Generation-e deploys Poly Microsoft Teams Rooms to Grant Thornton

Melbourne-based managed services provider Generation-e has deployed Poly video communications hardware to accounting firm Grant Thornton to power its Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android.

The deployment covered 70 out of Grant Thornton’s 110 meeting rooms across its six offices across Australia as part of an upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. It was also part of a wider digital transformation upgrade following the COVID-19 pandemic to help its more than 1400 staff have a more seamless experience in hybrid working.

Generation-e deployed Poly’s Studio X30 all-in-one video bar for huddle and small rooms, Studio X50 for mid-sized rooms and the Poly G7500 for the larger rooms.

“[Generation-e] is all about enabling our customers to simply, securely and sustainably meet, collaborate and share,” Generation-e client executive Paul Baker said.

“We made a recommendation to Grant Thornton for the Poly Studio X-Series, based on conversations where we uncovered different requirements.”

Baker said the requirements focused on the transition from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams, and to help Grant Thornton’s IT team be more self-sufficient in some of their deployment work. The company also had a set budget and wanted a solution that would easily integrate with all other technology being used on the company premises.

“People need to speak to people, so making those connections is important in building relationships - new and existing - and just working within a trusted relationship, and people want to do business with people they trust,” he added.

Grant Thornton technology officer Carlo De Fazio said the company’s larger rooms had significant automation, which provided complexity and an additional challenge.

“These rooms can sit between 20 and 250 people in a video conference, and each individual room refit required significant investment to make the room Microsoft Teams compatible,” De Fazio said.

“Not only was the cost of the unit less expensive than the Windows-based devices, the installation was far simpler. Cabling locations, various parts to the unit were less and the overall footprint was lighter.

“This meant we could do the installation ourselves not only saving money on the devices but the installation as well.”

De Fazio said the Poly G7500 was an ideal option for the larger rooms for being able to run on existing cabling and automation systems and that the internal IT team can install the hardware, with light touch support from Generation-e.

“The team reforecasted the business case based on Poly Android Teams devices, installing our devices with internal resources and retrofitting the Poly G7500 into the larger rooms,” he added. “The reduced business case investment was approved.”

The hardware also allowed the Grant Thornton IT team to retrofit the rooms themselves over the next few months of the deployment.

“It became obvious how easy the setup was of the devices and the user experience was solid. Each month new features were added to the devices, and they quickly surpassed the Windows devices for feature parity,” De Fazio said.

“The new rooms performed brilliantly, they look so professional, and our people have picked up the new interface very quickly.”