Virtual and Superior:
How to Build Teams that Get Things Done
Thought Leadership Series: Case Study on Cornerstone Technologies
Cornerstone Technologies’ Mission
To deliver emerging IT solutions and extend superior service
offerings in our named Practice Areas. We will be integral to the
success of our customers and business partners. In the pursuit of
this goal, we will embrace the values of faith, family and integrity
in our employee and business relationships.
Executive Summary
When a company finds a tool that directly aligns with and supports its mission, increased productivity and improved job satisfaction can be the result. GoToMeeting with HDFaces is just such a tool for Cornerstone Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based IT engineering services company.
Eugene Alfaro, director of IT engineering services, is clear that the advantages of GoToMeeting accrue to the hard side and the soft side of the business — just like Cornerstone Technologies’ mission includes both elements:
Learn how Cornerstone has deployed GoToMeeting video conferencing since March 2011 and why Alfaro says it has changed the way the firm’s 18 employees work with customers and with each other.
“Thanks to GoToMeeting with HDFaces, work is no longer where I have
to be — it’s anywhere I happen to be at a given moment.”
— Eugene
Alfaro, director of IT engineering services, Cornerstone Technologies
Extend Superior Service Offerings
When it comes to fulfilling the mission’s commitment to superior service, GoToMeeting enhances the delivery of each of Cornerstone’s business areas, Alfaro says. Those businesses include:
• Project-Based Engineering
• Operational Services
• Architectural Project Design Consulting
• Staff Augmentation
• Hardware/Software Acquisition
• Custom Financing
“GoToMeeting is used across the board,” he says. “All of our staff has access to it; half are empowered with accounts to organize and start the meetings.”
For example, in Operational Services and Staff Augmentation, Alfaro uses the tool to bring together
members of Cornerstone’s contracted offshore staff in India for weekly meetings. Those remote Indian team members can also join video conferences with clients who have engaged Cornerstone for operational support or temporary staffing. Further, Alfaro uses the tool to interview for far-flung IT talent; he recently met via video conference with engineers from the Philippines and South America.
In Hardware/Software Acquisition, GoToMeeting makes it easy to involve technology manufacturers as Cornerstone works with clients to spec out new systems, Alfaro says. The company also uses video conferencing to meet directly with manufacturers in discussions of system capabilities and equipment pricing. Having ready access to business partners raises credibility, he says.
In Project-Based Engineering, GoToMeeting has real financial impact. Alfaro explains: “One of the challenges we have because we are a small, regional team is expanding our services so we can touch customers who are out of our region. And that’s where GoToMeeting comes in. We now do more than half of our customer meetings — not sales calls, but actual engagements where we are generating revenue — via video conference. We have our engineers on the phone with our customers’ administrators or IT directors, consulting, diagramming, designing and showing documentation. We are actually doing deployment work through GoToMeeting. We just closed two recent projects where we never once stepped foot into the customers’ location.”
Virtual engagements like those projects provide the best business results, Alfaro says. “We are generating top-line revenue because we can reach customers who we would otherwise not have been able to reach, and we are affecting bottom-line profit because we are reducing the potential expense of executing on those projects.”
Such emphasis on working with others remotely is built into Cornerstone’s contracts. “Our project execution process assumes that we are going to step foot into the customer’s facility less than one third of the days committed,” Alfaro says. “If a project is for 60 days, we are committed to being on site less than 20 days. Two thirds is remote. The customers have to sign on the dotted line to accept those terms. We haven’t had a single customer balk with regard to our number of days on site.”
Just what do customers think of this arrangement? Cornerstone always asks in an end-of-project survey. “Very satisfied” was the overall rating from the client on one of the aforementioned all-virtual projects, Alfaro reports. Cornerstone completed the project for a county agency in California without the engineer driving the 300 miles to the facility. The customer was “very satisfied” on a number of counts, including the quality of the engineer and the ability of Cornerstone to execute the project. In the survey, the customer responded with the highest compliment possible: He would do business with Cornerstone again.
“In an email to us with comments, he shared the types of projects he wants to work on next,” Alfaro says. “Not only did we gain his trust and a relationship, we have ongoing business without ever stepping foot in the facility.”
Embrace the Values of Faith, Family and
Integrity
GoToMeeting helps Cornerstone live the core values of faith, family and integrity. And when a company stays true to its principles, a culture of employee and customer satisfaction builds.
