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Connecting teams that help enable Australia’s trade to flow
As an island nation, 98% of Australia’s trade flows through its maritime ports, equating to over 8 million containers handled every year. Smooth trade through Australia’s ports is critically important to the country’s economy and the wider supply chain.
As Australia’s biggest container terminal and supply chain operator, DP World in Australia enables trade to flow through a range of integrated supply chain services, including stevedoring, container movement and management, and logistics solutions. With a long history in Australia, a network of four container terminals in Australia, and part of a portfolio of responsible for 10 per cent of global maritime trade, DP World Australia connects Australia with the world.
“DP World is a leading provider of smart logistics solutions. We enable the flow of trade in and out of Australia and we operate in terminals all across the country,” said Ian Harvison, Head of Technology at DP World Australia.
Out with the old, in with the new
Handling billions of dollars’ worth of goods every day that arrive or depart through Australian ports requires the right operational technology. While collaboration between people in and outside the organisation is critical to DP World Australia’s business, the organisation’s meeting room technology was outdated causing a poor meeting experience.
Key issues
- Outdated meeting room communication system which was not video compatible offering audio-only meetings.
- The organisation had recently completed a company-wide roll out of Microsoft Teams as a new collaboration platform and were looking for a partner to roll out the Microsoft Teams Telstra Calling for Microsoft Office 365 (TCO365) solution.
- A need for an omnichannel solution that would make the most of their recent investment in Microsoft collaboration tools.
“At DP world we’re forward thinking, we anticipate change and we deploy industry leading solutions. We had multiple communication platforms and we needed to consolidate those into a single, unified solution,” said Ian.
High-Definition audio-video meeting room solution
DP World Australia engaged Telstra to solve their collaboration needs by implementing a cost-effective and suitable solution. After understanding their requirements and performing a series of tests, Telstra chose to roll out T-Rooms for Microsoft Teams to eighteen meeting rooms, nationwide.
Telstra T-Rooms for Microsoft Teams is a video conferencing solution for meeting rooms which provides users with the shared experience of video calling from a meeting room. Designed to offer reliability, simplicity and unified user experience, the solution bundles together the right video conferencing hardware and configuration for the unique needs of each meeting room.
The solution enables users to join meetings with one touch, add participants straight from the directory, and call landlines and mobile phones through the same user interface with the help of TCO365. The solution includes optimised audio-video performance for each room and secure video conferences. Users can chat with other teams, securely share files and schedule meetings through T-Rooms.
“It, definitely, is a richer and seamless experience; it’s portable, you can do it from home, you can do it from offsite, you can do it wherever. To share information as you’re talking is very intuitive. It’s very easy. Now, because it’s become so much of a habit formed and it’s so efficient and quick, we’re starting to use it much more in our day to day work.”
Michael Barrett, DP World’s National Efficiency Manager
Telstra’s field services team managed the implementation of T-Rooms in tandem with that of TCO365 at Brisbane, Melbourne, Fremantle and Sydney. Further, Telstra’s national deployment capability helped to roll out both the solutions, quickly, in each state, by a single provider during border closures and travel restrictions.
“T-Rooms helps us to increase the number of rooms we need across the company without having to go through a capital acquisition program. Its flexibility and operating model really fit in to the innovation we’re looking for with a partner. So, what T-Rooms enables us is to meet in the office and work from home.”
Ian Harvison, Head of Technology at DP World Australia
World-class meeting room collaboration experience
Telstra T-Rooms for Microsoft Teams helped home and office-based teams at DP World Australia to collaborate well with their ground staff and other partners resulting in increased productivity and timely movement of goods with zero-to-minimal interruptions. The solution offers DP world the following benefits:
- Seamless, frictionless meeting experience. Staff can now go to a meeting room and it connects to other rooms and Microsoft Teams users. Employees working remotely or at a different site can easily join a meeting, see the rest of team on the call and work together.
- Time saved on connecting meetings. Before the roll out, it could take up to eight minutes to connect a meeting from a room location. With the roll out of Microsoft Teams and T-Rooms for Microsoft Teams, meetings are connected in minutes.
- Increased engagement and richer meeting experiences. Teams at DP World Australia can now meet face-to-face and over video, eliminating audio only meeting experiences and have transformed meeting spaces for more meaningful interaction.
- Keeping cross-border colleagues connected. T-Rooms has helped keep communication and collaboration running during border closures and travel restrictions during COVID-19 where employees could no longer travel interstate.
- Improved communication with partners and clients. Collaboration with their clients, partners and other external organisations has been made possible.
“T-Rooms solution enables us to move to a fully managed environment where we didn’t have to worry about the equipment purchase, we didn’t have to worry about the connectivity of the equipment, and we didn’t have to worry about the inter-operability. That’s all provided through T-Rooms as a managed service,” said Ian.
“Our partners, through Telstra and Microsoft, were actually able to collaborate better on a mixed environment, so the interoperability of being able to connect different technologies into our T-Rooms is a key differentiator for us,” claimed Ian. “In choosing a technology partner, we wanted someone who thought outside the box and provided a solution that was not only meeting our current needs but would also assist us into the future.”
