At the recent ACN Arab Technology Awards, held during Gitex 2009, FVC’s implementation of Polycom’s solutions won the Green System Implementation of the Year Award. One of 16 awards presented during the night honouring the region's top vertical projects, vendors, integrators, consultants and individuals, the Green System Implementation award recognised the reduction of 63 tonnes of carbon emissions by FVC along with its US$250,000 savings during the course of one year.
“As a leading business in the region and a committed global player, we have a responsibility to our future generations to safeguard our planed and needed to lead by example,” said Dharmendra Parmar, GM for Marketing at FVC, a leading value added distribution in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). “Like any other business, we wanted to save money and the environment and create a better work-life balance, leading to a decrease in stress and better performances among our employees. Polycom not only provides an excellent platform for communications for businesses but it helped us to illustrate the positive implications of using rich media by reducing travel time and carbon emissions.”
With dedicated offices in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and UK, FVC works with a growing network of more than 130 channel partners in over 44 countries. With the growing importance of the environmental impact of frequent flying or driving several hours, FVC were looking for a greener alternative to stay in touch with its employees and partners across the region and the globe. The solution for conducting face-to-face meetings without leaving the office also needed to be an economically viable one.
As its regional distributor, FVC implemented Polycom’s video and audio conferencing solutions, which included group video conferencing solutions, desktop video conferencing solutions and multi-point video conferencing solutions, across all its offices. In addition, select FVC channel and vendor partners also use video conferencing to communicate. The video conferencing solutions improve the environment, with lower hydrocarbon emissions and reduced fuel consumption. While as easy and fantastic as video conferencing is, it didn’t completely replace face to face conversations but it significantly reduced them, help the environment by limiting FVC’s carbon footprint.
As well as saving time and money, video conferencing solutions implemented by FVC had a significant, positive impact on the environment. By using video conferencing solutions, the company was able to save $0.25 million by eliminating unnecessary travel costs for meetings in the last one year. According to Polycom’s ROI (Return on Investment) calculator the reduction in business travel helped FVC reduce its carbon emissions by 63 tonnes during the same period.
Significant personal benefits were also achieved with the implementation of video conferencing solutions across its offices in the region. According to the Polycom ROI calculator, video conferencing has saved FVC almost 2,700 man-hours in the last year by eliminating face-to-face meetings between FVC employees (includes all departments from sales and management to finance, logistics and HR) spread across its offices in the region.
Prior to the implementing the video conferencing solution at all of FVC’s offices, ten of its key employees were travelling at least once per month. FVC employees have reduced return journeys, a major bonus for its staff that might otherwise be travelling the length and breadth of the region for an hour-long meeting. FVC has seen a significant increase in its employees’ productivity since the implementation.
FVC also uses its video conferencing implementations across its offices to showcase the advantages of the technology to other partners, and their potential customers, through extensive e-mail campaigns and comprehensive hands-on training sessions.