In today’s working world, expansion requires innovation. Find out how MVS Audio Visual delivered a technological template for a growing UK corporation.
The story of Motorway is a story of continued success. An online-only used car marketplace based in the UK, the company has experienced significant growth as its operations have expanded. This growth is reflected in its need to move to bigger premises, in the form of a new London HQ, using pro AV technologies to streamline and enhance the company’s operations.
Enter MVS Audio Visual, a UK-based integrator that was brought on board to deliver an uncompromising solution that offered familiarity for the Motorway team while also providing flexibility to expand and try out new concepts.
Alistair Maher, head of workplace technology, MVS Audio Visual, commented: “There was a small and simple tender process. We were one of the recommendations to Motorway from the client-side project manager. After a series of quotes and presentations, we came out on top.”
This London office is a brandnew addition for Motorway, requiring a new space that offers top-of-the-line videoconferencing to conduct business efficiently through meetings that can be set up and conducted in minutes.
Maher says: “Motorway are a Zoom Rooms house and they wanted to deploy Zoom as their standard videoconferencing platform with a flexibility of options for the rooms. This includes a four-person meeting space all the way up to their boardroom and town hall spaces where they host events. They wanted something that they could standardise across the board and roll it out to more offices as well.
“We needed to find something that fitted the bill for that, and after some demos, the client was looking at BYOD addition in some of the rooms, as well as the addition of Catchbox microphones for their town hall space later down the line so their needs were always evolving.”
MVS was responsible for handling the AV and videoconferencing facility throughout the building, delivering multi-zoned background music, digital signage within the building, a town hall space, boardroom, eight meeting spaces of varying sizes accommodating from four to six people, and a room booking system to facilitate meetings.
“We needed to modernise, standardise and make it really easy for their staff to use,” says Maher. “It couldn’t be any easier. [We used] PAL based digital signage so that the marketing team can run it, offering familiarity through Zoom Rooms [for simple videoconferencing] and a Bose background music system with a Sonos ‘brain’ in terms of how it’s used for content. It’s super easy.”
Meet smart
The meeting rooms feature a Zoom Room controller on the table to enable instantaneous Zoom meetings, or by plugging a laptop into the in-room Logitech Swytch to take over the main screen and Sennheiser microphones for rapid BYOD functionality.
The four-person meeting spaces are equipped with LG 43-in Com Pro displays supported by B-Tech articulating wall mounts. Logitech’s Small Room Solution for Zoom is featured alongside the Logitech Swytch BYOD and extension kits, providing a standardised, easy to use equipment setup for informal meetings.
Maher explains: “We’ve used Logitech solutions before as they are reliable and we have identified nuances with the hardware choices, so we run it with Lenovo in the background as that’s our preference.”
The meeting rooms use Logitech Swytch to enable switching between BYOD and the Zoom Room system.
"We run the Q-Sys remote monitoring solution in the back-end to keep an overall view of the system if things go offline." - Alistair Maher, MVS Audio Visual
Motorway’s larger, six-person meeting rooms are outfitted with the client’s existing 75-in displays, now mounted on Peerless-AV large articulating wall mounts and an identical Logitech setup to the smaller meeting rooms. This consistency of equipment means that, no matter which space a Motorway employee chooses to use for a meeting, they will be able to access the same, familiar experience regardless of the space that they need.
Should a larger space be required, Motorway’s boardroom features an LG 50-in Com Pro display and B-Tech wall mount, with a large Logitech Zoom Room solution that includes two microphone pods. An additional Logitech Rally mic pod is available as well as a Rally table and ceiling mount for the Rally mic pod.
A Rally mic pod extension kit is also on hand alongside the standardised Swytch system for BYOD functionality.
Go to town
The real meat and potatoes of this project lies in Motorway’s town hall space. This area is a multifunctional space for events, presentation nights and more. Catering for every need is the name of the game and MVS spared no expense in outfitting this town hall space with everything that Motorway could need for changing requirements. Starting with the audio, MVS provided a Bose sound system comprised of 3.25-in and 5.25-in pendant ceiling speakers supported by a Bose PowerShare PS604D adaptable power amplifier.
