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London Business School Helps Executive MBA Students Achieve Work-Study Balance Through Collaborative Study Platform

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 September 2005, 03:01 CDT

Europe's Leading Business School and Genesys Conferencing Give Executive MBA Students Any Time, Any Place Real-Time Study Groups to Support Course Work

London Business School is taking the lead in work-life balance by enabling 74 students on its world-renowned Executive MBA programme* to manage their course work, job commitments and personal lives more effectively by using a real-time collaborative study platform.

London Business School has partnered with Genesys Conferencing (Euronext Eurolist: FR0004270270) (NASDAQ:GNSY) to provide the school's students with Genesys Meeting Center, a service that allows the executive students to hold interactive course work study meetings with fellow students anywhere at any time, directly from their computer desktops.

With the students already well into their management careers with companies across the world and the programme itself based on intensive course work and weekend tutorials, the new "virtual" study groups will give students greater flexibility to progress their course work and balance it with work and family time commitments.

Unlike other virtual conferencing packages, Genesys Conferencing offers students a "three-in-one" solution - audio, Web and video conferencing - for real-time presentation and document sharing. This means Executive MBA students can develop course case studies and presentations collaboratively - seeing one another's comments and changes as they are happening.

In addition, they can also see and hear the fellow student who is leading the discussion - as if they were in the same room - all through their PC or laptop screens. As a result, Genesys Meeting Center lets them arrange study sessions and then complete course work faster and more efficiently. The service is integrated into their existing computer desktop functions like email and calendars, slotting into the students' different study routines.

The new service also reduces the need for the Executive MBA students to travel to London Business School's Regent's Park campus for group study sessions, cutting regular travel time and so increasing their time available for study and work. The programme's students are geographically dispersed, with two thirds of the students based in the UK and the remainder coming to London bi-weekly from Europe and the US. Access to Genesys Meeting Center will be via a free-phone number for those based in the UK and a local number for students elsewhere.

Tony Kmetty, associate director of the EMBA programme at London Business School, said, "We believe that multimedia conferencing will stimulate the students' own study groups and allow them to become more efficient with their time and more productive. We selected Genesys Meeting Center because its capabilities are exactly what the students were asking for: an easy-to-use tool with powerful document and application sharing to allow team members in different locations to conduct meetings as if they were all in a room together."

Nigel Dunn, vice president of Genesys Conferencing UK, added, "The business community has long demonstrated the benefits of remote meetings and the use of multimedia conferencing, so it makes sense to offer the same technology to executive students as well. London Business School Executive MBA students are drawn from some of the world's leading companies, and they are naturally under huge time and work pressures. We believe they will fully benefit from the study flexibility and interactivity that Genesys Meeting Center provides. Eventually, you might see this technology rolled out across all business schools, allowing students to combine courses with their work and family life more easily."

Notes to editors

* According to the Financial Times and Business Week. The programme is one of only two MBA programmes to gain maximum points in UK higher education assessments.

About Genesys Conferencing

Genesys Conferencing is a leading provider of integrated Web, audio and video conferencing services to thousands of organizations worldwide, including more than 200 of the Fortune Global 500. The company's services are designed to meet the full range of communication needs within the large enterprise, from collaborative team meetings to high-profile online events. The company's flagship product, Genesys Meeting Center, provides a single-platform multimedia conferencing solution that is easy to use and available on demand. With offices in 24 countries across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, the company offers an unmatched global presence and strong local support. Genesys Conferencing is publicly traded on Euronext in France (ISIN FR0004270270) and on the NASDAQ in the U.S. (GNSY). Additional information is available at www.genesys.com.

Source: Business Wire

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