Rolling Out 200 Teams Rooms globally in 90 Days and driving savings at SCOR

Tom Arbuthnot talks with Reto Schadegg, Global IT Infrastructure Manager at SCOR, about how they rolled out 200 Microsoft Teams Rooms across 35 countries in just 90 days.

• SCOR's delivered a rapid global deployment by leveraging prior standardization and planning.
• Neat Bar Pro was selected after hands-on testing, becoming the core device for most rooms.
• The rollout achieved a 40% reduction in operational costs and six-figure savings overall.
• A streamlined support model now manages 200 rooms with just 1.5 FTEs on second-line support.
• SCOR's shift to Teams Phone continues, aiming to phase out desk phones and reduce telecom costs.

Thanks to Neat, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support and for helping to make content like this possible

Transcript

Reto Schadegg: [00:00:00] When we moved to Teams phone system, we could also save a lot of money. Um, this, this is really. Six, six digits figures, uh, wow and more.

Tom Arbuthnot: Hi and welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. Really great conversation this week about rolling out 200 Microsoft Teams Rooms in 90 days. Amazing project. I talked to Reto, who's the global IT infrastructure manager at SCOR. Really interesting organization and reto shares a really great story.

Around their rooms rollout, how they chose their devices, and also a little bit about Team's phone and their team's phone rollout as well. Really hope you enjoy the show. Great conversation. Many thanks to NEAT for making the instruction to Reto, and many thanks for all their support and many thanks to Reto for taking the time I.

On with the show. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. You know, we like to get a customer perspective on the podcast, and this is a really interesting one. [00:01:00] A 200 room teams, rooms project, uh, global rollout. Really interesting conversation. Quite a fast rollout as well. Um, I'm here with Retos, Chad Reto.

Did you wanna introduce yourself and give us a little bit of background about yourself? 

Reto Schadegg: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Um, so I'm based in Zurich, Switzerland, uh, working for, uh, global Reinsurance. Um, uh, I did a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Informatics. I started out as a network specialist.

Uh, that was very interesting. Time learning a lot. Went up the ladder, team leader, department head. Right now I'm leading some global projects, uh, in the company. Um, also integration projects, um, some IT related, uh, real estate projects. And it's very busy time as for all of us. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And, and your organization [00:02:00] is in kind of, uh, insurance?

Reinsurance is quite a, a, a, well, I find it quite a complicated industry. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. So, um, our headquarters is in Paris, but, uh, reinsurance is normally, um, a global business. Uh, we have around 3,500 employees worldwide in, uh, 35 offices, around 30 countries. Um, and that's also our footprint and for the, for the video, uh, real estate, let's call it this way.

And we started, um, early on. Even pre covid, we had, we had many, many rooms. Um, we had, um, uh, a renewal project in 2018. Um, we were only with poly infrastructure, including the backend. Uh, we had also the, uh, polymers rooms. Um, because our management liked it, uh, very much. And it was, it [00:03:00] sounds like your 

Tom Arbuthnot: organization is quite video forward, like a lot of the videos.

Absolutely. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. That was a vision from, from our old, old CEO. Um, he invested the money we had, uh, the money for, uh, implementing those immersive rooms. They are pretty expensive as you know, also, uh, insulation as well as the run cost. But of course, um, 10 years ago it was. Pretty new. It was all state of the art.

Um, we were very happy and we could reduce the traveling cost, of course. Um, what we did in 2018 was the first step in standardization. So we, uh, changed, uh, um, all the poly pieces, which were end of life. To, to a standard. And that gave us a lot of, uh, let's say, uh, improvements by doing that standardization already.

Then 2018 and then the new video [00:04:00] project came up, so we had duration for it was, it was a cost reduction. That was one of the main drivers, um, the, uh, the lifecycle management as I, as I said, and we wanted to simplify even more. So that's why, uh, end of, uh, 2023, we got the green light to execute that project.

The only problem was our contract for the backend was, had a, had a deadline. So until I got the approval from top management, we only had three months left until the backend contract was ending nothing. And that was nothing like 

Tom Arbuthnot: a tight, nothing like a tight deadline? No. In 35 countries, 200 rooms.

Reto Schadegg: Actually the plan was six to nine months, uh, rollout. So we had to, uh. Shortcut some, some pieces. Yeah. The [00:05:00] good thing was we were prepared already because when we handed in the, the business case, we knew exactly what we wanna do. So, um, when we got the green light, we almost could order the hardware. And as I said, in 2018, the, the.

The base work was done because we had all the, um, network connections, power connections, everything behind the screen. So it was pretty easy to replace, uh, one board to the other. So that was not, uh, a big challenge for us, so that's why we agreed within the project team to, to do it. Within three months.

Done. 

