PR Category: Customer Insights

Customer Challenge

An end of life CWMS, Skype 4 Business and TMS customer needed
a highly secure conferencing service. The customer required the
ability to operate a collaboration service platform for over
200,000 users, specifically to:

• Had robust proven and secure software running in ‘High Availability’ mode
• Enable the de-centralized scheduling of calls
• Monitor and manage white glove calls
• Manage 1,500 Cisco video devices
• Provide analytics and reporting of the service and the need to monitor room utilisation

The operations team needed a solution which:
• Was easy to use for self-service
• Automated the provisioning of users and supported local language
• Provided clear visibility of the high-level calls and comprehensive in call monitoring and management
• Had robust proven and secure software running in ‘High Availability’ mode

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

The service provider for the customer initially purchased VQ Conference Manager for an internal proof of concept for several thousand users.

In July 2024, the end user subsequently purchased Cisco Meeting Server and VQ Conference Manager to deploy to over 200,000 users for a 50 month term, enabling operator led white glove meeting services, device and call management, analytics and user self-service using Outlook, meeting all the initial customer requirements.

Customer Challenge

In early 2020, video infrastructure was in place and although it was being used to conduct video meetings, it’s usage was irregular and only for some specific uses.

To address the customer’s challenges, the organization sought a solution that could
adapt to the increased demand and provide enhanced monitoring and
management capabilities. Deploying VQ Conference Manager proved
transformative:

• Troubleshooting times were slashed by more than half, significantly
  improving user satisfaction with the IT department’s responsiveness.
• Reporting capabilities underwent a profound transformation. VQ Conference
  Manager empowered the organization with comprehensive insights into
  system usage, enabling informed decision-making regarding resource
  allocation and human resources management.

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

To address these challenges, the organization sought a solution that could adapt to the increased demand and provide enhanced monitoring and management capabilities. Deploying VQ Conference Manager proved transformative:

• Troubleshooting times were slashed by more than half, significantly improving user satisfaction with the IT department’s responsiveness.
• Reporting capabilities underwent a profound transformation. VQ Conference Manager empowered the organization with comprehensive insights into system usage, enabling informed decision making regarding resource allocation and human resources management.

Future Plans

Looking ahead, the organization plans to leverage the latest features of VQ Conference Manager, such as VQ DMA (Device Management & Automation) for video endpoint management. This not only ensures the continued use of VQ as the primary management suite but also facilitates the replacement of outdated infrastructure like TMS, resulting in significant productivity gains and cost savings.

Back in 2020 a large European investment organization, with more than 4,000 employees and working in 160 countries, purchased VQ Conference Manager for self-service conferencing; providing a solution to their emerging conferencing requirements as a result of COVID-19.

This self-service model has evolved and the usage case has developed to also meet the needs of those within the organization needing to make mission critical, VIP calls. The drivers behind this are the need to
make high level, secure calls and to have an on-premise solution which meets the data sovereignty requirements of the organization.

The VQ Conference Manager solution

To meet this growing demand, the organization have renewed their VQ Conference Manager licensing, doubling their capacity to deliver concierge style, white glove services to their users.

Future Plans

The customer has a number of Cisco devices and they want to bring an element of automation to managing them. As a result, they are considering purchasing VQ Conference Manager DMA to provision, configure and monitor.

“I have been working with VQ Communications for a number of years now and have found them to
always be supportive, responsive and willing to go the extra mile to ensure our customers need are
met. Their solution meets perfectly the requirements of some of our key customers and I look to position VQ Conference Manager to all of our Cisco CMS customers when I can.”
Jeremie Mutelet
Senior Team Lead and Workplace Solution Lead at NTT Ltd

Customer Challenge

Employees are made up of ministerial and high-level Personnel who needed to schedule their own meetings or in some instances to have a designated secretary or individual handling this task on their behalf. The organization faced a significant challenge with the complexity of their Cisco CMS Scheduler when it came to having its employees scheduling their own audio and video meetings. This became a hurdle, and the organization sought a solution to make the entire scheduling experience more intuitive and user-friendly. In addition, and due to the highly sensitive nature of the organization’s responsibilities and meetings being of a highly mission critical nature, achieving a level of security whilst adhering to stringent data sovereignty compliances was also required.

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

Simplified Scheduling
VQ Conference Manager addressed the challenges posed by the complex CMS Scheduler, by providing a user-friendly interface using the VQ Outlook Plugin that streamlined the meeting scheduling process. Users found scheduling meetings with VQ much easier than when looking to schedule calls with other platforms, promoting efficiency and user autonomy. The organization highlighted the seamless integration with Outlook has having a significant impact on users increasing their usage of Cisco’s video and audio collaboration solution. The organization now utilizes VQ to empower ministers to schedule their own meetings without external assistance, ensuring a more efficient and controlled process.

