While it’s clear that the proliferation of smartphones and tablets have made businesses increasingly mobile, there’s still a need for physical meeting rooms in most companies. Customers are still going to be on site, teams will periodically meet face to face, and teleconferences still need a home base for those working in the office.

Of course the meeting rooms of the future will need to consist of more than white boards, conference phones, and video projectors. To build a truly collaborative experience means leveraging the latest hardware and software technology. But building a superior physical meeting room involves much more than simply bringing in the latest technology. It means selecting the right technology solution to meet the unique needs of your business. Based on our years of experience, we’ve learned the level of success of your collaboration installation is 90% dependent on the effectiveness of the deployment. And that means relying on the expertise of the integrator you select to implement your physical meeting room.

Here are four best practices to ensure that your physical meeting room of the future is built for success.

Every company has unique, specific needs when it comes to servicing their internal and external customers. The latest Unified Collaboration technology is powerful and flexible enough to meet a wide variety of requirements. Building your system, however, takes an integrator who can assess your specific application and and design a solution that aligns the technology with your business goals and objectives and meets your budgetary parameters.

Once you and your integrator have agreed on the appropriate solution, you need to be sure the installation is carried out effectively. Successful integrators like IVCi use centralized project management software to coordinate the logistics, configuration, and integration of the solution into your meeting room environment. The key is having an experienced project manager (PM) to coordinate all aspects of the project be your main point of contact. During the implementation, the PM should be in constant contact with technical staff to quickly resolve any issues that may arise.

To get the most out of your UC technology you need to make sure everyone on your team is trained properly. In many cases, advanced capabilities go unused simply because people are unaware of them or don’t know how to leverage them properly. Your integration partner should make sure they’ve trained staff to use the technology appropriately before signing off on the installation.

Installing and implementing a state of the art physical meeting room is only the beginning. Ensuring maximum success of your installation means continuous management of the system,. You can do that with your own staff or you can leverage the expertise of your integrator to provide ongoing support – from telephone support to onsite and even management.

Many companies sell the technology and it all works. But to ensure a successful implementation, you need an integrator like IVCI with extensive experience in video, AV, and managed services that can support you from selection to day-to-day management. Working with advanced technology provided by Polycom, IVCI can help ensure that you have the right solution in place to meet the evolving demands of the workplace of the future.