Tom Arbuthnot: You've done all the foundational work and, and take me back to that foundational work you were looking to. Simplify to save costs. I know you did a bit of vendor assessment. Um, how did you end up landing on, uh, neat and neat Bar Pro and how did that assessment go? I. 

Reto Schadegg: So we tested all the devices. So we had, um, from all the vendors, uh, the, the devices [00:06:00] in, in-house, we had the technicians in-house.

We, we discussed a lot. And I think the only way you can really have a good feeling how you, uh, end up in, with over 200 rooms, uh, with one vendor is to test it. 

Tom Arbuthnot: I, I love that diligence 'cause not everybody has the. Time or budget or impetus to do that. And I agree with you, like there's nothing like getting hands on if you can.

We, 

Reto Schadegg: we spent a lot of money, so, uh, for the overall project mm-hmm. To make the savings. So it was, it was a good thing and. Yeah, we had to wait until we had the top management decision, so we had some more time. And Neat, uh, was from the start very, um, exciting to, to work with, uh, with two factors that technology they are using.

So the hardware itself is really nice. State of the art, I would say. Mm-hmm. And uh, also the support we [00:07:00] got from, from the team, from the start. We were not even a, a customer of, of them and they supported us like we were. So, um, uh, plus some, some connections to top management, which. Neat is a small company, so it's easier to to, to get those connections than with, with other big players.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And you, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but you pretty much standardized on Neat Bar Pro and Neat Pad for 90% of the rooms. Is that right? Uh, 

Reto Schadegg: not yet. Um, so we went from a one vendor strategy to two vendor strategy. We had some, uh, investments in poly devices, which we are still using. Um, the goal is now fading out those out.

Uh, there are a lot of changes on the real estate side, so, uh, but the need Power Pro is our main, um, main bar, main video system. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. 

Reto Schadegg: And that helps in the day-to-day operations. So, uh, it's very [00:08:00] easy for our IT support, which is our first level of support. When something goes wrong, they can really do a lot by themselves by using need pulse, um, by knowing what an each room is.

Tom Arbuthnot: Hmm. 

Reto Schadegg: Okay. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, the pulse thing is interesting, like the OEM tooling is becoming an increasing factor in, uh, the decision of, of vendor partner these days because that can be the differentiation, as you say, in terms of ops and, and operational abilities remotely and savings. Absolutely. Awesome. So take us through that three months.

So the management team have finally signed off. Now you've got 90 days. What did, what did that process look like? So we had a, we had a few challenges. Okay. 

Reto Schadegg: Yes. So, um,

time and resources wa was the main challenge. Yes. So, day one, or let's say day two, we had the decision, we, we placed the orders more or less. So, [00:09:00] um, it was essential that we, um, that we, uh, get the, uh, drop shipping. Okay. So when you go through. The normal chain with a partner in so many countries. Tends to add up, uh, in, in lead times.

Okay. Because all those different processes, also our internal process, 

Tom Arbuthnot: yep. 

Reto Schadegg: To put the PO out, et cetera, is not so fast. So we had to push internally, we had to push need with the dropshipping. Um, and in terms of resources, we made a split between internal resource and external resources. So we have our local partners worldwide, but sometimes they said, yeah, in, in four months we have time.

No, we need you. As soon as we have the hardware, we need it. Yeah. Okay. So, um, we did a lot with our internal resources. We traveled a lot during the three months [00:10:00] and, uh, the external resources and to, to make things worse, we had also some real estate projects where we were moving offices, uh, changing, changing the, the offices themselves.

More video rooms, less video rooms. It was just a moving, moving target, you know? So it was not easy. Um, and the other thing as, as most of the listeners know, the, the, the large and the complex rooms, they, I. They are always a pain. And we knew that. We knew that. Yeah. Let's say we have 10% of the 200, which are really large and complex rooms, uh, with additional, uh, external audio devices.

And this is, I. Tricky, let's put it this way. Um, and we, but we achieved, uh, almost all, I think we had at the end of the contract, five rooms not working [00:11:00] and we in informed the local management and, and it was not, not a problem. So we, we could do that, uh, a month later. 

Tom Arbuthnot: That is incredibly impressive in. In 90 days.

Like that's a, that's a real tight timeline. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. And we, but we had to short track so the, uh, we had to delay and postpone some other projects. Uh, we had to focus. Yeah. So you really focused on that focus 100%. Uh, I had a core team all dedicated. Moving over time. Um, otherwise that's, that's not possible.

Um, 

Tom Arbuthnot: and is it fair to say that like the way technology has moved on, both in terms of teams and the bar form factor and MTR and Android, that the deployment is quicker and easier than it was in the past? Absolutely, absolutely. No, it 

Reto Schadegg: was in, in less than five minutes. Normally we had, we had, uh, the systems up and running.

