Quality Assurance is a small, specialized, and highly successful consulting firm in the area of corporate Quality, Environment, Health, and Safety management, and has large Latin American clients like Petrobras, the Brazilian energy giant, Repsol of Argentina, and MRS Logistics.

Evandro Cosenza, QAs managing director, sought an IP communications tool which would facilitate communication between himself, the consultants who live on the road, and their clients, and at the same time reduce ballooning cellular phone bills.

"I started out looking for a way to reduce our telephone costs, especially cellular. Our consultants are road warriors who work principally from client offices for a period of time, then move on, and we developed this massive dependence on cell phones, which was getting noticeably expensive.

"We tested a few free softwares, but the voice quality was spotty and none were secure we needed a solution which would work behind clients firewalls without compromising their network security, and not just from home or Internet cafes. We also wanted a solution for group meetings and distance presentations in order to be able to eliminate a certain amount of travel and, more importantly, cut days of delay from certain decision processes.

"CloudMeeting has measurably increased the velocity and quality of our communications. And our cell phone bills are down 30% after just two months. The secure messenger is used by everyone for quick, low-level communications, and we hold meetings on the spot independently of where people are, the hotel, airport, client premises, home, our office. We dont wait anymore for someone to ship draft planning documents around by e-mail and everybody spends hours writing lengthy e-mails back and forth commenting on this and that. We jump into a CloudMeeting, we all look at the document on the spot and comment and discuss and resolve."

"As a bonus we are holding routine progress reviews with our clients on CloudMeeting, too, which has saved on travel expenses and general wear-and-tear on my consultants. The consultant just opens Microsoft Project in the middle of a CloudMeeting call and we all have a look, then jumps to Powerpoint to go over the issues, or just talks through them. I should add that having the integrated video on top of the voice gives an extra personal touch, we dont feel like we are short-shrifting the client on personal contact."