Increased security and compliance with Data Sovereignty
VQ addressed concerns related to security and data sovereignty by providing an on-premise solution, aligning with the preferences of the organization’s server security team. In addition, the ability to include a one-time passcode, provided an additional layer of security to the calls taking place. For confidential calls, especially those involving ministers or sensitive information, VQ Conference Manager is established as the primary platform for meetings, ensuring a secure and confidential communication environment. While the organization also uses cloud based conferencing services, there is a consideration to standardize on CMS and VQ due to data sovereignty requirements. The preference for on-premise solutions is evident, aligning with the organization’s commitment to maintaining control over their data.

VQ Metro
The organization expressed anticipation for VQ Metro, particularly for its capability to include Arabic on the interface. This feature was seen as an important step towards enhancing the user experience for Arabic speaking users. Metro is an end user focused client for use in VQ Conference Manager/ Cisco Meeting Server environments, designed for managing Spaces, making meeting bookings and joining calls with a high quality, simple to use video client.

Collaboration with VQ
The collaboration with the VQ team was highlighted as being very positive. The organization appreciated the prompt resolution of issues, emphasizing the importance of quick fixes, especially in critical situations.

Future Plans

Expansion & Subscription renewal
The customer plans to extend the usage of VQ to accommodate 1,000 users, making it the standard platform for video and audio meeting within the organization. The organization plans to renew its partnership with VQ, indicating a continued satisfaction with the services provided.

Metro App & VQ DMA
The organization looks forward to leveraging VQ Metro’s capabilities in handling WebRTC, further enhancing their communication infrastructure. In addition, it is considering the use of VQ DMA to configure its video endpoints whilst providing troubleshooting and analytics capability

Customer Challenge

A US power giant needed a way of delivering enterprise-grade audio
conferencing using Cisco Meeting Server, including multi-role, passcodeprotected virtual meeting rooms. A leading power company in the USA needed to replace its legacy audioconferencing platform with a state-of-the-art multi-node Cisco Meeting Server system. It needed to run a robust, enterprise-grade service, including virtual meeting rooms for each of its 11,000 employees. Every meeting room required both ‘chair’ and ‘guest’ roles with different access passcodes, to provide the necessary security. The energy giant had spent several months exploring how to create this service on its new Cisco Meeting Servers with a design that did not include VQ Conference Manager. However, despite trying a variety of options, it had not been able to achieve the results it required. At this point, the issue was escalated and VQ Communications was brought in to help deliver the desired service.

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

Our teams worked closely with the customer to understand its business requirements. We then configured and helped roll out a service that delivered the enterprise-grade conferencing the business needed. VQ Communications’ sales engineering team worked closely with the customer and its collaboration service provider to understand exactly how the business needed the CMS service to operate.

Having established that VQ Conference Manager could enable the service the customer wanted on its CMS platform, we remotely installed our software, set up the Active Directory provisioning and designed the meeting room templates to work in the desired way. The energy giant then proceeded with a phased soft launch, gradually expanding the service to more users to assess performance and collect feedback.

Business Outcomes

A failing CMS deployment was rescued and the customer when live six weeks after switching to VQ Conference Manager. With a smooth roll-out, all 11,000 employees at the energy giant now have access to a robust, enterprise-grade audio conferencing service that works exactly the way the business requires.

With the soft launch a success and the service working the way the business wanted, it had the confidence to roll it out to all 11,000 employees as their primary audio-conferencing tool.

As a result, the business now benefits from a state-of-the-art collaboration platform that’s proving incredibly popular with users, and gives it the opportunity to enhance the offering with video calling in the future.

Such has been the success of the launch that the organization is proceeding to retire its legacy audio platform, which it had initially kept live as a backup.

VQ’s engineers were on-call during the go-live to address any issues if they arose, but our thorough preparatory work meant everything went smoothly and our assistance wasn’t required. With the
platform in production, we continue to provide support to the customer and its collaboration service provider.

Customer Challenge

A large US federal government department needed a management platform to underpin a video conferencing service for 30 agencies across 40+ offices. As part of a strategic program to provide state-of-the-art IT services across its 30+ agencies, a major US federal government department was planning to roll out a Cisco Meeting Server-based video conferencing service. This would be the first time the department had offered its teams this capability in a centralized way.
The plan was to launch the service to teams in its headquarters, then expand to its 40+ office locations across the United States.

To avoid using the call bridge API, the department needed a management platform with a graphical user interface that enabled it to:

• Configure the conferencing service
• Set up the passcode-protected virtual meeting Spaces in the way it required
• Monitor usage of the service in real-time
• Report on longer-term trends and ROI to its CIO and other stakeholders, and enable it to plan effectively for growth and potential future Cisco Meeting Server investments.

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

We partnered with the federal department to help it configure, launch, monitor and report on its service, including to C-level stakeholders.

The federal department selected VQ Conference Manager to underpin its offering. VQ’s sales engineering team worked closely with the department’s administrators to design and configure the service. This included setting up the passcode-protected meeting Spaces with appropriate roles.

The VQ Conference Manager operator dashboard enables the department’s video conferencing team to keep tabs on in-flight calls and Cisco Meeting Server license usage.

Meanwhile, the Analytics enable it to compile key service-related data, and export this to combine with information from other areas in its unified communications landscape. These insights enable the team to
provide comprehensive reports to stakeholders across the department, including the CIO.