So the mounting takes much longer than, than the setup itself. Um, 

Tom Arbuthnot: absolutely no, no, that it's in, isn't it crazy? We've hit that tipping point where [00:12:00] actually the physical stuff now is like the, the software is, it's all from the cloud. We provision the accounts, the, the MTR updates itself, but the actual, uh, physical elements are now the, the longer tail.

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. And with the new devices, we like the need center, et cetera. You have, you have more, uh, options for larger rooms. Uh, it, it's moving forward that fast. It's fascinating and it's good. It's good. It's really nice. It's great. And what we did also, and I think that's the, the, the security specialists will, will like that.

We did also a network segmentation so we could build. Um, our own network worldwide just to host those, uh, devices. So we ma we made a segmentation that, that they are really in their own network and, uh, that helps in any audit, uh, in our case. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. And you mentioned that one of the aims of the project was, uh, like savings in run [00:13:00] cost, and it sounds like you hit a pretty good saving in terms of the run cost.

Exactly. So, 

Reto Schadegg: um, overall, uh, we reduced 40% the run cost, I. Um, by this step, and that was savings. That's amazing. That's a real 

Tom Arbuthnot: substantial saving. Absolutely. And what does day-to-day operations look like for you and your team? How much of it is in-house? How much of it is partner? What's that look like? 

Reto Schadegg: So, project-based, we use external partners.

Um, but um, for, for the, for the support itself, we have normally the IT support, uh, taking over the, uh. The normal user, uh, complaints, if there is anything. And we have a level two, uh, team, which is very small. It's uh, 1.5 FTEs, um, for those 200 rooms, which is taken care then of, of level two and escalation to, uh, the vendor.

I. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Again, that's impressive. It's really interesting for me and the community to understand how people are managing [00:14:00] ops and the headcount that takes and the effort. And, uh, again, the aspiration is to optimize and streamline that process. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. And I think, uh, one advantage was also, um, the, the quality improved.

So we were on a, on a, on a already high level. And we could still improve a bit, uh, that was, uh, seen by, by the users, uh, and, and very well anticipated, and they're happy now. Less problems, and we still have problems with bad rooms, you know, reflections, et cetera. But it's, it's less and less. And that's technology wise.

It's amazing what kind of steps, uh, all the vendors have taken. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. And you mentioned, uh, the NEAT center camera. I think you're using symmetry as well. How did the users adapt to, uh, dynamic layouts and, and multiple camera? It was a change, 

Reto Schadegg: um, but. It's [00:15:00] interesting, I mean, at, at the beginning when we had just the, uh, the room view, and especially with big rooms, you know, that you, you don't see the faces.

You, you, you see the people so small. Some, some little dots, and now it zooms in. You have the people framing and you see what people are doing and, and if they're smiling or not, or, and this is, I mean, if you go into a video room, in especially in our context with the global, um, global landscape, you have teams all over the world.

And like we are talking now, this is fantastic. If you have the people framing, you see the faces, you see the reactions. And it's more and more important on a board level as well as on a, on a, on a team level to see the reactions of the people. And I think that that helps a lot. Most of it, yeah. A, a challenge at the beginning.

Yes, absolutely agree. 

Tom Arbuthnot: I'm interested in the challenge, but like I feel technology has come [00:16:00] on leaps and bounds, as you say, and I think people that live. This world who are video first, we appreciate the engagement, but it is a change of like, oh, I'm, I'm fully framed up now. I have to kind of, I'm on camera, I have to pay attention to the meeting because it's exactly the same as you're physically together, but somehow it feels different from the kind of semi anonymization of there's eight people around the ballroom table and you say, you basically can't see what's going on without this technology really.

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely, especially when you have difficult topics, you need to see the reaction of the people. And that's now, uh, possible. Um, no people accepted it after a while. Um, we have still some challenges of course, but yeah, it, it's accepted. And I mean, during covid that helped a lot. The people working from home.

Enabled that camera on the laptop. So they were used to, to be it re yeah, it kind of reset 

Tom Arbuthnot: expectations of being properly on camera and, and you really feel it when I feel, you really feel it when you go, uh, backwards to the old [00:17:00] style. Like suddenly you're like, oh, I don't feel nearly as engaged in this remote meeting as I was because I can't see reactions and engagement.

Absolutely. Awesome. And beyond those. 200 teams rooms. You're a team shop as well, like your team's phone I think. Correct. How was, how was going to teams' phone? 

Reto Schadegg: So this is another project. Uh, I'm still leading actually. It's a long term project so we have a bit more time there. And this is now you went 

Tom Arbuthnot: tempted for another 90 days.

You're like, we did rooms in 90 days. No, 

Reto Schadegg: foam systems are a bit different. So our. Uh, landscape was mainly Avaya worldwide. Mm-hmm. We saw Malka de loosened, uh, in, in the game here as well. Um, also very expensive. And when we moved to Teams phone system or we are still in process, um, we could also, uh, save a lot of [00:18:00] money.

