‘Fresh Architecture & Fresh Thinking’ Unified Communications at a Top 20 CPA Firm

For years, the IT department at Dixon Hughes Goodman (DHG) held the keys to video conferencing for the entire firm.

“Our meeting rooms were wired with AV equipment and it took an IT person to set up every meeting. It was too complex for the average user,” said John Bowles, chief information and digital officer at DHG. “We had to build 10 minutes into the meeting to get everyone online.”

The antiquated conferencing setup forced employees to rely on the IT team for basic meetings — a common scenario for companies with hardware-heavy legacy solutions. “It seemed like there had to be a better way with all the technology we had,” Bowles said.

As a top 20 U.S. professional services firm, DHG needed a more advanced video communications solution to enable employees to build trust and rapport with their global clients. Here’s a look at the firm’s journey to Zoom, one step at a time.

Zoom Meetings: ‘Fresh architecture & fresh thinking’

Bowles knew he needed to modernize DHG’s decade-old approach to video conferencing, starting with giving employees the tools they needed to communicate with clients more efficiently.

“I was impressed with the fact that Zoom had developed a cloud solution from the ground up to do video communications, versus systems like WebEx, which were handcuffed by the limitations of having to build on top of their legacy platform,” Bowles said.

He was especially drawn to the flexibility and agility of Zoom’s platform. “Zoom has fresh architecture and fresh thinking, which allows it to add new features and scale massively,” Bowles said.

Zoom Rooms: ‘As simple as using Zoom on your computer’

Bowles and his team then turned their attention to untangling the mess of AV wires in their conference rooms.

“We looked into Zoom Rooms and quickly realized it was the right answer for us. It was about as simple as using Zoom on your computer,” Bowles said.

People could walk into a conference room and start a meeting with the touch of a button, Bowles added. The ease of use allowed employees to host meetings and easily share content on their own.

Zoom Phone: ‘It amped up our digital transformation’

“We had so much great momentum with Zoom Meetings and Zoom Rooms that it made sense for us to leverage Zoom Phone,” Bowles said.

Transitioning to Zoom Phone was “more flawless and seamless than any large implementation I’ve ever done, and I’ve been in the business for a long time,” Bowles added. “We were dealing with some very challenging legacy telecom vendors to transfer our SIP direct inward dial numbers from, and the Zoom team just handled it.”

While most of DHG’s employees are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bowles and his team have disconnected their legacy hardwired phones at the office. “They won’t miss their desk phones because they’ve been making calls over their computer using Zoom Phone,” he said. “Zoom has really allowed us to amp up our digital transformation efforts.”

The future of doing business

Even when employees return to the office and business travel resumes post-COVID, Bowles expects the way they do business will change.

“We used to fly all over the world to serve our clients,” he said. “Zoom has shown that we need to rethink how we practice and become more efficient and productive.”

He believes this period of remote work has shown the firm’s leaders what’s possible in a virtual environment.

“We put a great deal of emphasis on client experience and serving our clients at a high level. But we can digitally transform and leverage tools like Zoom to replace a lot of what we used to do in person,” Bowles explained. “We have more confidence now that we can conduct high-quality business meetings without having to be face to face.”

Find out how Zoom’s unified communications solutions can help your organization modernize and simplify communications.