Roche Diagnostics Corporation (RDC), the North American headquarters for Roche Diagnostics, employs 3,500 people from its Indianapolis, Indiana, location. Growth in personnel has precluded the availability of an onsite meeting room large enough to host its entire staff. Prior to initiating a streaming media solution, RDC shuttled employees to a nearby auditorium for one of two back-to-back company meetings that each delivered the same information to half of RDC's employees, but entirely excluded most remotely located staff. RDC has recently deployed a streaming media solution to replace the logistically challenging and time-consuming off-site meetings. Now, six servers running Windows Media® deliver both live and on-demand unicast and multicast executive presentations to the main campus and to remote offices and field personnel. The solution provides RDC three benefits: 1) the ability to provide consistent corporate messaging to both on-site and remotely located employees, 2) the ability to archive streaming events for on-demand viewing by employees unable to attend or interested in reviewing content at a later date, and 3) reduces travel time by two hours per employee per all-company meeting.


Situation

Roche Diagnostics Corporation (RDC) is the North American headquarters for Roche Diagnostics, a leading developer of products for centralized medical diagnostics and diabetes care. Roche Diagnostics is one of three separate divisions, along with Pharmaceuticals and Vitamins, which make up the Roche Group . RDC employs 2,000 people at its Indianapolis headquarters and 1,500 at three remote office locations and in the field.

Prior to the implementation of a streaming communication system, RDC's all-company meetings had to be conducted off-site because the Indianapolis campus has grown rapidly and does not have an auditorium that will seat all 3,500 employees. Each employee was shuttled to an off-site auditorium in a neighboring community for one of two identical, back-to-back presentations. The practice posed extreme logistical challenges and was very time consuming for the presenters and the audience. Additionally, the vital corporate news delivered at these meetings was only received by local RDC employees—1,500 remotely located personnel were excluded entirely from live executive presentations.

RDC sought out a cost-effective and efficient solution that would allow the company to communicate one live corporate message to both onsite and remotely located employees, and to document and replay meetings on-demand.

Back to the top


Solution

To achieve its goal to efficiently deliver consistent messages and communicate with all employees, Roche Diagnostics has deployed a streaming video system that reaches all local and remote desktops. After evaluating the cost, ease of use, and features of several streaming options, RDC's Network Services group selected Microsoft® Windows Media®.

The new enterprise streaming solution delivers live "eTownHall" meetings to every employee regardless of location. Six servers running Windows Media manage streaming media communication to all 3,500 employees at their desktops. Employees no longer have to be shuttled from the main campus to one of two all-company events conducted at an off-site auditorium. Executives now deliver their full presentations once, and the content is broadcast live. Local and remote offices receive a 350k multicast stream from the local Windows Media server, and field users access a 24k unicast stream from the main RDC office. For viewers unavailable for the live proceedings or needing to review meeting content, RDC encodes an on-demand eTownHall simultaneous to the live broadcast and makes it available through the corporate intranet immediately.

In its first streaming communication pilot, 93 percent of the test group preferred the streaming presentation to going off-site. "The streaming media-based presentation is a huge time and money saver compared to conventional meetings, and quite effective in my opinion," said Nathalie Chiasson, Roche Diagnostics sales director.

Back to the top


Benefits

RDC's new Windows Media solution offers many financial and operational benefits to the company. Alone, the savings gained from conducting each all-company meeting once instead of twice has given an adequate return on the investment-reducing travel time by two hours per employee per meeting. Additionally, the streaming media-based meetings are reaching all employees with a consistent corporate message that imparts the same emotion and feeling as a live presentation. And, unlike conventional meetings, the streaming eTownHall remains available on-demand for employees who were unable to attend the live broadcast or for those who are interested in reviewing content at a later time.

Roche is excited by the reception streaming communication has received from its staff. The most recent eTownHall meeting was viewed live by 60 percent of employees-a number equivalent to those found with the former meeting method, but requiring less resource output to achieve and automatically providing on-demand viewing for the remaining employees. The success of streaming media at RDC has also opened up a host of future opportunities. Plans include extending streaming services to product sales and marketing activities, technical support training, internal and external product education, and to the Diagnostics division worldwide.

Back to the top

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

© 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Windows, and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Back to the top