Webex Tele-Conferencing

The Webex pilot is a proof of concept project using Cisco's Webex Meeting Center.

The aim is to identify potential changes to working practices and will test the technology in a Local Government setting. It can also contribute to cost-savings by using this product to save officer time, travelling to and from meetings, car-parking, CO2 emissions and reducing City Council room hire.

The private sector already use Webex very successfully and the aim is to identify how Birmingham City Council can take advantage of the same benefits.

It integrates data, voice and video within a standard web browser so you can collaborate over the internet from anywhere. The product has the following capabilities that will be tested as part of the trial in early 2011:-

• Presentation/document share
• Application/desktop share
• Web browser/web content share
• Instant and planned meetings
• Polling
• Chat
• Video
• Whiteboard
• Integrated audio conferencing
• Integrated voip
• Record, edit and playback
• File transfer
• Join and attend with 3G mobile device
• Mix mode conferencing

The Pilot

Digital Birmingham have successfully completed a three month pilot which ended in September, with a number of teams within Birmingham City Council (BCC). Currently, the City Council spends over £7 million on travel, and with ambitious CO2 reduction targets is exploring ways to make savings.

Twenty people from a variety of different Directorates and grades signed up to the Cisco Webex pilot which allowed officers to hold meetings online, give presentations, document share, application/desktop share, poll, chat, video, & record to play back at a later date all through their computers.

The findings showed that on average the following savings could be achieved per person per month:

• £70.48 in travel plus £180 other costs (parking, room hire refreshments etc..)
• 99kg of C02 emissions - one international meeting saved 4,411kg C02

As well as:

• Savings in officer time lost due to offsite travel
• Improved productivity through increased meetings & document sharing.

If BCC deployed an online meeting tool to 10% of its web enabled staff it could save £1.44m in travel costs, £156K in other meeting related costs and 2 million CO2 Kg (not including air travel).

It would also increase perception of Birmingham as a leading digital city, championing CO2 reductions.