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Leading Global Financial Group, BBVA, Chooses Lifesize to Empower Employees Through HD Video Collaboration Technology

BBVA is a customer-centric global financial services group founded in 1857. The Group has a solid position in Spain, is the largest financial institution in Mexico and has leading franchises in South America and the Sunbelt Region of the United States. Its diversified business is biased to high-growth markets and it relies on technology as a key sustainable competitive advantage. BBVA ranks among the leading Euro zone banks in terms of ROE and efficiency. Corporate responsibility is at the core of its business model. BBVA fosters financial education and inclusion, and supports scientific research and culture. It operates with the highest integrity, a long-term vision and applies the best practices. The Group is present in the main sustainability indexes.

“All of a sudden, your phone rings and you can connect over video. It’s just that simple.”

Jose A. SALMERóN, BBVA

Challenge 

Because BBVA is spread across 30 countries with its headquarters in Spain, the company is always looking for more efficient ways to communicate, especially with executives who travel between various franchises in a given region.

Though the company had already implemented a sophisticated video conferencing environment in its main offices, one vital component that was lacking was mobile support. With the increase of mobile technologies in the modern world, such as smartphones and tablets, BBVA knew that in order for it to keep up with current trends, it needed a video solution that could support nearly any mobile platform, including iOS and Android.

IT decision makers at BBVA set out to find an HD mobile video collaboration solution that would offer the reliability and security that it needed for such a high-profile financial institution.

Solution

After evaluating various mobile video solutions, Jose A. Salmerón Torres from BBVA and his IT team selected Lifesize. “The main thing that we liked about Lifesize was that it supports multiple mobile platforms,” Salmerón explained. “Our users have many different kinds of devices, including iOS, Android, PCs and Macs, so it was important for our video conferencing solution to interoperate with all of them.”

Once the decision was made to deploy Lifesize, Salmerón and his team began outfitting company-owned devices, as well as employee-owned smartphones and tablets with the client, providing a login and password for each individual. “With our executive staff always on the road, mobile support for video conferencing was a necessity, and it had to be easy enough for them to use on their own with little IT support.” said Salmerón. “Lifesize works that way. All of a sudden, your phone rings and you can connect over video. It’s just that simple.”

One important consideration for BBVA was security, since the company is a renowned financial institution with confidential exchanges of information happening every day. Because Lifesize comes with built-in NAT/firewall traversal and embedded media encryption, as well as gatekeeping and call-routing features, executives are confident that their conversations are inaccessible by uninvited third parties.

Results

From an IT perspective, Salmerón and his team appreciate the simple management that Lifesize provides. They can easily schedule meetings, download a client to a user’s device remotely and troubleshoot as needed. Even individuals who work from home or have to travel extensively can collaborate over video with ease.

“I find it surprising that a solution that is so feature-rich and works on so many different devices is so simple to use and manage,” said Salmerón. Because the company is dedicated to its pillars of integrity, transparency and prudence, the use of video technology was essential rather than audio or web conferencing.

“The way we see it, face-to-face communication is always better than any other method. With audio conferencing, participants can tune out and get distracted. Video enables more engaging, productive conversations,” said Salmerón. “I’ve worked with video technology for the last 10 years, and I’ve watched it become more and more mainstream. Lifesize is the best mobile client I have come across.”