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DelMonte Foods Reduces Travel and Improves Collaboration with Microsoft Web Conferencing Solution: Case Study
1. Microsoft Office Live Meeting
Customer Solution Case Study
Food Company Reduces Travel, Improves
Collaboration with Web Conferencing Solution
Overview “Live Meeting is empowering our employees by giving
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Consumer goods manufacturing
them an easy-to-use conferencing application that
helps them be more productive.”
Customer Profile
Jonathan Wynn, Manager of Advanced Technology and Collaborative Services, Del Monte Foods
Based in San Francisco, California, Del
Monte Foods manufactures a range of food
and pet products, which it distributes and San Francisco-based Del Monte Foods makes premium-quality
sells throughout the United States. The
company has 8,400 salaried employees
branded food and pet products in the United States. The company’s
and around 9,000 seasonal workers. sales and marketing employees must meet regularly to collaborate
Business Situation
on sales presentations and to discuss other projects. In order to
Recently, video conferencing had become reduce travel, Del Monte used Microsoft® Office Live Meeting
more popular among Del Monte IT
managers and salespeople, but they
(2005), a hosted Web conferencing service. Recently, more IT
required more advanced conferencing managers and salespeople in the company began using video
features.
conferencing, and these users needed features that were more
Solution collaborative and interactive. To that end, Del Monte deployed the
The company recently deployed the newest
version of Microsoft® Office Live Meeting
2007 release of Office Live Meeting. The new solution has
for hosted Web conferencing. enhanced video capabilities and improved conferencing tools,
Benefits
which are helping the company save travel time and improve
Enhanced video capabilities security.
Improved collaboration
Reduced travel
Increased security
Ease of use
2. Situation That’s why we need an enterprisewide online
Del Monte Foods, based in San Francisco, conferencing solution.”
California, is a leading provider of premium-
quality branded food and pet products Del Monte has been using Microsoft Office
throughout the United States. The company, Live Meeting (2005), a hosted Web
with total annual sales of more than U.S.$3.4 conferencing service, for the past several
billion in fiscal year 2007, has more than 20 years. “Live Meeting is a great solution for our
brands and 2,500 products that it sells in sales employees,” says Wynn. “It’s highly
grocery stores, mass merchandisers, and visual and gives them the ability to discuss
other retail outlets. and collaborate on important sales
documents in real time.
The organization employs 8,400 salaried and
close to 9,000 seasonal workers. Because of “Like most companies today, we want to
its widely dispersed work force, manage our budget carefully, which means
communications technology is critical for the being mindful of travel costs,” says Wynn.
company. Approximately 3,500 Del Monte “For that reason, video conferencing is
salaried employees use the company’s becoming even more important to how we do
messaging and collaboration products, which business.”
are managed on a rapidly expanding
Windows®-based IT infrastructure. For Additionally, Del Monte is increasingly
example, employees use the Microsoft® developing new products and working on new
Exchange Server 2007 messaging system to marketing campaigns. As a result, the
send and receive e-mail messages and company’s sales force frequently needs to
Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to meet together for last-minute meetings.
share sales presentations and other “They also need more conferencing
important documents on the company’s capabilities, because these meetings involve
portal sites. Many Del Monte employees also sharing more video and other media during
use Microsoft Office Live Communications presentations,” says Wynn.
Server 2005 to communicate through instant
messaging (IM) and take advantage of Del Monte is also increasing its use of Office
presence, a feature that helps users quickly Live Meeting–based technical “webinars”—
and easily determine the online availability of online training seminars that instruct
colleagues. company employees how to install software.
“We’re using Live Meeting for more software
Many Del Monte sales and marketing support now,” says Wynn. “Because of that,
employees need to collaborate regularly on we are interested in more interactive features
new sales presentations and other customer- that give us a better ability to answer
related documents. This is challenging, workflow questions in real time, for example.”
considering the geographic reach of the
company. “We have major offices in San Solution
Francisco and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, In June 2007, Del Monte decided to become
along with 40 factories and more than 12 an early adopter of Microsoft Office Live
sales offices,” says Jonathan Wynn, Manager Meeting (2007). This upgraded version of
of Advanced Technology and Collaborative Office Live Meeting offers a number of new
Services, Del Monte. “Getting together for features designed to improve the Web
planning meetings is obviously difficult. conferencing experience.
3. The new features include the following: demonstrated the product and the new
features to them and they began using it
Advanced media integration, such as the soon after.”
ability to bridge voice over IP (VoIP) and
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Benefits
audio capabilities. With Office Live Meeting (2007), Del Monte
The ability to share Windows Media® video has an online conferencing solution that
files and Adobe Flash demonstrations. provides enhanced video capabilities and an
The ability to record all multimedia improved conferencing experience, saving
elements from a meeting, including instant the company valuable time previously spent
messages, slide presentations, the video on travel. The solution also features
conference, and all shared video files in increased security and is easy for Del Monte
high fidelity. The full recorded meeting can employees to use.
then be viewed in the future.
