Brick-and-Mortar Streams

Quite naturally, streaming and other technology-oriented corporations have been quickest in their implementation of streaming in the enterprise. But "old-school" companies - the ones propping up the Dow while many tech sectors languish — should not be counted out of the potential market for streaming products and services.

Case in point: Structural Group. Based in Hanover, MD, Structural may be the quintessential "brick-and-mortar" company: The group does retrofits and upgrades for everything from buildings and parking decks to bridges and large industrial facilities like refineries and chemical plants. But Structural is also an innovator in the use of streaming video for corporate training and education. The company has created a library of more than 500 streaming videos, many of which detail arcane production processes.

The streaming files are indexed with Virage's Video Logger. Brian Gallagher, director of marketing for Structural Group, notes, "A lot of what we do is very procedure and process intensive. We wanted to capture the essence of what our workers do, and we wanted to capture them in their environment, because they're talking to their peers."

To qualify for advanced training, workers are often required to watch certain of these videos to gain a base of knowledge, and then must pass tests on the material.

Gallagher also notes another, softer return on investment that Structural realizes through its streaming library. "Peter Emmons, president of the company, saw that every time someone retires or leaves the company, there's a lot of knowledge that goes with him. He wanted to find a way that we could tap into this knowledge, capture it, and help more people benefit from it."

Structural even uses its streaming video library to close sales. When making presentations to potential customers around the country, the Structural sales staff must often overcome stiff competition. Gallagher notes, "Our sales guys are able to go in and say, ‘We've done that before.' They'll pull up their laptop or put on their projector. ‘Here's the structure, here's the problem, and here's the repair that we've performed.' The customer can actually see it. That gives us a lot more credibility and makes the sales process much easier, which figures into the ROI equation."

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