Balco AB

Challenges 

Having a geographically distributed workforce, where business travel was
becoming increasingly costly, time consuming, and environmentally
unsustainable.

The need for a video conferencing system that was easily integrated with
existing office infrastructure.

Pexip Solutions

Pexip’s interoperable video conferencing solutions made the service easy to
integrate with conference room hardware, making remote meetings easier.

Results

Shifting to video meetings meant an increase in productivity and efficiency,
and decreases in cost and carbon footprint.

Having Pexip services in place prior to Covid-19 made for a smooth transition
to a virtual work environment and allowed Balco to keep up productivity during
the pandemic lockdown.

With a workforce distributed across different cities in Europe and customers who are accustomed to site visits by vendors, business travel is very common for Balco employees. As this became more frequent for many different kinds of meetings, it also became more costly and unsustainable. Balco, which has environmental sustainability built into its core business philosophy, wanted to make a change. But to make the switch to more virtual meetings, the technology for video conferencing had to be convenient, fast, and accessible to everyone involved, both internal and external.

Balco first became a Pexip user in 2015. Some of the primary features Balco was looking for in a video conferencing service were ease of use, simple integration to Outlook, the ability to use the service with their in-office conferencing infrastructure, and flexible subscription plans. Since most of the company’s meetings happen between Balco employees and external consultants, interoperability was crucial. That’s where Pexip came in.

A big part of the decision-making was ensuring that the video platform could be easily integrated with the hardware they already had in place, which included several large Cisco systems. The implementation and roll-out went quickly, and the company was pleased with how easy it was for their IT team to set up.

“The fact that you can sit in a conference room and have large video meetings where everyone calls into the virtual room, is great,” says IT Operations Manager Torbjörn Blomster. “When you speak on the phone it becomes a bit impersonal, but when you see each other on video you become more engaged. We are buying more equipment and expanding the conference rooms with video all the time.”

One of the main benefits of the Pexip-as-a-Service solution has been a reduction in the need for so much business travel. This has resulted in reduced cost of meetings, with increases in efficiency and user productivity, along with improved sustainability practices. Balco has also seen a reduction in the need for IT support thanks to Pexip’s user-friendly interface and video knowledge base. The functionality and reliability of the Pexip solution has also allowed the company to focus on their business contacts, without having to worry about the technology that allows them to communicate.

When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, Balco employees were already familiar with using Pexip day-to-day. Whereas some companies found the shift to virtual meetings difficult to manage, Balco had a smooth transition to a fully virtual meeting culture and were able to keep up productivity throughout the lockdown.

“Video meetings weren’t new to us when Covid-19 came,” says Torbjörn. “It was great that everything with Pexip was already in place and that we didn’t have to all of a sudden learn something new.”

Balco has for many years thought of video meeting technology as an important long-term investment in their future. Since becoming a Pexip user, the service has helped the company bring about a steady change in organizational behavior. The movement toward virtualizing meetings was already gaining momentum before the pandemic and will continue after as well. Balco is pleased that they have been able to navigate these changes with a reliable video meeting solution.

To learn more about the Pexip solution, get in touch today.