Both Alfaro and Cornerstone President Frank Velasquez are family men who believe in cultivating a happy home life as much as growing a business. “Family is truly respected in our company,” Alfaro says. “But in order to truly respect it, we have to give people time with their families. GoToMeeting allows us to get work done and to ‘workshift,’ which is working dynamically from anywhere you want to be and not limiting employees to a specific location.”
On a personal note, Alfaro takes advantage of such shifts to make sure he’s home with his wife and two children. He shares this recent — and frequent — scenario: “It was dinner time, and my family has dinner together every night,” he says. “But Frank and I needed to continue work on a new strategy around our managed services product, so I went home, ate dinner, and we met after our families went to bed. We were literally lying down on our respective couches with our laptops on. We have probably had more video conferences in our pajamas than we have in our business suits. No kidding: We believe so much in the value of being able to see face to face that he and I will enforce using video with each other even when we are in our pajamas.”
“We pride ourselves on integrity and client trust. HDFaces video
conferencing engenders trust because participants can see expressions
and body language as if we were all face to face.”
— Eugene Alfaro,
director of IT engineering services, Cornerstone Technologies
That face-to-face connection makes all the difference when it comes to building relationships based on integrity, another of Cornerstone’s key values. Alfaro is particularly passionate about this point.
“The thing that video adds to conferences that you cannot do with just audio and screen sharing is showing the integrity and honesty on your face,” Alfaro says. “Once you have that first meeting with a customer on video over GoToMeeting, you immediately establish a level of integrity in the relationship. They’ve seen your face; they’ve seen your eyes. When you don’t see people, there is a level of distrust.”
Interestingly, Alfaro has developed his own theory on the progression of communication. “Zero is the level of perfect distrust and poor communication, and 10 is the upper echelon of perfect trust and perfect
communication,” he says. “Audio conferencing gets you to a 1. Add GoToMeeting where you share files and screens, and that gets you to a 3 or a 4. Video conferencing gets you to an 8. You can’t get to a 10 until you fly out to meet the person — in person. There’s a huge gap between audio and video conferencing in gaining a level of trust. With the progression of communication comes a progression of trust.”
While video conferencing can increase trust, it can also decrease anxiety and defuse sticky situations, Alfaro says. The power to reverse bad circumstances is another reason Cornerstone favors video conferences. “If there is a perception of us doing something wrong or having difficulty on a project, we do a video conference so we can immediately regain trust.”
Alfaro says that video also removes misread signals. When he joined the company, Alfaro had a heated email exchange with Velasquez about making a tough decision. “I could tell that we were establishing a level of distrust in the emails. People read tone in email. So I sent him a GoToMeeting invitation. At the end of the call, we had turned the situation around and done everything short of hug.” Video conferencing, he says, keeps people inside and outside the organization from escalating issues unnecessarily.
Make the Most of GoToMeeting
Alfaro’s views on the value of GoToMeeting began building before he joined Cornerstone. He used it to gain advantages at two previous employers. That’s why he offers time-tested advice to those considering the technology.
His first tip: “Force employees to use the tool early on, and then get ready to buy more licenses because they will thank you for it later.” Alfaro says that just giving employees the licenses isn’t enough because only some will use them. “It’s that initial startup problem of fear of the unknown. But once they get into it, they will
really get into it. Then, adoption spreads internally. Those who don’t have a license but take part by using the tool will ask to get it.”
Alfaro’s second tip: “Use video conferencing to eliminate the big problem with audio conferencing — crosstalk.” Crosstalk occurs when two or more conference participates speak at the same time because they can’t see the visual cues in the group. Crosstalk causes confusion, delays and misunderstandings, Alfaro says. During video conferences, Alfaro says, participants may actually hear fewer words while enjoying more communication. “What everyone should shoot for is not the quantity of content, but rather the quality of comprehension. It’s better to say less and have it fully understood than to say more and have a small percentage understood.”
In the end, Alfaro says that video conferencing creates enhanced collaboration with distributed teams and customers, and a better work-life balance. Using GoToMeeting helps Cornerstone take what is fundamental to the organization — superior service and core values — and make it real.
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GoToMeeting is the extremely simple, extraordinarily powerful web conferencing service from Citrix. It integrates HD video conferencing, screen sharing and audio conferencing, allowing you to collaborate effectively online in a face-to-face environment. Hold unlimited meetings for one low flat fee and attend meetings from a Mac, PC and
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