By Lathika Pai

Would you like to join Sales Force, NCR, Charles Schwab, Fiat, La Quinta Inns, Wells Fargo, Coca Cola, BASF, and several other multinationals who use enterprise video to communicate with their employees for increased productivity and exceptional employee engagement? The world was a stage in Shakespeare’s time; now, it’s a video screen. Whether it is consumers who enjoy entertainment virtually anywhere they go or businesses who need to communicate with their employees, the new entrant and rapidly spreading mode is video. Today, video is considered one of the most powerful forms of communication in the business world.

It’s become a video world for large corporations where traditional forms of communication like email and phone calls are no longer effective. That’s why companies are moving to communicate with their employees through video. But most large companies have an enterprise video problem. No, it’s not employees spending too much time on YouTube and Facebook. Corporations have an enterprise video delivery problem.

There’s rapid growth in executive and employee demand for video produced in-house that is used to communicate with employees. There are many different use cases for video. Increasingly, it’s being used for training, employee orientation, management addressing the rank-and-file, and general corporate communications. Video is transmitted on demand when requested by employees, and is also streamed, similar to a broadcast, so that many employees can watch it simultaneously. Additionally, companies can push video in the background to employees – or use combinations of these video types.

Unfortunately, corporate networks were never designed for this type of traffic. The combination of a vast amount of content and an antiquated delivery system can wreak havoc with all the other functions the corporate network must perform. Thus, companies have an enterprise video distribution problem, where typically the solution requires expensive hardware and software to be in place.

Hardware caching is a solution offered by the likes of CISCO/Tandberg, Avaya and Polycom and is typically used for video conferencing. Here caching appliances are placed at remote offices to pre-position video to help alleviate any network congestion associated with video distribution. But, as the number of remote sites increase, so does the capital expense of implementation. Equipment management efforts and operating expenses also expand with the number of sites. And, while a caching solution might work for on-demand delivery or background- pushed video, it does not work for live video because there is nothing to cache.

No Hardware Video
However, there are cloud- based alternatives that do not require any hardware. A peer-assisted system, like the Kontiki solution, focuses on a pure distribution solution along with several video apps like Webcaster and the Media Center. Rather than limiting the size of data over WAN links or speeding the connection, the software reduces the dependence on WAN by minimizing the video streams that travel over that link to a given location. Inside a corporate campus network or LAN, the software then distributes the video from one peer client to another, making it ready for viewing. Unlike multicasting, peer-assisted software has no need to configure additional protocols and mechanisms on routers.

Affordable cloud-based Video
Kontiki, founded in the year 2000, pioneered the enterprise video platform and enterprise content delivery network markets and are the leaders in affordable, cloud- based video delivery to the enterprise. Powered by innovative patented technology and with over 2 Million+ live users worldwide, Kontiki’s Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN) enables high quality holistic video communication with global reach that is secure, reliable, and network friendly. Kontiki’s ECDN helps dispersed organizations reach everyone across the enterprise with video, no matter where they are. And, Kontiki’s cloudbased solution works in conjunction with existing network infrastructure, so organisations’ don’t have to spend money and time on costly network upgrades.

With implementations of over 250,000 simultaneous users, Kontiki’s video solutions enable consumer-grade video engagement with enterprise-grade control over video delivery to the full range of today’s business devices, including smart phones and tablets, without congesting networks or compromising video quality. The world’s largest and most demanding enterprises trust Kontiki. Here are a few examples:

Happy Users
Nestle, the largest food company in the world has more than 500,000 internal video hits per month and 100+ Live events per annum with global reach, all made possible via the Kontiki solution.

FIAT, the car giant, deployed the Kontiki solution to 70,000 desktops in 4 weeks. Wachovia’s (now part of Wells Fargo) deployed the Kontiki solution to 3300 centres across 21 states in the US for a more cost-effective and convenient solution which had central control and management to meet security requirements to communicate to all employees.

Whether it is to share best practices in landing strategic accounts amongst a 2000 strong global sales force at NCR or to empower technicians in the field with the latest product and organization information, Kontiki’s Enterprise Video Suite has been the video platform of choice. In the Hospitality industry, La Quinta Inns US has used Kontiki to train their staff across 700 hotels in the US.

Enterprise video is being rapidly deployed across large organizations. Be sure to leverage the power of video communication for your organization. To know more about Enterprise Video for your organization, please send us an email at info@tekinroads.com.

Lathika Pai is a Partner with Tekinroads, a consulting company that helps US and European technology companies with their India strategy. This includes identifying the market opportunity to sell their products in India to setting up of their off shore development center or to find the right partner to help them with their off shore requirements.

Contact: lathika@tekinroads.com