Interview: Aaron McCormack, BT Conferencing CEO

Videoconferencing can enable a smaller carbon footprint and a better work/life balance

Conferencing is big business, as evidenced by the amount of money Cisco was prepared to pay to acquire videoconferencing company Tandberg. Cisco was initially prepared to pay £1.8bn, but just this month upped its bid by £240m to get its hands on 90 per cent of the firm. The networking giant estimates that the collaboration business is worth some £20bn annually, hence its determination to secure Tandberg.

When V3.co.uk recently caught up with Aaron McCormack, chief executive for conferencing at BT, he was less keen to put a price on the conferencing market, but was more than happy to discuss its value.

"There is great potential for audio and videoconferencing, but I'll leave valuing the industry to the analysts. We help people to use technology, to get more work done more quickly and to be agile, whether that is through audio, web, or video conferencing," McCormack said.

BT is keen to tailor its solutions to its customers' needs, according to McCormack, and makes strategic investments, as opposed to developing tools itself. Examples include the purchase of US videoconferencing firm Wire One, which McCormack said took about three weeks to integrate into BT's main business.

"Nobody had heard of Wire One, and they want a brand name that they can trust. We are end-user focused. We don't build much technology of our own, but provide the tools and anything around those tools that people need to get their jobs done. Firms want holistic systems, and they want their staff to use them," he said.

"Companies have an economic incentive to drive usage. They want a return on investment, and they want people to use the systems. We tell people how and when to use conference calls, and why it may be useful. We spend a lot of time with knowledge workers showing them just how to make a call. A lot of such workers never use collaboration tools, and those that do have the potential to make much better use of them."

This idea of education is important to BT, and McCormack explained that increases in the number of remote workers, for example, should convince firms to act now to make sure that their staff are up to scratch on the use of collaboration tools. Other benefits include a decrease in carbon footprint, and the potential to dramatically improve work/life balance.

"You don't have to be in a room in an office to get your work done, and collaboration is a very resilient way of working," he explained. "For one of our customers, the true benefits of the system became apparent when its chief executive was fogbound at Heathrow airport. Although she was unable to attend an important event in person, she was still able to deliver her speech over a conference call, and get her other work done."

Companies often need a lot of education about the systems that they already have in place, McCormack noted.

"I spend a lot of time with human resources departments talking about getting work done and making meetings more productive," he said. "Meetings should be exciting and useful. We have to take what is essentially basic technology and make it accessible for customers. This is a very exciting industry to be in. We want to see happy people, reviewing documents and spreadsheets and working on things collectively."

The future, according to some pundits, is 3D meetings with colleagues from around the world filling chairs or stage space virtually thanks to new conferencing capabilities, but McCormack is not sure about how realistic this is.

"We are not spending the billions of dollars to develop it, but I wonder, what does 3D really add? Not enough to justify the cost of its technology," he said. "There is a big difference between something being pretty cool, and something giving you value for money. Perhaps if we see a huge increase in adoption then the price will come down. Then you might see it in more businesses."