HCLTech: Activating Locked-Down Webex Meeting Rooms with Pickcel
HCLTech's meeting-room screens sat unused because Cisco Webex hardware blocked third-party apps. Pickcel built a virtual-screen workaround to run signage on them anyway.
This IT company digital signage case study covers HCLTech, a global technology and consulting company operating a Noida office where meeting rooms run on Cisco Webex room devices. These Webex players restrict third-party application installs, so the meeting-room screens could not run standard digital signage software and sat mostly unused outside meetings. Pickcel addressed the constraint with a virtual-screen web app that runs signage content directly inside the Webex player's supported environment, paired with cloud-based content management to replace manual, USB-driven updates. The result: previously idle meeting-room displays now run centrally managed corporate communication content without any hardware replacement.
Client
HCLTech
Industry
Technology / Corporate Consulting
Location
Noida office
Notable constraint
Cisco Webex player-based meeting rooms
Deployment type
Virtual-screen web app + cloud content management
Prior method
Manual USB updates and manual URL launches during idle periods
Meeting rooms locked down by Webex hardware
Webex players restrict third-party apps, so meeting-room screens sat unused outside meetings.
Webex players block third-party signage installs
Before working with Pickcel, HCLTech's meeting rooms at its Noida office ran on Cisco Webex room devices, hardware chosen for video conferencing, not content display. Webex players restrict the installation of third-party applications, which meant the standard digital signage software HCLTech would otherwise have used simply could not be installed on these screens.
Underused displays and a manual URL workaround
The result was a fleet of underused displays. Outside of active meetings, the screens sat blank or idle. The only available workaround was manual: an administrator would launch a URL directly on the device during downtime, a process that had to be repeated by hand for every room, every time content needed to change.
Any solution had to work inside Webex restrictions
This left HCLTech without a reliable way to put corporate communication, wayfinding, or informational content in front of employees and visitors moving through the office. Any solution had to work inside the Webex player's restrictions rather than around them, since replacing the meeting-room hardware was not an option.
“Any solution had to work inside the Webex player's restrictions rather than around them, since replacing the meeting-room hardware was not an option.”
A virtual-screen web app for locked-down Webex players
Pickcel replaced HCLTech's manual, USB-driven and URL-launch workflow with a cloud-based platform and a custom virtual-screen web app that runs inside Webex restrictions.
Cloud-based content management replaces room-by-room updates
Pickcel replaced HCLTech's manual, USB-driven and URL-launch workflow with a cloud-based digital signage software platform, giving administrators the ability to push and update content across the office remotely instead of walking room to room with a drive or a keyboard.
Custom virtual-screen web app for Webex hardware
The core of the engagement was a custom virtual-screen web app built specifically to work within the Cisco Webex player's third-party app restrictions. Rather than trying to install a native signage client the hardware would reject, Pickcel's team built content delivery as a web application the Webex player could run natively, then engineered around the caching and network-connectivity behavior specific to that hardware so content refreshed reliably instead of showing stale or broken pages.
Existing Webex rooms activated — no hardware swap
This approach meant HCLTech could activate its existing Webex-equipped meeting rooms as communication and information displays without swapping any hardware or renegotiating its AV setup. Content scheduling and remote management were handled centrally through Pickcel's digital signage software, and the same infrastructure extended naturally to other screens in the building beyond the Webex rooms themselves.
Idle meeting-room screens become communication assets
Centrally managed screens — no URL-by-room launches
Meeting-room screens that were previously idle outside of video calls became active, centrally managed communication assets. No screen count, room count, or percentage metric is disclosed for this deployment.
The clearest outcome is operational: meeting-room screens that were previously idle outside of video calls became active, centrally managed communication assets. Administrators no longer need to manually launch a URL on each device during downtime. Content updates and scheduling now happen from one dashboard, cloud-side, and reach every connected screen at once.
That shift also removed a hardware constraint that would otherwise have blocked signage adoption in these rooms entirely. HCLTech gained the flexibility to change messaging in real time and scale the same approach to additional rooms without added infrastructure cost, since the virtual-screen method works with the Webex hardware already in place rather than requiring new displays.
HCLTech has described the broader move to Pickcel-powered signage as strengthening its advertising and information-dissemination approach and improving customer interactions; the platform gave the company a more current, digitally-driven presence in how it communicates internally and with visitors. The specific mechanism behind that improvement is the shift from manual, single-room updates to real-time, centralized content control across previously unusable screens.
Pickcel is a cloud-based digital signage software platform trusted by 9,000+ businesses across 70+ countries, managing 150,000+ screens. Certified ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II. In corporate and enterprise environments, Pickcel has also powered communication deployments for companies including Accenture and Mercedes-Benz, alongside broader corporate-communication rollouts across multi-location offices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can digital signage software run on Cisco Webex room devices?+
Yes, though not through a standard installation. Webex room devices lock their operating system to Cisco-approved software, so a typical signage client can't be installed without breaking that lockdown. Pickcel's virtual-screen web app runs entirely inside the browser layer the device already permits, so it works without modifying Webex firmware or affecting the device's existing certification.
How does Pickcel work around third-party app restrictions on locked-down AV hardware?+
By treating the restriction as a network problem rather than an installation problem. If a room briefly loses connectivity, the virtual-screen app keeps displaying the last successfully loaded content from local cache instead of dropping to a blank or error screen, then resyncs automatically once the connection returns; the same engineering that prevents stale content also covers this reverse case.
What content can be shown on underutilized meeting-room screens?+
Meeting-room screens that sit idle outside video calls can display corporate announcements, wayfinding, event schedules, or other communication content, scheduled and updated centrally instead of launched manually on each device.
Does adopting digital signage require replacing existing Webex hardware?+
No. The virtual-screen app runs alongside the room's existing Webex meeting software rather than replacing it, so meeting bookings, calendar integration, and video-call functionality continue operating exactly as before; the signage layer only activates during the idle periods between meetings.
How does cloud-based content management improve on manual USB updates?+
Beyond speed, it removes the single point of failure of one administrator physically visiting every room. Multiple authorized users can schedule content in advance from any location, and updates apply automatically at the scheduled time instead of depending on someone remembering to swap a drive that day.
Can digital signage scale across multiple meeting rooms without added infrastructure cost?+
Yes, and scaling is an administrative step rather than a new deployment project. Each additional Webex-equipped room is added to the same dashboard under the existing license, so IT doesn't need to plan a separate rollout, budget cycle, or installation visit for every new room.
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