Business Outcomes

Following launch, the service rapidly grew in popularity, leading the department to use VQ Analytics data to build its business case for additional Cisco Meeting Servers.

With the support from VQ, the department successfully launched its service and has gradually expanded it to around half its agencies. As a result, monthly call participants more than trebled during that year, while the latest month’s figures show more than 300,000 minutes of calls taking place.

Successfully Planning For Growth

The initial rollout involved six Cisco Meeting Server 1000 bridges. The rapid growth coupled with the department’s plans to expand the service to its other agencies and locations, meant this footprint needed to increase.

The department drew on analytics data from VQ Conference Manager to forecast the point when it would need additional capacity. This enabled it to plan ahead and build a successful business case for
two additional Cisco Meeting Server 2000 bridges. These will be brought online imminently, bringing the total to eight call bridges, and giving the department the infrastructure it requires to confidently offer the service to all its agencies and locations.

The department’s video conferencing project manager reflected on the influence VQ has had in helping it launch and grow the service. He says: “I couldn’t emphasise enough how important VQ’s help was. We would not have the solution we have without their team being involved.”

Customer Challenge

Provide an effective video and audio conferencing platform with minimal management overheads to support the global operations of a US Department of Defense agency.

A United States Department of Defense (DoD) agency was planning to bring an outsourced audio and video conferencing service in-house. The organization has several thousand employees around the world, and its teams in each location change frequently.

To enable these individuals to collaborate effectively, the new system would need to remain up-to-date with regular moves and changes. It also had to integrate with non-CMS collaboration platforms in other federal agencies.

Furthermore, to minimize costs, the service needed to be manageable by a very small team. This demanded high levels of automation and full end-user self-service.

World Wide Technology, who works with the agency as a trusted technology adviser, recommended the Cisco Meeting Server (CMS) and VQ Conference Manager as the solution.

The VQ Conference Manager Solution

VQ Conference Manager provides a suite of proven tools to meet the customer’s demand for a large-scale self-service system that can be managed by a very small team.

The CMS is designed for large-scale, self-service conferencing, and VQ Conference Manager offers the tools needed to set up and run the service in the way the agency required.

VQ integrates seamlessly with the customer’s Active Directory system, ensuring the frequent employee moves and changes are automatically reflected in the CMS collaboration service. This has the double advantage of giving staff instant access when they join or move roles, while maintaining centralized control of permissions.

As part of this user provisioning, VQ Conference Manager sets up each employee’s always-available virtual meeting Space – an essential enabler of truly self-service conferencing.

Users can then invite others to their Space, and manage audio and participants during meetings, using the VQ Add-in in Microsoft Outlook. Advanced in-call features enabled by VQ Conference Manager, such as DTMF tones, support the customer’s ability to connect CMS-based conferences to those on other platforms.

For the team managing the system, the VQ operator dashboards and Analytics provide the insights they require to proactively monitor how the service is performing and identify where additional infrastructure
is needed.

Business Outcomes

Successful pilot lead to the global rollout and expansion of Cisco Meeting Server estate.

With support from WWT and VQ , the DoD agency installed and configured its Cisco Meeting Server audio and video conferencing service. Overseen by an admin team of just two individuals, the initial 100-user pilot was a big success, which has given the agency the confidence to roll it out to the remainder of its employees globally. The agency is not anticipating having to expand the administration team to support this much larger service.

Thanks to the insights provided by VQ’s Analytics, the agency has identified where it will require additional hardware capacity to support the full rollout. As a result, it has procured additional Cisco Meeting Servers to meet this forecast demand.

Partner Insight

This project was among the first in which World Wide Technology deployed VQ Conference Manager alongside Cisco Meeting Server. Erik Nielsen, who manages the federal engineering delivery services team at WWT, reveals the product has quickly become regarded as indispensable…

“VQ Conference Manager enables us to offer CMS customers the great collaboration experience we want them to have. After my team met VQ, the team came to me and said we should be incorporating it in every CMS proposal we do. Seeing that level of buy-in from people who can be sceptical of new technologies is pretty incredible. What’s then been great is VQ’s commitment to investing in WWT as a partner. They paid for our people to undergo training in the product, which shows how much they believe in it and our relationship. Customers understand the value of CMS. You then need a way to make that magic happen. It’s got to be easy to configure and manage – and that’s what VQ does.”

Customer Challenge

The customer had a need for an on-premise solution to enable their operators to schedule and manage high level, critical calls for their employees. This is a large organization, with 80,000 employees globally and of these 30,000 are supported by the operator team to make their calls. This white-glove or concierge model has been very successful and as the staff are becoming more familiar with making calls, the organization realised they also had a need to enable their users to make more self-service calls.

Business Outcomes

In October 2023, a second order was placed for VQ Conference Manager, enabling the 30,000 users to make and manage their own calls, using VQ’s self-service applications.

In addition, following Cisco’s End of Life/End of Support announcement for TMS, the organization have purchased an additional 300 VQ DMA licenses, to the 850 they previously purchased. Work is underway to migrate the management of their Cisco devices from TMS to VQ DMA.