Videoconferencing tools have given Pizzeria
Uno, a national restaurant chain, the ability to coordinate massive
meetings and get hundreds of employees into one
conference to disseminate information.And though the idea of
conferences is nothing new to Pizzeria Uno, the video component
they now have through AccuConference is easing business
communications on several fronts, according to Alan LaBatte, Uno's
vice president of information systems.
In the past, Uno had used AT&T Conferencing as an
operator-assisted conference tool, but that option offered little
hands-on management of conferences without an operator's help, and
it proved costly.
"We had been doing audio conferencing for a long time before we
started with AccuConference," LaBatte said. "We originally went to
AccuConference because of cost savings. We were looking for a more
economical way to do our audio conferencing."
Along with saving money, LaBatte said, Pizzeria Uno wanted more
control over the
management of conferences, something the company didn't have
with AT&T. He said the company wanted to have greater control
over when conferences start, who can join, and what other materials
can be used without having to rely on operator assistance for use
of features and functions. Now, he said, calls and videoconferences
can be created through a Web interface.
"It was much more cost effective for us to run our calls on our
own without an operator and use the Web tool that allows the
conference moderator to take questions and manage the whole call
process," LaBatte said. Along with adding some question-and-answer
features, video capabilities also let call participants and
moderators implement other visuals -- PowerPoint presentations and
other graphics.
"In the past, they were strictly audio calls," he said.
More recently, Uno began including actual video for calls. The
company now does two monthly video calls, one culinary lead call
moderated by the executive chef, and a bar lead conference call
moderated by the director of beverage. In addition, there are daily
calls, operations calls, and quarterly investor relations calls.
Some videoconferences can have more than 200 participants.
LaBatte said that having 200 end users relying heavily on the
real-time essence of video caused some concern that the company's
current bandwidth would not support so many concurrent video
sessions. But those fears have subsided.
"There was concern that we don't have enough bandwidth in all of
our locations to get the type of quality video that we would like,"
he said. "We're working on some things to up the bandwidth in some
of our restaurant locations."
Bandwidth considerations aside, LaBatte said that the
videoconference system requires very little management
overhead.
"We're using this over our regular network connection that we
have in all of our restaurant locations," he said. "There was
nothing specifically done … to do this. It's really just utilizing
the network that's already in place for other reasons and using it
for Web and videoconferencing."
Although he can't put a concrete number on the cost savings
achieved since switching to AccuConference, LaBatte pointed out
that it is cheaper than the former AT&T solution and also saves
time. And time is money.
"It became a feasible way of doing these kinds of events for the
restaurants," he said. "Certainly, we saved over what we were
paying using the AT&T service when we were doing the audio
conferencing, and the … price that we pay now is much lower."
In many cases, a videoconferencing solution is difficult to
quantify with ROI, according to Jim Black, AccuConference's CEO and
president.
"It's hard for them to put a price on what they're gaining
because it's putting everybody on the same page," Black said.
LaBatte added: "It's important that we do communicate to
everyone and they're all hearing the message at one time and it
doesn't need to be repeated. Certainly, there are time savings of
doing it with the conference calls."
Being Web-based, LaBatte said, the system allows users to attend
conferences from home, a hotel or any other location.
"It's the ability to communicate with these large groups of
people in really an economical way where we can do calls with 200
people or more and do that in a cost-effective way, and do it one
time rather than communicating these messages over and over in
smaller groups," he said.
In the few years Pizzeria Uno has been using enhanced
videoconferences, LaBatte said, user feedback has been
positive.
"Originally it was just the audio, then the Web and now it's
video," he said. "The video is by far the most well-received
feature of the conference call. It really allows for that visual
effect that takes place by having the executive chef actually cook
something or show something on the videocast that everyone can see
and actually take questions and answers. That live interaction with
someone is fantastic."
Black said AccuConference allows end users to customize their
systems, letting them add features they want, whether they be
recording or other functions.
"We gave the tools to a company like [Pizzeria Uno] so they
didn't have to have a dedicated operator on the line all the time,"
Black said. "And we gave them the ability to run a call with 200
folks with questions and answers where you could hear everyone
speaking when they needed to speak."