UK’s most discerning casino operator uses video conferencing-as-a-service to support expansion and growth

London, UK – 2 August 2010 mvision today announces that the UK’s most discerning casino operator, Aspers Group, is using its managed video conferencing solutions to reduce business travel between the Group’s growing number of locations.

The boardroom-based Cisco-TANDBERG HD systems are currently used by the HR, finance and business development teams across London, Newcastle, Northampton and Swansea. The initiative started with a small pilot between the Group’s head office in Sloane Street, London and Newcastle, and immediately saved 2-3 journeys per week between the two cities for Aspers Group Gaming Operations Manager.

Nick Snowden, IT Director at Aspers Group explains, “We examined the cost of group business travel; particularly the cost of personnel commuting between our London HQ and our regional sites. We were already spending a lot on flights and rail travel up and down the country, and this was rapidly increasing with our geographic expansion,” he continues. “In a bid to make better use of technology to help control our growth, we looked at the video conferencing market and quickly turned to mvision for an affordable managed service that provides valuable support services such as a helpdesk.”

Terry Dwyer, Managing Director at mvision adds, “Although the systems at Aspers Group have only been live for a few months, the casino operator is already saving a considerable amount of unnecessary business travel time and expense. Aspers Group had implemented an authority-to-travel policy that involved employees having to apply for permission to spend on transport. This was designed to engender cultural change and encourage people to consider video conferencing first,” he continued. “In reality though, once users have experienced video meetings they have spontaneously evangelised it internally.”

Aspers Group managed video conferencing solution utilises mvision’s own dedicated video network which, along with the video systems is covered by a simple per-month cost. Now being trialled by the Group’s marketing function, it is also used live during board meetings. The coming months may also see the video conferencing network used for group-wide training and even by Aspers’ leased office space tenants in Swansea.

Snowden concludes, “Our overall experience with mvision’s video conferencing has been really good so far. Their experience with the Cisco-TANDBERG offering and expertise around interoperability was very important to us. Our installation went smoothly; the mvision engineers certainly knew what they were doing and on the rare occasions we’ve called the helpdesk, that team has been equally as good.”