Komatsu Forklift Australia chooses Polycom to deliver best-of-breed, high-definition telepresence solutions to reduce travel downtime and lower network bandwidth costs, accelerate-decision making and enhance workflow efficiencies.

Sydney, 1 September 2010 – Komatsu Forklift Australia, a leading supplier and distributor of forklifts, cranes and sideloaders in Australia,is accelerating decision-making and enhancing communication and collaboration across the organisation with the help of Polycom’s high-definition (HD) video and telepresence solutions.

Komatsu recently installed Polycom HD room telepresence in four of its 11 offices across Australia, to enable its 240-strong workforce to conduct productive, face-to-face meetings without the high costs associated with travel and to promote closer communication and information-sharing across dispersed teams.

Komatsu called upon Polycom partner ServicePoint Australia Pty Limited, to deploy Polycom’s HDX 7000 room telepresence solution in its Sydney head office and Polycom’s HDX 6000 units across the local branch offices in Brisbane, Melbourne and Newcastle. The technology was implemented to enable staff to conduct interactive meetings over distance without the need to travel to a central location. By facilitating life-like communication over high-definition – providing greater clarity at up to half the bandwidth – Polycom’s telepresence solutions have helped to deliver the best user experience possible for Komatsu employees.

“At Komatsu we value communication highly. With 11 national branches, face-to-face meetings, while vital, are costly and time consuming. We see video conferencing as a tool to increase our communication and enhance productivity, without the associated travel and staff downtime costs,” said Mr. Gary Hodge, product manager for Komatsu.

According to Mr. Hodge, among the key reasons Komatsu decided to partner with Polycom and ServicePoint to video-enable the organisation was Polycom’s support for H.264 High Profile – a powerful, standards-based video compression technology that reduces bandwidth requirements for high-definition telepresence and video conferencing by up to 50 per cent, enabling customers to extend the benefits of visual communications more cost-effectively across their organisation for a faster return on investment.

"Polycom's telepresence solutions are market-leading, easy-to-use, reliable and effective. Already we are seeing significant cost savings through reduced travel, and a substantial increase in productivity,” said Mr. Hodge. “With high-definition, we can see and hear each other more clearly – which has helped to promote closer interaction between the teams – and with the lower bandwidth requirements, we can share content much more easily, which has helped to accelerate decision-making and enhance workflow efficiencies,” he added.

Almost all of Komatsu’s meetings and training sessions are now being delivered via HD video and telepresence.

“In the past we would have had to schedule meetings in advance to accommodate travel requirements. Now we have the freedom to schedule meetings whenever there is the need. We are seeing the technology being used at our weekly senior management meetings, technical training, finance meetings and sales team development sessions,” said Mr. Hodge.   

Mr. Michael Chetner, Managing Director for Polycom Australia and New Zealand, commented: “Polycom’s telepresence solutions remove the obstacles of time and distance, enabling organisations to communicate and collaborate anywhere, anytime, make faster and more informed decisions and achieve higher levels of performance.”

“Polycom puts customers at the centre of all its products and continues to deliver best-in-class telepresence solutions that enable the lowest total cost of ownership and the highest return on investment – helping customers to power high-quality HD visual communications across the organisation without significantly impacting network requirements or cost,” he added.

To further enable video collaboration across the organisation, Komatsu is considering rolling out Polycom HD video and telepresence solutions across all of its 11 regional offices, in addition to leveraging the technology to enhance communication between the Australian offices and the company’s head office in Japan.

About Komatsu Forklift Australia                                                                                                     
 Komatsu Forklift Australia is the exclusive supplier and distributor of forklifts, cranes and side-loaders in Australia and employs over 240 team members in 11 offices nationwide. Part of the global Komatsu family, Komatsu Forklift Australia is wholly owned by Komatsu Ltd, a Japanese company responsible for manufacturing construction, mining and materials handling equipment in factories throughout the world. For more information, please visit http://komatsuforklift.com.au/

About Polycom

Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions built on open standards. Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit http://www.polycom.com.au for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

About ServicePoint
ServicePoint is a specialist provider of audio visual communication and collaboration solutions to corporate and government businesses in Asia Pacific. Their core offering is video-conferencing, integrated with the latest innovations in audio visual integration and control, video on demand, IP TV and interactive collaborative tools. ServicePoint adopts a consulting and managed services approach to all customer engagements.