Situation

• The BMO Financial Group (BMO) has a workforce of almost 36,000 employees spread across Canada and the United States, posing challenges when business units in different locations need to collaborate
• To minimize the need for travel, some business units had installed audio and video conferencing equipment in their offices
• Some of the existing hardware was becoming antiquated and was under utilized
• There was no central policy on video and audio conferencing solutions and each unit made its own purchasing and design decisions
• As a result, there were no common standards, making it difficult for users to familiarize themselves with the equipment in different offices
• There was also no centralized record of equipment, and no assurance of interoperability between the solutions

Approach

• Initially, TELUS was asked to upgrade the video and audio conferencing facilities in one executive boardroom, within very aggressive timelines
• BMO's management was impressed with the solution and the speed of implementation and asked TELUS to conduct a detailed assessment of their current conferencing and collaboration capabilities
• TELUS visited a select sample of BMO boardrooms across the country and provided an assessment of the solutions in use
• The study included a review of available solutions, the benefits they offer and how they are being used by other organizations
• TELUS also created a blueprint for all BMO solutions, ensuring a common look and feel and common standards
• The Bank is now in the process of implementing these solutions, with close to 20 boardrooms completed to date

Business benefits

• All new conferencing solutions are extremely easy to use, resulting in a significant usage increase
• Common standards across the group ensure interoperability, while a common look and feel enables users to move from one room to another with ease
• Employees no longer need to travel as much, saving time and money and reducing BMO'S carbon footprint
• The new solutions enable BMO to augment team communications and improve collaboration and decision making by bringing employees together for meetings more often
• The TELUS blueprint ensures the right solutions are purchased for each office, delivering the best value for every dollar BMO invests

Solution

Bank of Montreal Group (BMO) is a highly diversified financial services provider, offering a broad range of financial services to individual, commercial, corporate and institutional clients.

With offices across Canada and in the United States, BMO has a highly dispersed workforce of close to 36,000 people, which makes it difficult for members of BMO's business units to collaborate.  Some business units had installed audio and conferencing solutions, but there was no central policy for equipment standards and each unit made its own purchasing decisions.  As a result, there was no central record of the equipment BMO owned, no assurance that different systems could work together and no common interface that would enable users to operate any system in any room.

As one of BMO's leading vendors of collaboration solutions, TELUS was asked to design and update the facilities in one executive boardroom.  To meet the aggressive timelines, TELUS provided complete project management.  BMO management was so impressed with the result that TELUS was asked to provide a detailed assessment of the current state of the organization's collaboration solutions.

"The assessment was extremely valuable," says Matt Cowan, Manager Audio Visual Services at BMO.  "It told us what we have, what the industry is doing, what other TELUS clients are doing, what we could achieve with the technology and the value we could expect."  The assessment also provided a blueprint that would make it easy for BMO to implement the TELUS recommendations, with consistent solutions across the organization.

"We were immediately interested in taking advantage of some of these recommendations," says Cowan.  "After the initial boardroom, we did a few audio-only rooms, with some high quality audio conferencing equipment, like table microphones, ceiling speakers and wireless controllers.  Now, as requirements come up, we proceed with new implementations."  To date, BMO has completed close to 20 rooms.

Ease of use is a prime consideration in the design of BMO's audio-visual solutions.  In the more sophisticated video conferencing installations, everything is controlled from an 8-inch touch-screen unit, which can dim the lights, lower the screen, operate the video projector and connect the different teams.  "We've had very positive feedback from a number of sources," says Cowan.  "In terms of quality of work, performance of the technology and ease of use, TELUS has really delivered."

With its new collaboration solutions in place, BMO is finding that business units save on travel costs, are able to make better decisions in less time and can bring products to market faster.  "The ability to communicate and collaborate within a team is strengthened considerably," says Cowan.  "When you don't see people very often and can bring them in via video, it really augments communications."  In this way, the solutions are helping BMO reduce its carbon footprint across the country.

Cost-savings are also evident in purchasing decisions.  "Instead of going to a host of different suppliers, we're able to realize discounts by using TELUS exclusively," Cowan explains.  "All in all, we're extremely satisfied with everything TELUS has done."