Latest Developments in Videoconferencing and Collaboration with Vidyo
As I have chosen to dedicate focus to UCC in May on rAVe, here I take a look at recent developments that have taken place at well-known vidoconferencing solutions provider Vidyo.
Eran Westman, CEO at Vidyo
Vidyo™ technology innovations put HD-quality, multipoint video communications within reach of anyone using any device, anywhere. Vidyo’s video collaboration solutions power new workflow applications and boost productivity in industries such as banking, education, government, healthcare, and high tech.
Video Banking: The next chapter in a bank’s digital transformation
According to Vidyo, the VidyoWorksTM software platform video-enables a financial institution’s high-value client services and is easily integrated with their infrastructure, applications and workflows. Natural, interactive HD video meetings can be conducted securely over the Internet and 3G/4G/LTE mobile networks.
With this, subtle facial expressions and gestures that enhance understanding are part of the interaction, not lost in transmission. It also enables:
- One-click access to secure, HD video consultations with a personal banker from your existing customer web portal or mobile app.
- The power to include subject matter experts and resources at any point during a video meeting.
- A convenient way to see and review portfolio account summaries and reports while meeting together online.
An American Banker article Video Banking: From Tech Underdog to Secret Weapon?, in which Derek Williams, Chief Operations Officer at BluCurrent Credit Union was interviewed, was prefaced by a statement:
It sounds like a bad idea to seat customers in front of a screen to open accounts or get other higher-level services from remote banking officers, but BluCurrent Credit Union in Springfield, Mo., turned to video banking to cure its branch traffic woes and its members seem to like it.
A statement from Vidyo CEO Eran Westman, also from the article:
“We’re seeing banks integrating video banking services with [application program interfaces], so they can initially provide it in the branch, and then expand that into mobile and online.”
In a Vidyo videoconference set up with Derek Williams, I asked him how BluCurrent started to work with Vidyo on BluCurrent’s video banking project:
“I’ll take you back to 2013, we made the decision to centralize our lending processing and we had evaluated the loan to phone scenario, so a member would come into the lobby and pick up a phone to talk to somebody in the operations center. As we have our own internal IT department, we’ve got programmers on staff and I started looking at obviously the efficiency of centralization, there’s a lot of things that are very important there,” he stated.
“We wanted to make it as personal as possible so we started exploring video opportunities and what that could look like – we’ve actually taken that even further so there’s more than just a video interaction, it’s the full complete gamut of document signing and basically everything you need to do when you come in that you’re able to do over a video feed with the software we created.
Williams went on to explain that BluCurrent used a different company initially when they wrote everything in house, however they ended up running into stability issues and didn’t have the control they needed. At that point the company began to explore some of the leaders in the space where they came across Vidyo. They were able to write into their API where it fit perfectly with what they wanted to do, as well as where they wanted to take the product.
“Today we do that in-branch, so if a member comes in and they want to open a new account, get a loan or kind of similar in-depth account questions, we take them into a room that we’ve built out in our branches and there’s a table in there, it’s not the traditional desk scenario obviously, with an employee sitting behind it. The employees are all centralized so they can service any of our branch locations.”
Williams then went on to specify near-future plans, “We have plans of taking this into the mobile platform and the PC, tablet, whatever is the most convenient for our members to interact. We always tell members we love it when they come in to see us, but we know that they’re incredibly busy and so we want to be there in whatever channel makes sense for them.”
Cole Downing, Head of Mid Market Financial Services Sales for US who also joined us on the videoconference, explained how they had met Williams through his AV integrator, where from there they had discovery conversations in finding out conceptually what they were trying to do.
“The pinnacle point for us in the pre-sales process was putting together a live fire demonstration of the technology and actually taking BluCurrent’s website and mocking it up with Vidyo embedded in it so that it was cuing to an agent that was located at Vidyo’s headquarters that answered a call. Conceptually this was very indicative in what could be done in production,” Downing said. From that point on conversations were extremely aligned in terms of the vision where BluCurrent was looking to go and where Vidyo’s capabilities through API customization ultimately were.
Williams added, “That was paramount in our decision because we were asking for that exact thing to take place from multiple vendors and Vidyo is the only one who was able to deliver that, we wanted the one click, and the video was up. It had to be one touch, one click and you’re in.”
We did have further conversation on video and banking which will be included in a blog at a later date.
Click here to read more. Also see: Lights, Camera, Transaction! Video Banking Initiatives Take Center Stage
Vidyo recently selected by Alibaba DingTalk for video conferencing in Enterprise UC Cloud Platform
In late April, Alibaba DingTalk, a business unit of the Alibaba Group, the world’s largest online and mobile marketplace, selected Vidyo to bring embedded HD quality, click-to-connect multiparty video conferencing capabilities to DingTalk, Alibaba’s free, cloud-based enterprise unified communication platform. DingTalk with Vidyo enables 100+ endpoints to join a conference in a user-friendly interface with HD content sharing and flexible display layouts.
DingTalk is an innovative cross-platform app newly developed for communication and collaboration between team members and enterprises of various sizes. With enhanced security and mobile technologies, DingTalk is easy to use and manage, and can be accessed from almost anywhere. According to the company, DingTalk provides unified communication and people-oriented collaboration.
“Alibaba DingTalk’s enterprise customers required the highest quality video experience be integrated with DingTalk voice and messaging capabilities and we selected Vidyo, the market leader and pioneer of Scalable Video Coding (SVC) as our video conferencing partner,” said Mr. Chen Hang, Founder of DingTalk. “We are glad that Vidyo could address Alibaba DingTalk’s requirements for a high quality, extremely scalable, customized integration and a flawless experience over mobile and desktop devices with infrastructure that can grow as our business continues to expand.”
The seamless integration of Vidyo into the DingTalk platform ensures that enterprises can easily connect and collaborate anytime, anywhere over any device with the click of a button. Vidyo’s technology enables DingTalk to interconnect with legacy voice/SIP and video conferencing/H.323-based systems, extending the life of existing conference equipment. Alibaba DingTalk’s cloud-based collaboration platform paired with Vidyo’s software-based technology is designed to scale quickly and efficiently to support growing user bases and large conferences.
“A true innovator, Alibaba transformed every aspect of commerce in China and Vidyo is honored to partner with Alibaba DingTalk as it launches its own customized video-enabled UC service to Chinese enterprises,” said Eran Westman, CEO, Vidyo. “By leveraging Vidyo’s market-leading video conferencing technology, Alibaba DingTalk is redefining high quality, reliable video communications and we look forward to supporting their extraordinary growth.”
Click here to read more.
(Note: Though not exhibiting, Vidyo team members along with several of their partners will be attending InfoComm 2016).
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