Global Research Firm Cuts Travel Costs and Delivers New ...



Overview

Country or Region: United Kingdom

Industry: Energy and Life Sciences

Customer Profile

Wood Mackenzie, headquartered in the U.K., provides analysis tools and strategic advice on energy and life sciences to blue-chip, global organisations. It employs 350 personnel at offices around the world.

Business Situation

The organisation wanted a cost-effective Web conferencing technology that delivered new customer services and reduced travel expenditure.

Solution

Wood Mackenzie selected Microsoft® Office Live Meeting 2003 (now upgraded to Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005) and developed new services and sales processes through interactive online presentations and demonstrations.

Benefits

■ Reduced travel expenditure

■ Greater employee productivity

■ Increased customer services

■ More cost-effective sales processes

■ Simple-to-use interface

| | |“The cost benefits of using Live Meeting 2005 are significant. We estimate that we save four times as much in travel expenditure each year as the annual cost of the solution.”

Colin Weddell, Head of Technology, Wood Mackenzie

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| | | |Wood Mackenzie, headquartered in the United Kingdom, delivers analysis tools and strategic advice to |

| | | |blue-chip clients in energy and health markets. It wanted a reliable Web conferencing solution that |

| | | |delivered new customer services and reduced expenditure on air travel. After a thorough review of the|

| | | |marketplace, Wood Mackenzie implemented Microsoft® Office Live Meeting 2003 (now upgraded to |

| | | |Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005). It uses the technology to drive sales and deliver research |

| | | |presentations and staff training. With Live Meeting, the yearly savings in travel expenditure are |

| | | |estimated at £100,000 (U.S.$175,000), representing four times the annual cost of the new solution. |

| | | |Furthermore, Wood Mackenzie employees avoid losing valuable time away from their desks on client |

| | | |visits. Sales demonstrations are more cost-efficient and convenient for customers, who now get new |

| | | |value-added services, such as online presentations that highlight latest research findings from Wood |

| | | |Mackenzie. |

| | | | |

| | | |[pic] |

| | | | |

Situation

The glue in any successful business relationship is the interaction between supplier and customer. Historically, research and consulting business Wood Mackenzie dedicated significant resources to building client relationships, often travelling long distances for face-to-face meetings.

Wood Mackenzie, headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, works in energy and life sciences markets. The organisation’s core services include providing commercial analysis tools and strategic advice, which means there is an obvious requirement to work closely with customers. As a result, personnel have needed to fly around the world regularly for meetings with its global, blue-chip client base.

The organisation wanted to promote new client services and make customer meetings more flexible. As it stood, for a client visit to be cost-effective, a large number of items needed to be dealt with in a single session. This meant the meetings had less time for Wood Mackenzie personnel to promote additional services or present industry research.

The company was aware of developments in Web conferencing technology. This new innovation provides a way for businesses to communicate using the Internet, but without losing the effectiveness and personalisation of face-to-face meetings. With such a solution, Wood Mackenzie could focus meeting agendas on fewer items and gain a channel to develop new customer services and deliver findings.

However, the company wanted a solution that delivered excellent stability and an advanced suite of interactive tools for Web conferencing. Colin Weddell, Head of Technology at Wood Mackenzie, says: “The success of our business is a result of the relationships between Wood Mackenzie personnel and clients. Significant resources have gone into establishing a close level of contact. It was vital that we found a solution that built on this hard work.”

Solution

After a thorough review of the Web conferencing solutions available on the market, Wood Mackenzie selected Microsoft® Office Live Meeting 2003 (the organisation has since upgraded to Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005). The technology is a Microsoft-hosted system that delivers real-time, interactive meetings for up to 2,000 participants who can attend without leaving their desks. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite of integrated, desktop systems designed to improve employee productivity.

Weddell says: “We believed that Live Meeting offered a stable environment that ensured a robust Web conferencing service. This was important as any problems with the service could damage our client relationships.”

Wood Mackenzie uses Live Meeting to deliver new and existing services that once formed part of customer meetings. Weddell explains: “Before, client meetings may have also included items on research. But now these items can be addressed using Live Meeting in separate sessions.”

The organisation presents the research to multiple clients online, on average four times a month for large web calls and a further 40 calls per month for smaller presentations and sales based calls. These fully-interactive presentations, which include question and answer (Q and A) sessions, are then available on the organisation’s extranet. For customers, this ensures they don’t lose out on any new research if their busy schedules force them to miss a session. For Wood Mackenzie, it means that it can deliver a presentation only once and avoids the expense of multiple sessions.

Live Meeting is now an integral part of Wood Mackenzie’s sales processes. It uses the system to deliver product demonstrations. These demonstrations include slide presentations and client discussions. Weddell says: “We use them during pre- and post-sales sessions to effectively show the key benefits and functionality of our business analysis tools.”

