A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Visual Communications technologies are transforming the way organizations do business, providing empowerment in ways never imagined just ten years ago. Integrating Unified Communications solutions with visual capabilities increases this empowerment exponentially, fueling collaboration and increasing productivity throughout the enterprise.

Carousel’s Visual Communications and Collaboration Group offers the high-end expertise to design, create, integrate and support compelling visual communications solutions for our customers’ network infrastructures, helping reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Our solutions provide a clear return on investment for both large and small organizations spanning numerous verticals.

Carousel is uniquely positioned as the ONLY PROVIDER whose comprehensive UC solutions leverage TelePresence, A/V integration, and a comprehensive Visual Communications strategy all from one source. This holistic approach offers tremendous advantages over other providers and saves our customers significant time and expense.

We offer a wide range of Visual Communications solutions and services.

• Integrated Audio Visual Meeting Environments
• High Definition Video Conferencing Systems
• Custom TelePresence Solutions
• Multi-Point Bridging Services
• Worldwide Video Conference Room Rental Services
• VideoOne Managed Services
• Management Applications
• Conferencing Infrastructure
• Network Infrastructure support and design for Video applications
• Content Recording and Streaming

Why Carousel?

Providers right and left are jumping onto the Visual Communications bandwagon as their customers realize the potential ROI of these sophisticated solutions. Carousel is head and shoulders above the pack, due to these key differentiators, as well as our unique positioning to deliver integration across UC platforms.

We demystify the complexities of choice – We provide the best HD video conferencing equipment, sales, and service in the business, demystifying the complexities associated with the vast array of technology choices available on the market today.

Lower Up-front Investment and More Financial Options – Our partnerships with the industry’s top technology vendors allow us to provide the same sophisticated visual solutions at significantly lower up-front investment cost than other providers, and Carousel’s Capital Finance division provides creative financing options so you can acquire the solutions which match your specific business needs.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Assessment - Our hallmark holistic approach brings video components, integration points and physical space together into a single platform, proving connectivity throughout the enterprise. Our skilled team of Network Engineers also provides unique assessment offers to ensure your infrastructure is ready to support the types of visual communications solutions you intend to deploy.

Turnkey solutions with seamless integration - Our custom turn-key solutions reflect ease of use, simplicity, and cutting edge technology that seamlessly integrates with your business meetings and conferences.

Innovative, unrivaled industry leaders – Our unique qualifications and expertise set you apart from the rest of the pack and help you choose the right design and technology for your integration project. Our best in class Engineering Team and Technical Support are unrivaled in the industry.

Comprehensive Certifications – We are an accredited CAVSP Diamond Certified solutions provider. This designation recognizes that 75 percent of the regional office’s sales, customer service and technical staff have achieved and maintained individual InfoComm Certification. In addition, we currently have 7 CTS on staff.

Featured Visual Communications Partners:

• Avaya
• Polycom
• BurstPoint Networks
• Microsoft
• Vidyo
• LifeSize
• Cisco

For more information on Carousel’s Visual Communications and Collaboration Group contact your local Carousel Representative or call Carousel at 800-401-0760.

Key Benefits of Visual Communications

Visual Communications and UC Communications Solutions are more than just employees viewing streaming video clips or using social networking sites during the workday. These solutions provide an extension of the UC platform which can enrich your business communications with a personal dynamic generating:

Stepping Stone to Unified Communications – You may choose to implement visual communications capabilities as the first step to building a comprehensive Unified Communications Solution for your organization, defraying your total investment over time in an incremental approach. Transversely, visual communications can be added as a natural extension of your existing UC platform.

Access to the Non-Verbal Dimension – Some researchers claim that up to 80% of communication is nonverbal. Visual communications give participants access to the critical visual dimension of information sharing and all of its clues which are not present in an audio conference. This facilitates decision-making and enhances team collaboration within your organization.

Increased productivity – Visual Communications facilitates productivity at the top tiers of your organization, allowing Executives to quickly transition from internal office commitments (such as an on-site management meeting) to external remote commitments (such as an international board meeting) without losing time to travel. This ability to quickly change focus and address multiple audiences within a compact time frame increases productivity and generates a positive ripple effect throughout your organization.

Decreased Travel Costs – On-screen “meetings” can reduce or eliminate the need to travel, saving significant money on airfare and lodging and improving the quality of life for road-warriors. This application also reduces your carbon footprint and may qualify for “green technology” status.

Faster Hiring Capabilities – Visual communications eliminate the need to fly candidates to screening interviews, which generally involve a two-week wait time for low airfares. Your hiring process (and all of your remote meetings, for that matter) will experience a velocity increase, cutting the assessment time and training time for new-hires significantly.

Competitive Edge for HR – In tandem with accelerating the candidate screening and training processes, today’s technology-savvy college grads are growing to expect a similar degree of technical fluency within their prospective workplace. A potential employer leveraging Visual Communications technology in the work environment is significantly more attractive to these potential recruits. This feature can serve as a competitive differentiator for a high-value candidate assessing multiple offers.

