a very basic bundling of bandwidth and equipment. We are yet to see the "real" managed services whereby an operator manages and operates the complete video network for a particular customer right from scheduling a conference, monitoring it, troubleshooting it right from the VNOC (Video NOC).The current offerings do have a NOC but that is only pertaining to the bandwidth issues that might be encountered on the network. Most of the conferencing operations and services are still managed by the customer itself.

The other form of Managed Services is providing a FMS (Facility Management Service) whereby a system integrator or a service provider offers a trained manpower stationed at the customer premise to manage the video conferencing operations. This form of managed service is very much prevalent and sought by the customer as it relieves the IT/Admin department's responsibility of managing the setup themselves and have an access to the first level support of the system integrator's trained personnel.

Q> Please comment on the RoI of a managed VC service vs an in-house deployed one. Does it lead to significant cost savings?

As on date in India, we do not see a great penetration of the managed VC service and hence it is difficult to comment on the actual ROI that it brings in. Video Conferencing as a service itself offers a quick ROI but the cost-benefit impact of the managed VC is yet to be seen in the Indian scenario. The in-house deployed model is widely used in the Indian market because of an absence of a provider who can really do a complete Video Managed Service Operations.

Interconnectivity with a client or other VC solution

The company which is into client servicing would find this feature or option really useful. If there is an option of interconnectivity with another VC solution, then the company can schedule a conference with the client company through their own setup as well. This is really a useful feature as the existing setup can be used and the company does not need to use substitute methods for getting the job done. This increases the usefulness of VC option to a great extent.

Backup(standby)

Another option worth considering is what happens when something goes wrong during the meeting. Options are there in which if the current sessions stop because of certain reasons, the vendor can substitute the current session by another backup session which allows the company to complete the conference.

Conference recording

This is an additional feature which is of great use to the company using the VC as there could be important parts of the meeting which the users would like to replay later and use. Also, the company might want to document the sessions for later references or record keeping purposes. Thus, it is up to the overall package if this feature is provided. It might cost you extra but at the end it is at the company's discretion to go for this utility if they require it. The idea is that the vendor should be able to provide it; the company may or may not want to opt for the same today or later.

Flexibility

The solution that the company opts for, should be flexible enough to host people on IP, ISDN, standard broadband, 3G mobile, etc. This will help include employees in various locations who need to be put on the conference. The employees using mobile, etc could be put on the conference albeit through audio only.This would really help enhance the benefits out of the VC in terms of cost savings and the overall benefits from the VC.

Licensing

The company needs to buy MCU licenses for operating the units at various locations. Along with the MCU licenses, there are client software licenses which the company can buy or may be available as a bundled package. These client software licenses may be given out to all the probable users of the VC solution. The general cap is that only x number of people can use the solution at one moment and hence the company has to judge the exact number of these licenses that it needs to purchase so that it may connect to the desired number of people having the license in any conference.

Add on features

The solution that the company is deploying should offer certain other features like Data Conference ( file sharing), Fully interactive Digital White Board application with Wireless Digital PEN integration to conduct Live Training secessions, etc. Another useful feature could be anonymous poll during the VC. These features may be used only a select number of times but are very useful to provide that something extra to a conference.