While the Web conferences are in progress, Wood Mackenzie personnel use a number of interactive tools that come as part of the Live Meeting solution. These include:

• Microsoft Office PowerPoint® Viewer—this displays PowerPoint slides with full support for animations and transitions, and is used as the primary method for delivering product messages.

• Application and Desktop Sharing—this is used during product demonstrations.

• Remote Control and Assistance—personnel use this for troubleshooting Wood Mackenzie products with clients.

• Real Time Polls—these are incorporated into large presentations of more than 100 attendees. They give presenters a valuable insight into industry opinion that can help define product development.

• Question Manager—this is the main interactive tool for Q and A sessions during presentations. Audience members can post questions without interrupting the speaker and personnel can supply answers without disrupting the presentation. Logs of the Q and A sessions are also a good data source for highlighting hot topics within the industry.

The organisation provides employee training with Live Meeting. Wood Mackenzie delivers online training sessions, which it posts on the intranet for employees to access and review. It ensures that employees can still receive valuable training even if their diaries prevent them from attending a particular session. Plus, the company makes training more cost-effective and avoids the need for trainers to travel to offices and deliver multiple sessions.

Benefits

Cost Savings for Company, Increased Staff Productivity

With Live Meeting, Wood Mackenzie saves money on travel expenditure as there is less need for client visits. By using the technology, the organisation can engage with customers and communicate as effectively as during face-to-face meetings, but from their offices. It means Wood Mackenzie not only reduces its operational costs, but employees avoid losing valuable time away from their desks.

Weddell says: “The cost benefits of using Live Meeting 2005 are significant. We estimate that we save four times as much in travel expenditure each year as the annual cost of the solution.”

He adds: “Our customers save time as their staff can participate directly from their desks. For us, there is also a saving in the opportunity cost related to the ‘lost’ time from staff travelling.”

New Value-Added Services for Customers

With Live Meeting, Wood Mackenzie has added real value to client services. In the past, to make client meetings cost effective, there was pressure on the amount of time to present research on industry issues. Now, Wood Mackenzie can make these presentations standalone online services and dedicate more time to Q and A sessions.

For example, the company’s staff recently delivered an online interactive presentation on the financial impact of changes in licensing opportunities for oil exploration in Venezuela. This attracted an audience of 50 people from Europe, North and South America, who represented 30 different businesses including oil companies and investment banks.

Before Live Meeting, Wood Mackenzie’s employees needed to deliver these kinds of presentations either at clients’ offices or by telephone. Neither solution was both cost-effective and sufficiently interactive.

By using Live Meeting, the company ensures the presentations are extremely cost-efficient for both itself and customers. Plus, customers gain a truly interactive experience, including a slide show and question and answer session, which is accessible from their desks. In addition, if colleagues cannot attend but want to see the presentation, a recording is available on the Wood Mackenzie extranet.

Increased Sales Potential, Responsive Sales Processes

Live Meeting is now a valued part of the organisation’s sales processes. It helps drive sales, providing Wood Mackenzie staff with a tool for delivering interactive product demonstrations to a large number of clients—up to 100 in a single session. They avoid the expense of travelling to demonstrate products and give customers a convenient opportunity to review services.

Weddell comments: “In a four-week period recently, personnel located in London had fully interactive discussions with 15 customers based in Europe and North America on a new product offering. This was far more cost-effective than the previous method of flying to clients’ offices.”

He continues: “In a recent product sale to a new customer in Australia, one of our staff made a demonstration using Live Meeting from their desk in Edinburgh. There was no cost-of-sale involved and only a small inconvenience for our employees because of the time-zone difference.”

Cost-Effective Internal Training for Employees

Apart from delivering new customer services, Live Meeting delivers added-value to employee training programmes. They are more cost-effective because, as with sales presentations, sessions can be delivered to a number of locations at one time.

For personnel, the Web-based training sessions retain the interactivity of a classroom environment. Personnel use the Live Meeting’s interactive tools such as PowerPoint Viewer and Question Manager so that sessions are extremely effective and session goals are achieved.

Simple-to-Use Solution with a Familiar Interface

Wood Mackenzie gained a Web conferencing solution that delivers additional cost benefits by integrating with existing IT investments. In the past, the organisation implemented Microsoft Office 2003 as the core desktop application suite. As part of the Microsoft Office System, Live Meeting is designed to combine programs such as PowerPoint 2003 with Web conferences.

As a result, personnel use familiar command controls and Wood Mackenzie avoids extensive training on how to use the new solution. Furthermore, with widespread familiarity of Microsoft desktop applications, customers also benefit from a familiar interface that is easy to work with.

Microsoft Office System

The Microsoft Office System is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office System, go to:

office

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| |Software and Services

■ Microsoft Office 2003

■ Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2003

■ Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005

■ Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 | | |

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, the Office logo, and PowerPoint, are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published March 2006 | | |

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