Dubai, UAE, 3 November 2009: At the 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.
