Digital hub drives Jaguar Land Rover

When JLR wanted to empower their software development team with a new digital collaborative working environment, Visavvi’s reputation for providing businesses with ingenious collaboration solutions proved the perfect match.

Muliple collaboration environments

Low-power consumption technology

Unified communication

Challenge

Working as part of a geographically dispersed organisation raised a significant business challenge for JLR, who wanted to use technology to bridge the communication gap and attract fresh talent to work at their new digital hub located in Manchester. We provided intuitive and flexible solutions that catered for individual, group and multi-site collaborative working.

Solution

Using the latest collaboration technology we created an innovative and inspiring working environment for the team at the NEO building. The new team of engineers and software experts work on a range of mobility services and develop new features on future Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. With competition for talent in the city high, it was essential that the facility was attractive to Generation Y tech natives, allowing them to work in an intuitive way, collaborating both internally and externally.

Mark Brogden, Director of Enterprise Architecture and Innovation, Jaguar Land Rover, said, “Manchester is a key digital hub in the UK. We wanted to attract the right talent to drive our software development initiative. We needed the right capabilities, the right feel and the right atmosphere for the type of people we wanted to attract.”

“A key element, especially with the type of software development work we do, is to make the guys here feel part of the wider JLR group. Manchester is slightly remote from our other sites in Gaydon and Whitley in the West Midlands, and very remote from Shannon in Ireland, Shanghai in China and Pune in India. Technology bridges the gap, in terms of video conferencing in the meeting room spaces we’ve created, so it was absolutely key that we got that right.”

Manchester is a key digital hub in the UK. We wanted to attract the right talent to drive our software development initiative.“
Mark Brogden, Jaguar Land Rover

The perfect match

In total, Visavvi specified and installed 19 professional Panasonic LED displays, alongside control systems, BYOD, audio and unified communications technology including Logitech Meetup conference hubs, and wireless screensharing capabilities from Barco Clickshare.

Mark Brogden explains, “Visavvi has been an audio visual partner of Jaguar Land Rover for 18 years, while Panasonic has been a partner for a number of years too. So, it was a natural choice.”

Rob Hill, Jaguar Land Rover account manager at Visavvi adds, “Jaguar Land Rover had an existing relationship with Panasonic and from a Visavvi perspective we’ve been working closely with both of them for nearly 20 years.”

The collaborative environment

Jaguar Land Rover’s presence at the Neo Building is split across two floors. The newly refurbished office has been created as the latest hub for Manchester’s vibrant community of creators.

In a competitive environment, the attraction and retention of staff, certainly in a software development space – is a key focus for modern businesses like Jaguar Land Rover. One benefit of Manchester as a digital hub is the local skills base. However, this inherently generates a competitive landscape. “We needed to create a better way of working and a better working environment in order to attract talent with those desirable digital skills”, added Brogden.

Rob Hill goes further to explain how the technology matched the objective. “We have integrated numerous audio visual technologies, and brought them all together to create a work space that’s as intuitive and inspiring as possible.”

Drive for carbon neutral

All JLR UK manufacturing facilities are powered by 100% renewable electricity and the company has bold plans to achieve carbon neutral manufacturing in the UK by 2020.

Rob Hill explains, “Energy usage is an important consideration for Jaguar Land Rover because as a business they are aiming towards carbon neutrality and the fact that the Panasonic displays have low power consumption is particularly attractive. The quality of the products used goes without saying, however after sales service is critically important. When we install technology, it’s essential that it works reliably, and if there is a problem, that it is resolved quickly so that our extended warranties and fast service response bring additional reassurance.”

Result

JLR are using the technology within a variety of operational uses, from internal meetings and presentations, to dashboard screens to monitor the software they are developing. The unified communication systems are integral to facilitating high quality collaborative meetings with JLR colleagues and third parties in the UK and overseas.

Rob concludes, “The project had a very tight timescale. From conception to completion was six weeks which included consultation time for Visavvi’s design and installation teams to work closely with other project partners such as the furniture designers and building contractors. Our deep understanding of the business challenge that faced JLR – plus a clear focus on the technologies that would deliver the required solution, meant that we were able to drive the project and deliver on time, on budget, and to their expectations.”