Suksesshistorier - Les hvordan våre kunder har lykkes.
Travel budget decreased by two thirds
North Energy Company has set out to find the 15 percent of Norway’s estimated undiscovered petroleum resources that are located within 1,000 km of their head offices.
- But we had too many employees travelling between our offices in Oslo, Bergen and Alta just to have meetings; it was unnecessary and very expensive. So we started our search for a video conferencing system with good quality and that was easy to use, and ended up with easy meeting concept, IT manager Bengt Forsberg explains.
With its head office in modern premises in the Alta Knowledge Park, and although Alta is a growth centre in its region and even and a hub for air travel and other modes of transport, the experts simply spent too little time in the office and too much time on the road. Thanks to the implementation of video conferencing and easy meetings all through the organization, North Energy is a global company run from Alta in Northern-Norway.
Easy to use
- Most of our users had no experience with video conferencing systems, whilst others had tried using it several years ago when the quality was on a different league, Forsberg says.
The implementation within North energy was never a challenge as the systems showed to be easy to use and the quality sure has improved the last couple of years and their employees all wanted a solution that allowed them to travel less.
- As soon as we decided to implement video conferencing systems in our company, our travel budget decreased by two thirds. Also, my colleagues have become addicted to the easy meeting concept as they are more productive in their daily activities both at work and at home. In fact, whenever all the video conferencing units are taken, which is not unusual, people get upset, he says and adds:
- It is an important tool for us that we do not know how to do without. The amount of meetings conducted at north Energy has also increased drastically. All of our employees have received proper training and know how to book the rooms and where to search for other available video conferencing systems around the world, Forsberg ensures.
- Flexibility is a big focus for us, and thus video conferencing systems allows us to meet between geographically spread locations. It is easy to meet this way and it is both time- and cost effective. Also, by choosing easy meetings over travelling we have found an effective way to reduce CO2, Christina Søgård, PR manager adds.
Needs more units
Although North Energy has three main offices in Norway, other employees are now located in their home base in several countries. But they still meet with their co-workers rapidly thanks to the easy meetings.
- We can hire the best and there is no need for them to move here – this is something we focus on in the hiring process and has showed to be important in order to get the right people. Off course we meet in person as well as it is so much more efficient to know each other that way as well, but the majority of our meetings are now video conferences.
As a result of the increased amount of meetings conducted, and as the opportunities with the new easy meeting concept appear, adding on several extra units even at the locations that today have their own video rooms, is no longer a strange thought:
- In the future, we need even more systems in order to have even more rapid meetings and perhaps we will streamline our training by streaming and distributing some of the sessions. Our remote teammates attend the same meetings and the same training as we de, and so no one is isolated from the rest even though some have chosen to work from home and all over the world.