Computerworld

Retravision does web meetings

The 50 member IT team, spread across Australia and New Zealand, meets monthly on WebEx

The 50 member IT department at electrical appliance company Retravision is using web conferencing to connect its various IT teams, situated in each Australian state and New Zealand.

The company’s national IT manager, Angela Averte, says there are six people in each state and territory as well as two staff in New Zealand, so it was difficult to function.

As a result, Retravision began trialing web conferencing and collaboration services from WebEx, a Cisco company, holding online meetings across Australia and New Zealand.

“It was difficult to function as a cohesive team when we’re so spread out,” Averte says.

“We used to hold regular teleconferences but they didn’t allow us to actually work or collaborate together.

“People would struggle to remain focused with just a boring telephone in the middle of the table.” Today, Averte says, the team meets monthly on WebEx.

“Our productivity has improved because we can work on documents in real time, share ideas and get things done in the sessions,” she says.

“It’s about collaborating with all of the team members to improve IT processes and ultimately increase Retravision’s efficiency as a business.

“As an on-demand web conferencing solution, WebEx doesn’t require us to invest in costly hardware set-ups which is an added bonus.” Based on the success of the trials, Retravision has longer term plans to connect corporate offices with store outlets.

Averte wants to introduce WebEx Training Centre so IT can remotely train staff in the stores on how to use point of sale (PoS) systems.

“We have more than 450 stores across the ANZ region, many of them in regional areas,” she says.

“The staff at each store are not necessarily tech savvy so we required a service that was intuitive and provides ease of use. There’s potentially over 4,000 people to provide online training and technical support for at our stores, but we’re confident WebEx can help us achieve our objectives,” she says. “Our goal is to train end users without having to send an IT person out to individual locations, or arrange a group training session.