Telepresence (News - Alert), video, and voice solutions provider Polycom, Inc., announcedthat its telepresence systems and infrastructure has been chosen by supply chain solutions provider Manhattan Associates– to offer face-to-face communications with customers and colleagues worldwide.

Company officials said Polycom’s telepresence solution helped Manhattan Associates (News - Alert) to cut costs, shorten sales cycles and helped in strengthening the relationships with over 1,200 customers by delivering high-touch customer service.

Manhattan Associates was in need of a system that could ensure its operations ran smoothly and effectively by linking 2,000 employees working from 20 offices in 11 countries.

The company chose to upgrade to the Polycom (News - Alert) HDX room telepresence solutions and to Polycom video network infrastructure for - multi-point conferencing, centralized management and secure inter-company collaboration, as well as updated its video infrastructure to cut down on traveling and increase productivity.

In addition, Manhattan Associates is also leveraging Polycom's Video Border Proxy “VBP” firewall traversal solution, implemented domestically and overseas for connections with external parties.

'The Polycom network is speeding up our design sessions, our demonstrations, and in general our sales process,' said Heather Mahan, sales account executive, Manhattan Associates.

'Not only can we do things faster and more efficiently, but we're able to develop really strong and deep relationships without even having to be on site. Without a doubt, it's shortening our sales cycles.'

Twenty five Polycom HD video systems spanning Atlanta, India, Indiana, London and Paris, have now displayed active network logs an upwards of 300 calls per month, thanks to the upgrade.

To further enable video collaboration across the organization, officials with Manhattan Associates said they are also piloting and considering a limited roll-out of Polycom CMA Desktop, a scalable, cost-effective video collaboration application tailored for PCs and that works seamlessly with the other conference room systems.