Managed services provider Calibre One has been tapped to overhaul Australian manufacturing firm Codan’s unified communications and videoconferencing capabilities.
ASX-listed, Adelaide-headquartered Codan manufactures technology and electronics for mining, government and humanitarian aid customers, including communications, metal detection and other mining technology. It has staff across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Mexico, Singapore, the UAE, UK and USA, with products sold in some 150 countries through a global network of dealers, distributors and agents.
The company sought Calibre One to replace its legacy videoconferencing system with a new “global collaboration hub” built from Poly, Biamp, Shure, Samsung and LG hardware solutions integrated into Codan’s existing Microsoft Teams setup. The new system was also required to accommodate other collaboration platforms like Zoom and WebEx.
The refresh aimed to help Codan fuel its growth aspirations and adapt to the pandemic with a more immersive solution.
Codan operations manager Dave Pilcher said the legacy system was unnecessarily complicated and presented daunting barriers that cruelled user adoption.
“With the new Calibre One system, we set out to reduce complexity for users even though the system is technically more complicated,” Pilcher said. “From a user’s perspective, it’s now far less complex than it used to be.”
Pilcher added Calibre One’s installation quality encouraged users to conduct remote meetings without needing to tinker with the equipment, ensuring rooms always deliver a “superior” meeting experience.
Some of the considerations for the system included one-touch setup, reducing extraneous noise while picking up nuances of speech, providing seamless access to devices, and capturing and reproducing subtleties of body language with no outside technical help.
Apart from the UC and videoconferencing hardware, tracking cameras were also installed to enable more natural presentations, while hidden microphones ensured crystal clear audio pickup. Professional audio speakers were added for clear and accurate sound reproduction.
Following the refresh, Calibre One said Codan users flocked to the system, holding some 141 meetings to rack up 235 hours of usage over a 90-day period. One such meeting, a recent CEO update, managed to handle a 400-employee session.
Major announcements are recorded in Microsoft Teams to help employees in unfavourable time zones, without having to dig around for a recording in a share file.
Users have also reported more benefits like reduced trips to the office and a shift in company culture to allow more remote working options.
“I was sceptical at the start because we had spent a lot of money on our existing system with little to show. But the experience with Calibre One and the resulting user acceptance converted me to see the value in our new solution, and we now have fewer mad panics from users,” Pilcher said.
“Calibre One listened to what we wanted. They found ways to cut costs so we could reinvest in higher quality audio and video, which makes a phenomenal difference to the user experience.”
Calibre One chief executive Darren Gore said Codan was impressed with the company’s human-centred design informed by its understanding of client needs.
“We eliminated the ‘complex’ for the users. Now the users have no need for technical skills to collaborate with each other. All staff, from the junior to the executives, are able to quickly strike up a high quality and meaningful conversation,” Gore said.Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.