Enhanced Relationships – The ability to have face-to-face meetings with your client base can improve your customer relationships and keep in closer contact with them. Regularly scheduled meetings involving significant logistical planning can now be conducted with much less hassle and cost.

Multi-Point Meeting Facilitation – Visual communications can bring people together from different time zones around the world to collaborate without having to leave their own location. This facilitates team-building, especially between telecommuters. Even if a conference saves you a 15 minute walk across campus, these time-savings add up.

More Focus, Less Multitasking – Meetings held using visual communications technology tend to decrease the temptation to multitask which often happens during traditional audio conference calls.

These benefits can give you a competitive edge to differentiate your organization in the global marketplace.

For more information on Carousel’s Visual Communications and Collaboration Group contact your local Carousel Representative or call Carousel at 800-401-0760.

Products / Solutions

Carousel is uniquely positioned as the ONLY PROVIDER whose comprehensive UC solutions leverage TelePresence, A/V integration, and a comprehensive Visual Communications strategy all from one source. This holistic approach offers tremendous advantages over other providers and saves our customers significant time and expense.

Our selection of Visual Communications components include but are not limited to these components, including their implementation and preferred service plan.

Unified Communications Core Infrastructure

Our Unified Communications portfolio incorporates multiple enterprise communication technologies and applications, as well as their associated software, services and equipment, to produce an environment that best supports the way your users work – offices, homes, mobile locations,

TelePresence Solutions

TelePresence offers face-to-face interactions through transmission of life-sized, high-definition images and audio. This “in person’ feeling creates the sense of truly being present in a live meeting even if attendees are geographically separated in different remote physical locations. These bring a wide range of benefits to users across industries, including Emergency Services, Education, Health Care, and more.

Enterprise Conferencing Systems

Including High Definition video resolution and super wideband audio, our systems are easy-to-use and deploy. Whereas most enterprise videoconferencing environments may cost well into 6 figures, Carousel’s solutions offer the same cutting-edge technology at a fraction of the price.

Audio Video Integration

Designing a solution’s audio and visual components to cooperate and communicate with each other generates a more streamlined and effective user interface which will result in a more realistic communications experience. We will work with you to determine the perfect blend of video and audio conferencing, networking and multimedia capabilities to create and A/V environment created to address your specific business needs.

Desktop Collaboration

This means of providing group access to multiple programs and applications right from the desktop is becoming increasingly popular for its clear efficiencies. From instant messaging to sharing content to meeting through real-time video, these solutions integrate with your existing systems to optimize scalability and performance.

Personal Devices (PDAs)

Tablets, mobile phones and the like are becoming an increasing presence in today’s enterprise communications environments. Carousel’s best practices in supporting iPads and tablets in the enterprise are designed for maximum portability and security, so your users can integrate nearly any device without having to worry about a network breach.

Maintenance Plans

Platinum Maintenance – This highest level “white glove” service provides you with next business day on-site parts replacement, unlimited help desk support, and bug fixes or programming updates.

Standard Maintenance – This level provides you with next business day parts replacement and unlimited help desk report.

Enterprise Class Visual Communications Defined

Carousel’s extensive certifications provide us with the deep technical expertise to evaluate your current network topology and assess the possibilities for media integration based on your strategic business objectives. During this initial assessment we often find that many larger enterprise customers with existing video systems are constrained by a lack of coordination between their physical room arrangements and the disparate technologies within those rooms, resulting in inconsistencies in usage and functionality. Very often the room’s control and management causes resource and response challenges as the AV systems are designed as “silos” of information. Bottom line – the customer misses out on the technology’s true potential.

Carousel’s Enterprise Class Visual Communications Group overcomes these barriers by crafting solutions to meet specific meeting space standards for the enterprise. These standards are based on the customer’s current business requirements, combined with industry best practices to generate:

Consistent User Experience

All meeting rooms benefit from a common look and feel providing across their visible technologies, their acoustic reinforcement and most importantly, their room control system. These synergies are designed to provide “technological transparency” to the users, resulting in a cohesive and consistent user experience.

High-Definition, Realistic Picture Quality

Proper lighting and acoustic accommodations address human factors such as natural appearance and sound both in the room and transmitted outside the room, providing a truly accurate and meaningful face-to-face experience.

Centralized Monitoring and Operation

A centralized application, available via a web browser interface, operates and monitors all operational devices or components in the rooms. No need to juggle multiple remotes or devices.

Adhering to these standards ensures that:

• The meeting rooms become network assets, instead of being silos of technology.
• We leverage all the technologies as applicable within the different product sets.
• Very often, product consistency allows for pricing concessions and reduces installation and maintenance costs.

This integrated connectivity to the enterprise creates more opportunity for business and process improvement, facilitating decision-making, reducing operating costs, and increasing collaboration. As a result, your organization enjoys environmental conditions conducive to enhancing your work environment, supporting your business culture and process methodology for efficient and productive meetings.