Brief

TelePresence for CII offices

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Tata Communications and Cisco have announced a mutual collaboration to set up Telepresence rooms at four CII offices in India. An agreement was signed at CII’s National Conference and Annual Session 2008, in the presence of the Honorable Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, Sunil Bharti Mittal, President, CII, KV Kamath, Vice President CII, apart from other dignitaries in CII’s IVth Plenary Session with the Finance Minister.

The agreement was signed by Subodh Bhargava, Chairman, Tata Communications, General ( Rtd.) SS Mehta, Director General, CII & Naresh Wadhwa, President & Country Manager, Cisco Systems ( India ) Pvt. Ltd.

CII will collaborate with Tata Communications and Cisco to set up the TelePresence rooms for CII, at four of its key offices in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Center, Hyderabad. A first of its kind initiative in India. Cisco will provide the TelePresence equipment, while Tata Communications’ will provide the connectivity services that will link the four CII sites. This will be a major facility for CII members which will be made available on a ‘pay-per-use’ basis.

“Enhanced networking allows a country to move on a much faster pace than ever before. TelePresence will transform the way geographically-dispersed teams work, by offering a viable and effective virtual meeting solution for our members and corporate India at large. Employee productivity and responsiveness is enhanced without impacting quality of life,” said Ashok Soota, Past President CII and Chairman and Managing Director, MindTree Ltd.

The Cisco TelePresence rooms at the CII facilities will be connected to Tata Communications’ planned international network of rooms in premier locations worldwide, enabling cost-effective and high definition video conference meetings for Indian enterprises with their partners in India and overseas, seamlessly.

“Cisco TelePresence provides professionals the ability to reduce travel while attending more meetings at the same time. This facility is being provided to CII and its membership on a new public room model. We visualize it will add considerable convenience to the industry members since it provides global reach into India.” said Vinod Kumar, President, Global Enterprise Solutions, Tata Communications.

TelePresence is a virtual meeting solution allowing real-time, face-to-face communication over a converged IP network. It delivers life-size images, ultra-high-definition video, spatial audio and a specially designed environment to create a “room within a room” meeting space, thereby enabling effective global business and increased productivity while allowing for significant savings in travel time and costs.

“Cisco TelePresence is a platform for supporting the emergence of transformational business models at a global scale. We expect these new facilities at the CII offices to spark creative ideas for new business models amongst its members. Our hope is that Indian executives will come away with transformational ideas that take advantage of rural connectivity, such as distance learning, remote healthcare management and virtual business models overall, which will be a catalyst for inclusive growth. Cisco TelePresence will help transform the way CII will do business and communicate with its customers, partners and colleagues.” said Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalization Officer for Cisco.