May 17, 2012

Telework Week Demonstrates Big Savings from Home Worker Strategies

working from home

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Working from home saves the time and fuel associated with commuting, and thus real dollars, but can also improve employee productivity and make employees happier. Not surprisingly, management is taking notice and becoming more receptive to the idea. Those are some of the key takeaways from Telework Week 2012, co-sponsored by Cisco and the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the tangible value of telework and serving the educational and communication requirements of the Federal teleworker community.  This was the second year of the weeklong event and participation was up fairly dramatically, with an 80% increase in the… Continue Reading ›

The Red Sox and Carousel Industries: Great Teammates

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I recently had the opportunity to do something I’ve always dreamed of doing. Walk up to home plate at Fenway Park and imagine myself blasting a shot over the Green Monster. (Note: It’s further than you think!) I had this rare experience when I was able to join Bob Harkins, Vice President at Carousel Industries, as we visited with Steve Conley, the Director of IT for the Red Sox in his Fenway Park offices. Carousel has been working closely with the Red Sox since 2003, when as Steve explained it, “We had a Centrex/Hybrid phone system running our call center… Continue Reading ›

Managed Services Benefits: Supporting Overtaxed IT Teams Where it Makes Sense

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The idea of managed services has been around for decades in IT, as companies sought help in running their data networks, desktops and servers. However, things are changing quickly these days with respect to managed services as more companies are looking for highly targeted help with technologies including unified communications (UC), particularly voice over IP (VoIP), video and wireless, all of which are increasingly becoming as important as the data networks that we all take for granted. “All these IT teams over the last decade have been bombarded,” says Mark Damphousse, Director of Managed Services for Carousel Industries. “As budgets… Continue Reading ›

Keys to Success in Building a Sound Contact Center

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When customers call your contact center, there’s a decent chance they’re doing so because they couldn’t get what they needed from your Web site or other online avenues. So the way the call is handled may well be your last chance to make or save a sale – and a customer. If your contact center is using decades-old technology, the chances that you’ll satisfy that customer are severely diminished. And if you still call your contact center a “call center,” that’s a good clue that your technology could use some refreshing. Modern contact centers deal not only with phone calls… Continue Reading ›

Video on the Go: 3 Tips for Supporting Mobile Video

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Tablet computers are entering the workplace at a furious pace, as employees who use the devices at home look to bring the same level of convenience and productivity to work. That is creating something of a challenge for IT folks, who must ensure they get the same experience in the workplace as they do at home. The issue really comes to a head with respect to video, says Dan Hofferty, national sales manager for visual communications for Carousel Industries. “If you have the ability to do video from your mobile tablet, then you can use it almost as you would… Continue Reading ›

Jabra Podcast Interview: In a Unified Communications World, Voice is Still King

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Imagine you’re viewing a webcast and the presenter runs into a glitch that prevents him from advancing to the next slide for a few seconds. No big deal, we’ve all seen that lots of times, right? You don’t give it a second thought. But what if the audio keeps cutting out, so you’re missing a few words every 30 seconds or so? That you can’t handle; it touches a primal annoyance button deep inside you. If it keeps up you’ll likely click on the X and be done with the whole thing. Such is the power of voice communications, even… Continue Reading ›

Don’t Take Voice For Granted

VoIP-Quality-Assurance

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One topic that was conspicuous in its lack of attention and focus at Enterprise Connect was voice communications. “They are all taking voice for granted because it is not sexy anymore, which can be a mistake” says Bob Harkins, VP of Carousel Industries. ” When you look at the standard Unified Communications portfolio applications such asweb/audio/video collaboration tools, the ability to escalate and change communication modes on the fly (IM to voice/video conference, voice to IM etc) , even business process integration, the fact is voice communications remains a vital core element. There is a 100% expectation that when you… Continue Reading ›