INTRODUCTION
PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands with more than 70 years of experience designing and developing footwear, apparel, and accessories. Overlooking the Boston skyline, PUMA’s North American headquarters spans 150,000 square feet and houses the teams responsible for creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes.
THE CHALLENGE
The new Boston location brought together two North American offices, so designing a space that would encourage seamless communication across teams was top of mind for Dylan O’Connor, Vice President of Information Technology, and Erin Young, Senior Manager of Retail IT and Desktop Engineering at PUMA. Collaboration was always a focus during this redesign process, but with the pandemic and reduction in travel, the need for hybrid meetings with others around the globe became greater.
THE SOLUTION
O’Connor and Young set out to provide one unified meeting room experience that would replace the previous mix of disparate systems. Technology guidelines were developed to standardize each room size and replicate a consistent experience across their conference rooms using Crestron Flex for Microsoft Teams® Rooms.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Crestron Flex provides a native Microsoft Teams experience, delivering a similar user interface whether an employee is working remotely from their laptop or joining a call in a meeting room. Using a variety of tabletop, front of room, and customized Crestron Flex systems, the PUMA conference rooms have been scaled to provide the proper audio and video quality for each space. Beyond the conference rooms, PUMA also leverages Crestron Flex in their boardrooms. With the rise in hybrid work, equipping these bigger spaces with the proper solutions to accommodate a better in-room experience for large groups was vital. At the front of the room are dual screens that display content and remote participants simultaneously.
PUMA’s Showrooms provide an immersive experience for visitors to show off the company’s latest and greatest products. Crestron touch screens maximize the room’s special features, allowing for control over the signage, lighting, and more. For simplified content sharing, Crestron AirMedia® wireless presentation systems allow for quick adjustments to customize content and tailor the displays specifically for the hosted visitors that day.
With meeting rooms, commons areas, and showrooms all relying on technology, O’Connor and Young needed a reliable management solution. The Crestron XiO Cloud® Technology Operations Management Platform allows the team to remotely connect to any device instead of trying to locate it around the office manually. XiO Cloud helps the team save time and money by managing these spaces with an intelligent tool that streamlines operations.
RESULTS
The concepts that have been developed in the Boston location have proven to be successful and will serve as the blueprint for future remodels across the regional offices of PUMA — which will all be standardized on Crestron. “The success we have had with Crestron and the streamlined experience the technologies provide made it an easy decision to standardize on the same solution across our other offices,” says O’Connor.
