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Nationally recognized IT solutions company discusses the positive impact Lifesize has on internal communications.

“When everybody can be in the same place together and see each other’s faces, this allows us to really get to the heart of what we’re trying to get done.”

For some companies, Lifesize is a catalyst for operational change movement. It’s not just a better way to communicate; it represents the future of connecting workforces (on-site and remote). One of these organizations is the Birmingham, Alabama-based TekLinks, a nationally recognized IT solutions company that offers managed and cloud services to businesses throughout Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Gulf South. With multiple data center facilities, TekLinks offers a variety of end-to-end business technology services, from secure colocation and disaster recovery to 24/7 support, voice and networking, and hosted desktops.

We spoke with Brian Bufalo, TekLinks’ Internal Support Manager, to hear about how Lifesize has brought energy and cohesion to the company’s internal communications.

How has Lifesize changed the way TekLinks communicates?

Lifesize allows everyone from different locations to be in the same room at any given time. This is extremely important for our corporate culture and our ability to coordinate projects. We’ve also begun letting people work from home and use Lifesize to communicate back to the main office. Remote working is going to be a huge part of TekLinks’ video conferencing movement.

We’ve also talked about using Lifesize in our hiring process to conduct remote interviews. Right now TekLinks’ talent pool extends widely into the Southeast. Birmingham has a small market for the IT sector, so it makes sense for us to look at recruiting talent in Atlanta, for example.

And in my role as IT support manager, I’ve used Lifesize to troubleshoot computer issues. If someone is having a problem and their computer is broken, I can use Lifesize Cloud to call their phone and discuss the situation. Or they can call me in one of Lifesize’s persistent virtual meeting rooms, and we can sit down and talk through the issues. They can show me their screen or show me the networking equipment that’s malfunctioning and we’re able to better figure out what’s going on. I love it.

What would you say is your favorite Lifesize feature?

Definitely the persistent meeting rooms. These are handy because you can use them as a video conference bridge or just as an audio bridge. I use them all the time to get people together.

What other tools do you provide employees to support internal collaboration?

We utilize resources across all of our different technology partnerships to support our employees. We try to eat our own dog food, so to speak. We are currently partnered with Microsoft®, Lifesize and Citrix® and provide all the same services internally that we provide for our customers, such as VMware’s VDI and Citrix’s XenApp®. Why is it important for your team to have all these different ways to collaborate? With offices across the Southeast, we are geographically spread. These tools allow everybody to stay in touch and remain on the same page–especially Lifesize. Lifesize is great! When everybody can be in the same place together and see each other’s faces, this allows us to really get to the heart of what we’re trying to get done.

You mentioned TekLinks used FaceTime® and Google Hangouts™ in the past. What are the advantages of Lifesize over those services?

Lifesize is easier to use across platforms. Everybody at TekLinks has a Lifesize account, and it’s very nice to be able to invite anyone into a video conference no matter what platform they use. Pretty much anyone can access Lifesize Cloud on any device. I am a huge fan of platform-agnostic technology.

Can you talk more about the benefits of moving from on-premise video
conferencing to the cloud?

From my perspective, it boiled down to ease of support. As far as versions go, our on-premise technology was really behind. We contemplated the cost breakdown, and Lifesize Cloud came in way cheaper in the long run. Moving to the cloud allowed us to eliminate the cost and hassle involved with maintaining hardware.