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Collaboration - change the way you work

BT Financial Group thought about how their 5,500 employees communicated with their colleagues, across their business units, locations and within the Westpac Group. They quickly identified that improvements could be made by rolling out Office Communicator and Live Meeting, connecting the ad hoc video conferencing facilities and installing three state-of-the-art Tandberg suites.

The aim was to simply get employees out of the Qantas Lounge and have them home with their families, to break down the 'meeting culture' for simple decision-making and drive the business's commitment to sustainability.

My involvement in these projects was as the Change Manager – a different role to my usual Project Manager, and my first IT applications piece of work. Change management is all about the end user – and this involved conducting a pilot, organising appropriate training for the Technology teams and ensuring that the desk top and service desk teams have adequate support requirements and most importantly the development and execution of employee communications.

The main piece of this project was the deployment of Office Communicator across the employee base. Our pilot confirmed our instincts that we would need to take a phased approach, so that we did not blow up the service desk with queries. We also worked hard to get as much information on the intranet as possible, so we created 'how do I's' for getting started to the more advanced features of the software.

The phased roll out took just over six weeks to complete – at the end we have over 5,000 employees able to use Office Communicator to support the way they work and the result has been a fantastic success.

Tandberg Video Conferencing suites are becoming increasingly popular with geographically challenged businesses across Australia. The investment BT Financial Group has made to its video conferencing network is significant and reflects the commitment to creating and connecting a sustainable workforce. With three suites set up and working non-stop, a forth is in production due to come online mid 2011. The benefits of 'in the room' video conferencing reduce the need for face-to-face meetings, reduce the travel time required and deliver timely solutions.

The differences in the way Employee's of BT Financial Group communicate were instant. The days of email, voice mail messages are numbered. The benefits of Office Communicator have delivered a simple and efficient solution to the way day-to-day communications are managed.