Polycom steps up its presence in A/NZ

Apr 22, 2008 1:50 PM
Tags: polycom | steps | presence | anz

Unified collaborations vendor Polycom has relocated its Australia New Zealand headquarters to larger premises in North Sydney to accommodate rapid headcount growth and establish a Customer Experience Centre showcasing its products.

The new Polycom A/NZ headquarters is home to key Asia Pacific channel, strategic partner and services personnel, making it an important hub for Polycom’s Asia Pacific operations.

The company recorded 48 percent year-on-year headcount growth in the 12 months to January 2008, said Michael Chetner, country manager for Australia and New Zealand at Polycom.

According to Chetner, Polycom’s Customer Experience Centre will enable customers to experience Polycom’s market-driving voice and video communications solutions, which have been shown to increase enterprise productivity by an average of 30 percent and increase collaboration by an average of 35 per cent (IDC, 2007).

As well as Polycom’s telepresence offerings, the centre also demonstrates how the vendor’s open standards voice and video solutions integrate with alliance partner technologies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco Systems, IBM, Microsoft, and Nortel, to deliver Unified Communications solutions. Polycom’s valued channel partners will also have the opportunity to utilise the Customer Experience Centre for demonstration purposes, claimed Chetner.

"Polycom’s whole office is in effect a showcase, bringing our products to life for our customers. In the new A/NZ headquarters, all of our employees are equipped with Polycom’s IP-based desktop voice and video communications solutions that are integrated with presence-based applications, empowering them to collaborate with customers, partners and colleagues around the world,” he said

In addition to the new facilities, Polycom has made four key appointments to further strengthen its capabilities in customer relationships and support – two in Sydney and two in Melbourne. This brings the total to seven staff members joining the Polycom A/NZ team since the start of 2008, said Chetner.

“The new appointments include James Brennan, manager of technical sales A/NZ; Lynnette Whitfield, vertical business manager A/NZ – Government, Education and Health; Chris Bourandanis, Southern Region sales manager; and Ellie Harris, major account manager – enterprise,” Chetner said.