Shaping business strategy, creating a competitive advantage and connecting your business globally without ever leaving your office are now realities with telepresence technology.

Telepresence is the latest type of video conferencing. Each member of the meeting can see every other member on a screen or series of screens, and can talk to them as if they were in the same room. Telepresence focuses on collaboration solutions that closely replicate the brain's preference for interpersonal communications, unlike the "talking heads" experience of traditional videoconferencing.

With such a communication advantage, and the environmental concerns and budget cuts pressuring many companies, today’s business climate provides the perfect landscape for large-scale adoption of video and telepresence conferencing. Market perception is open to this as well, given quality enhancements and managed services programs that make the technology easy to use, reliable and cost-effective.

To maximize the benefits of telepresence technology, many companies enlist the help of a managed services expert for video conferencing. If experienced and resourceful, the provider should be able to give you the tools and assistance you need to easily connect with clients, partners and vendors that are critical to your business success.

When searching for such a provider, carefully assess credentials, experience, partners and resources. Make sure to ask for references and case studies that match the telepresence requirements of your company. Also determine if a match exists with your current video infrastructure and network needs, in addition to growth initiatives planned for your company’s communications strategy.

As part of this, don’t forget to consider technology roadmaps of service providers. For example, a recent release of B2B managed services for telepresence allows customers to connect outside of their enterprise, and provides expanded communication options. Choosing a managed services partner that is considered a technology leader can be important, as that provider may be better able to scale to your managed service requirements today, and in the future.

Explore or consider the following when searching for a managed services provider:

• ‑Global access – Telepresence utilization has a global footprint. Be sure you choose a global network provider that manages telepresence sites around the world, backed with resources you can depend on.

• ‑Security and redundancy – Require your managed services partner to provide the most reliable security and redundancy options available. For example, expect to be provisioned on geographically dispersed server nodes. For further security options, make sure backup equipment resides within each node, which helps in prohibiting unauthorized connections between members.

• ‑Flexible service options – Select a service provider that allows you to choose from an array of versatile service options. This gives you the opportunity to adopt services that meet the varying needs of your users, and allows you to cost effectively utilize telepresence technology.

By creating a checklist that includes these criteria, along with requirements specific to your telepresence and network environment, you will be able to better identify the right managed services partner for your conferencing needs.

For more information on this topic, please contact Tim Rubert, Senior Vice President, Managed Services Sales at BT Conferencing, Video Business Unit at 732-571-1522 or tim.rubert@bt.com; www.btconferencing.com.