BigBand Networks orchestrates greater productivity with Citrix online services

BigBand Networks is a leading provider of broadband multimedia platforms for video, voice and data. The company’s solutions help cable operators, telecommunications companies, and service providers around the world deliver cutting-edge media services to subscribers.

The challenge: connect a globally distributed organization

BigBand Networks is growing rapidly and today provides services to more than 20 million digital television and broadband Internet subscribers around the world. To support the company’s growth, several hundred employees work from offices in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. “We have a very distributed organization across the globe,” explained Eugene Alfaro, director of Global ITS Services.

Unlike many companies, BigBand Networks does not centralize departments such as marketing, finance, research, and others at the company’s headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. Rather, the company hires the right people to work in the appropriate location based on their roles and responsibilities. “The challenge was making sure our distributed workforce was able to work effectively and productively with each other. We needed to find technology solutions that allow employees to work with others across the organization just as if they were there in person,” said Alfaro.

Implementing Citrix Software as a Service

BigBand Networks deployed a suite of Web-based collaboration, support and access services from Citrix to bring widely distributed employees and customers closer together.

Citrix® GoToMeeting® provides the sales, marketing, and management teams an easy way to collaborate at a distance.

Citrix® GoToAssist® gives the IT and customer service departments a fast, easy, and secure way to provide remote-support services to employees and customers.

Citrix® GoToMyPC® gives employees throughout the organization a secure way to access desktops and servers from home or while traveling.

Collaborate with teammates around the world with GoToMeeting

With GoToMeeting, employees can collaborate more effectively with co-workers who may be thousands of miles away. For example, Alfaro uses GoToMeeting to hold his weekly staff meetings with team members in California, Massachusetts, and Israel. “GoToMeeting helps us easily present information and make our decisions. Our meetings are much more efficient,” he explained. By reviewing company teleconference reports, Alfaro has discovered a trend. “Since deploying GoToMeeting we have seen a decrease in the average length of our company meetings because they’re so much more productive.”

Company salespeople reduce travel costs by using GoToMeeting to conduct remote presentations with customers and prospects. Through GoToMeeting, salespeople can also work more closely with the product marketing and development teams to deploy the company’s suite of solutions to customers. “Our deployments require a collaborative effort between sales, product marketing, customer support, and the development staff. GoToMeeting allows these groups to work together so they can prepare a solution specifically designed for a customer,” said Alfaro.

Unlike other collaboration tools that charge by the minute or per port, the flat-rate pricing of GoToMeeting encourages employees to use it more often. “The All You Can Meet pricing model for GoToMeeting is a huge advantage because it does not discourage employees from meeting. With GoToMeeting, employees can meet as long as they like, as many times as they like,” said Alfaro.

Provide rapid support to employees and customers with GoToAssist

The ITS helpdesk at BigBand Networks uses GoToAssist to provide fast and secure remote support to employees. “Because we have such a distributed organization, it became a challenge to provide a high level of support to all of our employees. GoToAssist ensures that our helpdesk can support someone in Europe as easily as someone in their own office,” said Alfaro. The visual power of the remote control feature helps the support team get an employee working again rapidly. “Our employees get an immediate benefit from GoToAssist because they can be productive again in a couple of minutes. It also allows us to educate the employees to further empower them for self-service.”

After getting a first-hand look at the successful implementation of GoToAssist in the ITS department, the company’s customer service organization decided to deploy GoToAssist to help customers. “Previously, something that could take 15 minutes to solve might end up taking an hour and a half,” recalled Alfaro. Now phone calls to the customer service team are resolved faster because the support representative can visualize the customer’s issue. In addition to decreasing average call times since deploying GoToAssist, customers receive valuable training. “Not only do we solve ther problem, but we transfer knowledge. We’re minimizing our call volume because we don’t have repeat questions.”

Provide secure remote access for employees with GoToMyPC

In addition to enabling better communication with employees and customers, BigBand Networks deployed GoToMyPC for secure, managed, remote access to employee desktops. Whether working from home or traveling on company business, employees now can easily access their PC and network resources from any Web browser or wireless device.

Online services provide easy deployment and administration

For Alfaro, reducing his ITS team’s administration time and effort is important. “Citrix services are so easy to deploy and administer. That’s important because it makes the ITS organization more productive,” he said. Setting up a new user can be accomplished rapidly without complicated procedures or training. “Our strategy is to allow BigBand employees to work with anyone from anywhere at any time. GoToMeeting, GoToAssist, and GoToMyPC address that strategy.”