New audience feedback tools, such as a Enhanced Video Capabilities
“The video and audio new survey feature that gives presenters Del Monte is already taking advantage of the
are really improved with the ability to query meeting participants solution’s enhanced video features to provide
and automatically send the results to those users with a more interactive meeting
[the new version of] Live attendees using e-mail. experience. “The video and audio are really
Meeting. In terms of Virtual breakout rooms and “handout improved with [the new version of] Live
distribution” (file transfer). Meeting,” says Wynn. “In terms of software
software training, we’ll training, we’ll be able to be much more
be able to be much Security has also been enhanced in the new hands-on, and we can record meetings and
version of Office Live Meeting. For example, make them available for employees who
more hands-on, and we IT administrators and meeting presenters can can’t attend. We recently used the solution to
can record meetings use Microsoft Forefront™ virus-scanning do a 50-person IT summit for employees all
technologies for increased protection of over the United States, with video, slides, and
and make them Office Live Meeting documents and other PSTN audio. It was very effective.”
available for employees files before they are distributed to attendees.
Wynn also likes the fact that the solution now
who can’t attend.” Office Live Meeting also integrates with features webcam integration. “We have
Jonathan Wynn, Manager of Advanced Microsoft Office Communications Server portable computers that have built-in video
Technology and Collaborative Services, Del 2007, a new unified communications cameras,” he says. “So I can conduct a Live
Monte Foods solution that offers built-in Web conferencing Meeting conference from my house, or from a
functionality. When Del Monte implements hotel room if I need to. I don’t have to be in
that solution in early 2008, the company will my office to share important information with
have the ability to choose between deploying our employees.”
and managing Web conferencing on-premise
through Office Communications Server 2007 Improved Collaboration
or hosted through the Office Live Meeting Because Office Live Meeting (2007) contains
service. new collaborative and organizational tools,
Del Monte has improved conferencing
Del Monte deployed Office Live Meeting to a capabilities overall. “Live Meeting now gives
small group of users in July 2007. “We Del Monte presenters the ability to quickly
studied who was using Live Meeting the most ‘flip’ through documents and conduct
within the company; they were sales and impromptu polls during a meeting,” says
marketing employees,” Wynn says. “We then Wynn. “They can also publish the poll results
4. in real time, which really boosts the documents, the material is out of my hands
collaboration and interaction and makes at that point,” says Wynn. “Now, with the
meetings more dynamic.” enhanced security of the solution, I can better
protect documents that are being uploaded
Del Monte presenters are also using virtual through SharePoint. It gives me the insurance
breakout rooms for even better collaboration. I need as an IT manager.”
“It’s powerful for a presenter to be able to
use the new breakout room feature of Live Ease of Use
Meeting, because it gives attendees the The new version of Office Live Meeting is also
chance to gather in separate ‘rooms’ to easy to use, says Wynn. “The user interface
brainstorm. It really broadens the appeal of has been streamlined and our employees
the meeting and makes it more effective.” have given us a lot of positive feedback about
usability so far,” he says. He also mentions
Reduced Travel that the solution is fully integrated with the
Because of the new conferencing and Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and
“It’s powerful for a collaborative advantages of Office Live collaboration client, which Del Monte
presenter to be able to Meeting (2007), Del Monte will be able to employees use heavily. “Office Outlook is our
have fewer in-person meetings. “Live Meeting primary information worker tool, and because
use the new breakout gives us a way to effortlessly reduce our of the integration, users can quickly and
room feature of Live travel,” says Wynn. “It will take away the lost easily set up a Live Meeting from within that
time and inconvenience of flying across the application.”
Meeting, because it country for important meetings. When I fly
gives attendees the from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, it takes As a result, deployment has been an easy
more than eight hours before I even get to process, adds Wynn. “Fast, easy adoption of
chance to gather in the Del Monte office there; that is a new technologies is important, because there
separate ‘rooms’ to completely lost work day. I won’t have to do are only four of us in the IT department,” he
that anymore.” says. “We don’t want employees to be
brainstorm. It really constantly calling us for technical assistance.
broadens the appeal of The reduction in travel will help Del Monte Live Meeting is empowering our employees
lower travel-related costs, too. “When a Del by giving them an easy-to-use conferencing
the meeting.” Monte employee flies to a meeting in San application that helps them be more
Jonathan Wynn, Manager of Advanced Francisco, it’s never just one person on that productive.”
Technology and Collaborative Services, Del trip,” Wynn says. “It’s always multiple people
Monte Foods taking multiple flights and staying in separate
hotel rooms, which gets expensive. Live
Meeting helps us lower those costs.”
Increased Security
With the new integrated security in Office Live
Meeting (2007), Del Monte IT administrators
will be able to take advantage of the
company’s existing security infrastructure,
which includes Microsoft Forefront Security
for Exchange Server and Forefront Security
for SharePoint. “If one of our company’s
brokers is presenting a Live Meeting, and he
has uploaded a presentation with a bunch of
5. For More Information Microsoft Office System
For more information about Microsoft The Microsoft Office system is the business
products and services, call the Microsoft world’s chosen environment for information
Sales Information Center at (800) work, providing the programs, servers, and
426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft services that help you succeed by
Canada Information Centre at (877) transforming information into impact.
568-2495. Customers who are deaf or
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text For more information about the Microsoft
telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) Office system, go to:
892-5234 in the United States or (905) www.microsoft.com/office
568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50
United States and Canada, please contact
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide Web, go
to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Del Monte
Foods products and services, call or visit
the Web site at:
www.delmonte.com
Software and Services
Microsoft Office
− Microsoft Office Live Meeting
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published October 2007