As offices began to reopen post-COVID, many executives struggled with the new realities of hybrid work – but not this global lifestyle brand. It had long embraced a flexible workplace, with meeting rooms spread across its headquarters designed to support a video-first culture for its in-office and remote workers. In fact, the explosion of remote working technology gave the company a golden opportunity to further strengthen its AV solutions. Through years of growth, the organization’s HQ campus had thousands of conference rooms – ranging in size from huddle rooms to extra-large auditoriums – nearly 1,000 of which had become dated. To embody equity in its culture, the company wanted to ensure every meeting space functioned on technology that could support a consistent, positive meeting experience. And with Zoom taking the AV market by storm during the pandemic, the lifestyle brand saw the collaboration technology provider as the best option to tie its meeting rooms together and launch its initiative around improved workplace experience. Of course, upgrading thousands of meeting spaces would be no small task. After the lifestyle brand worked with RoomReady on successful projects at its Los Angeles campus, it knew RoomReady was up to the challenge.

Acting as a trusted AV integrator to the lifestyle brand, RoomReady laid out multiple options for AV tech that would complement Zoom. Poly became the lifestyle brand’s top choice after RoomReady guided them through a product demonstration. RoomReady then developed AV standards for various room sizes and functions, leveraging Poly X series and E series endpoints as the foundation of each solution. Throughout the development process, RoomReady used its Innovation Lab to test new designs for each of the different room types, and established various room configurations to show how furniture layout and technology changes would impact the user experience. Finally, to meet the lifestyle brand’s goal of retrofitting 1,000 rooms in six months, RoomRoom introduced the option of AVaaS financial model which also allowed the company the ability to move fast at a large scale while shifting it’s costs from CapEx to OpEx if desired.

RoomReady quickly got to work, decommissioning nearly 500 meeting rooms to install the new Zoom-Poly solutions. They introduced 50 Poly carts, providing the lifestyle brand with flexibility to move its screens, speakers and cameras both within the room, and from room to room, as necessary. Two years into the engagement, RoomReady has already introduced 880 upgraded rooms and carts across the entire campus, with another 600 room renovations planned in 2023. The RoomReady Set was integral to this initiative, and it has since become a standard part of the lifestyle brand’s AV solutions. The RoomReady Set houses all hardware and cabling for a solution, can be mounted regardless of stud location and serves as external wall backing – saving the lifestyle brand $1.2 million in added construction costs. As the meeting rooms go online, the global lifestyle brand is already benefitting from a consistent meeting experience for both those in the room and on the screen. And to ensure the technology continues to enable better collaboration, RoomReady has employed technicians dedicated to the customer, working on-site to quickly answer questions and troubleshoot if necessary.

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