For in-room speakers and presenters, a Sennheiser system offers the flexibility of handheld or hands-free speaking through Speechline handheld transmitters with an 865 capsule for traditional, hand-held presentation or a Sennheiser Speechline bodypack transmitter and headworn mic to offer speakers the opportunity to present in their own style.
As a space that could be used for both formal and informal meetings, Motorway also requested Catchbox microphones for use in casual meetings. These Catchbox microphones are fully customised and branded, providing a unique feel and flavour to larger meetings that require quick and concise communication.
A Q-Sys system plays a key role in the town hall space, which offers auto-switching for BYOD connectivity as well as additional manual control on the in-room QSC touchscreen. Maher says: “In the town hall, we run the QSC back-end so that we have additional room controls. We worked on the design of the GUI with the client so that they were happy with that.
“It’s an easy system to support. We run the Q-Sys remote monitoring solution in the back-end to keep an overall view of the system if things go offline.” This functionality is also supported by a Wyrestorm AVoIP system.
On the display side, MVS provided an LG 98-in commercial signage display with a Future Automation floor-to-wall bracket for large format displays.
Much like the meeting room spaces, the town hall is equipped with a Logitech Rally conference camera and PC, supported by a Unicol PTZ camera suspension kit and Audinate Dante USB to Ethernet adapter.
Lastly, MVS were responsible for providing a digital signage solution throughout Motorway’s new headquarters, using the client’s own 75-in displays in the facility’s reception. MVS also provided LG 43-in commercial signage displays throughout the office. These displays are wall mounted or ceiling mounted throughout the building, using B-Tech wall mounts or Unicol ceiling mounts.
Brightsign 4K media players are used to distribute content to Motorway’s digital signage displays, alongside a Signagelive license.
"The London Motorway office has set the standard and this will serve as the benchmark." - Alistair Maher, MVS Audio Visual
A project of this scale is never without its own fair share of hurdles to overcome as Maher explains: “There were some physical challenges with this project. Speaker cable containment running in the open ceilings, some minor issues with mounting displays in the town hall as a fake wall was going up, but otherwise it was a very straightforward project and we overcame these challenges easily.”
Today, with the new Motorway HQ up and running, the company is now ready to expand further using this streamlined AV system to enhance its day-to-day operations. The work that MVS carried out at the London headquarters became the a technological template for future offices as Maher says: “The London Motorway office has set the standard and this served as the benchmark for their recent Brighton office fit out which we also installed.”
The London HQ project concluded in 12 weeks, with MVS coming on board during the project’s late stages. With the London project complete, MVS stands ready to address Motorway’s technical needs through a support and maintenance contract at both the new London location and the Brighton office.
“We offer a managed service for both locations and we have trained 10 of their team to handle the system. As part of our contract, there are two pre-scheduled annual visits, so we can come back and offer refresher training for new staff as required.” adds Maher. “We were dealing directly with the head of IT at Motorway throughout the project and designed the system alongside them, so we had them on board from the very start. We had great collaboration for network access and permissions and the remote side of things, which was great. It was really helpful having them on board throughout this project.”
Kit list
Audio
Bose DM5P pendant ceiling speakers, PowerShare PS604D adaptable power amplifier
Catchbox customised microphones
Logitech Room Solution for Zoom, Swytch BYOD kit, Swytch extension kit, Rally mic pods, Rally table and ceiling mounts QSC Q-Sys system
Sennheiser SpeechLine handheld 865 transmitter, SL bodypack and headmic, SpeechLine multichannel receiver
Video
B-Tech articulating wall mounts Future Automation floor-to-wall bracket
LG Com Pro displays, commercial signage displays
Peerless-AV articulating wall mounts
Unicol PTZ camera suspension kit
Control
Brightsign 4K HD224 media player
Netgear AV-line managed network switch
Signagelive license
Wyrestorm AVoIP encoder/decoder, AVoIP control interface