Um, this, this is really. Six, six digits figures, uh, wow. And more, um, because it's just the usage. It is not there. I mean, we have a lot of people using the phone system a lot, but almost the, almost all of the rest does, doesn't use it. So at least 50% of the users are not using once in a year, their business phone number.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. So this is then, yeah, I see. I see this a lot, but like we've moved to this model, particularly when you go to teams where. Everything is scheduled in Outlook. Therefore everything's a meeting. Even if we're doing a one-to-one quote unquote, it's not a phone call, it's a teams meeting. And that expands to internal of the business and external issue.

Book meetings. 

Reto Schadegg: Exactly. So the phone system itself, it's like the old fax times. Correct. The, it's not used anymore or very. Very seldom special cases. And, uh, I think the phone system [00:19:00] itself also will diminish, uh, over time. So this is then our, our next, uh, piece we have to work on to, to, to reduce further cost by those people not using their business phone number, that we don't give them any.

But this, this will take some time. So we need the statistics and then we, we will see, uh, how we, how we, so your, in 

Tom Arbuthnot: your initial saving is based on the, uh, the, the traditional PBX costs going away, but you think you can further rationalize that cost? Yeah, because every 

Reto Schadegg: now you are in the service model. So every user cost has a cost.

It's not high. Okay. But nevertheless. You, you still can gain some money? Um, no. We are, I think we are now 90% done. We have some countries left where the local regulations are stopping us a bit, so we don't have good teams, uh, cloud services, um, just to mention Japan and, and, uh, South Korea, very difficult in those countries.

Yeah. But, but we, [00:20:00] we also have kind of, we try to standardize as well, but it's not possible, uh, in terms of, uh, calling plan. But we use operator to connect. We use direct routing, so we have different, um, strategies in different countries. And one topic which pops up in certain countries, which we need is, um.

Phone recording. So phone, re phone recording. We obliged by local regulations mm-hmm. Uh, to, to put that in place. And I tell you, not easy. Not easy. Um. To add that to the portfolio. And this is, that was one of the major struggles we had a part of, uh, porting numbers. Mm-hmm. And, you know, getting, getting approvals, uh, in, in such countries like, uh, India, Brazil, et cetera.

It's, you, you need a lot of patience. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. The [00:21:00] countries definitely. What, what's the challenge with recording? Is it vendor selection requirements? What's the, uh, 'cause there's quite a few recording options for teams. 

Reto Schadegg: So I can give you the, uh, the example, uh, in India. So they have, um, they have some limitations on teams and I.

So you can have with data a local, uh, cloud service. Yes. But on top of it, you cannot have the phone recording because it's so special. The implementation is so special, it doesn't work. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, you're right. India is particularly, uh, a complicated, they have that weird, like they'll provision a dedicated circuit for Exactly, yeah.

Reto Schadegg: The numbers in the office, essentially. Ah, I think it's a bit easier now. 

Tom Arbuthnot: I got, I've, I've got someone to introduce you to offline because there's another, we did, we did another podcast with, uh, uh, Tom at WTW and they've done that exact process and had the same, uh, India fund. It's [00:22:00] either, and there's two models.

There's like a direct provisioning model or a kind of. Semi cloud model is, uh, exactly that. That's very, uh, very, the frontier of teams 

Reto Schadegg: phone. Definitely. And neither of them did work on, in our case, so, um, right. We are, we still have our wire, uh, system. Active there just for the phone recording, you know, just for one line.

And, ah, it, it's, it's not good, but we are working on it. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Oh, so useful to hear these little challenges. 'cause that's where they're like, that's where we can help people and get people talking to each other about these. I really appreciate you sharing that. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. And. The, uh, other topic we always have, uh, is the, uh, receptionists correct.

So they still wanna have their hard phone. Yeah. Uh, so we, we, we provided them some, some desk phones. Sometimes Understandable. Sometimes, yeah. Not really necessary, but, uh, so we, we try to not provide any desk phones. [00:23:00] Physical desk phones for teams. Wow. So, so 

Tom Arbuthnot: global standard towards soft phone and headset then?

Reto Schadegg: Yeah. But still we ended up with some, with special cases. Yeah. But very few, which is very good because yeah, the less harder you have, the, the better it is. And with, uh, hotting in, in the office is, uh, it's anyway. A requirement that you don't have any, any desk phones where you have to log in, et cetera, so you have everything on a laptop, and people appreciate that.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. As you say, that gives a lot of flexibility to the business in terms of one day I'm here, next day I'm there, and it all just, just works. Absolutely. 

Reto Schadegg: Absolutely. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome Reto, this has been amazing conversation. Again, super impressed with that. Uh, 200 Rooms, 90 day project story. Uh, amazing work with your eternal log and, and your partners.

And, uh, thanks for sharing so much and, uh, hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you.