Business Video Breaks Down Borders

Ernst & Young believes a "principles-based approach" to corporate governance requires that key changes in policies and procedures be thoroughly defined by those at the top—and communicated quickly and effectively to the ranks.

But how to communicate effectively with impact and power? To John McCreadie, chief information officer (CIO) of Ernst & Young, the answer was obvious: business video. "We believe that by using business video on demand for corporate communications and training, we can maximize the return on our greatest asset, our employees," McCreadie says. He asked the Ernst & Young IT department to investigate solutions that would allow him to utilize business video for globally distributed communications and training.

Searching For a Solution
Ernst & Young had a number of technical "must haves" when it began searching for a solution. They needed a solution that would help them accomplish a number of objectives:
-Provide sufficient functionality and flexibility to reach all 106,000 employees in a timely manner through on-demand and "push" video broadcasting (automatically sending video to selected recipients)
-Enable "narrowcast" communications that are targeted and secure, so that geographically dispersed practice groups could efficiently communicate
-Enable flexible video delivery options, including push, pull (fulfilling user on-demand requests for video), subscription (periodic video delivery), and email
-Support a highly mobile workforce where employees often move between offices or need to access information from locations outside of the corporate network
-Deliver video globally without requiring expensive network upgrades or impacting country network capacities
-Provide the capability to protect sensitive corporate information by leveraging digital rights management technology and existing directory services.

The firm investigated several business video technologies including hardware-based multicasting, hardware-based caching servers, and software-based grid delivery.

But only Kontiki’s software enables Ernst & Young to meet all of its criteria for a business video solution, including the critical cost requirement of avoiding expensive upgrades of network hardware and bandwidth. More specifically, Kontiki is able to do this through its Grid Delivery Technology™ which leverages the normally underutilized power of desktop PCs and servers by forming a software-based delivery grid within Ernst & Young’s network. This is done with complete IT control and security and will ensure video delivery has minimal impact to the network.